TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Tuesday (Aug. 16) condemned China's renewed military drills in response to a visiting delegation of U.S. lawmakers as "absurd and savage."
On Sunday evening (Aug. 14), a five-member U.S. congressional delegation, led by Senator Ed Markey arrived in Taipei, just 12 days after U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a historic trip to the country. In response, the PLA Eastern Theater Command on Monday afternoon blasted the latest visit as "flagrantly violating" the "one-China" principle and the Three Communiques, as well as China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and announced that it organized multi-service joint combat readiness patrols and drills in the "sea and airspace around Taiwan Island."
Taiwan's foreign ministry on Tuesday responded to China's escalated exercises by issuing a statement in which it reiterated that receiving foreign congressmen is "completely normal for regular exchanges between democratic countries. It stated that "it is absurd and savage for China to use this as a pretext to launch dangerous military provocations."
MOFA emphasized that China's actions will only further undermine regional stability and "interfere with important shipping routes and commercial activities in the Indo-Pacific region" and that such actions are "unjustifiable and irresponsible." The ministry stated that it strongly condemns China's military provocation and "continuous creation of crises."
The ministry urged China to immediately stop escalating regional tensions and called on the international community to jointly condemn China's "irrational military moves," which it described as not only undermining the status quo across the Taiwan Strait but also "posing a serious challenge to regional security. "
It stressed that China's unilateral creation of the crisis has "once again confirmed that the Beijing authorities are the party that undermines the status quo in the Taiwan Strait." The ministry pointed out that the two sides of the strait are not subordinate to each other and that the People's Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan, "which is an internationally recognized truth."
