October 28, 2022
At the 19th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club held on October 27, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that Taiwan is a part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). He added that recently the West has taken steps to escalate the situation, including stoking the war in Ukraine and provocations around Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) strongly condemns these remarks and solemnly protests the Russian government’s false statements.
MOFA reiterates that the Republic of China (Taiwan) is a sovereign, independent country and that neither it nor the authoritarian PRC is subordinate to the other. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime has never governed Taiwan for a single day, so naturally it has no sovereignty over Taiwan. The government of Taiwan welcomes interaction and engagement with all countries and international partners that recognize the values of human rights, the rule of law, freedom, and democracy. It will staunchly protect its national sovereignty against any attempts at downgrading and interference by China’s authoritarian government or any other country. Only the 23.5 million Taiwanese people have the right to determine the future of Taiwan. The people and government of Taiwan will never buckle under military, political, and economic coercion initiated by China’s authoritarian government.
Democracies around the world, including Taiwan, have united in condemning and sanctioning Russia after its illegal invasion of Ukraine and criminal killing of innocent people. Russian President Putin and his government officials are deliberately using so-called provocation by Western countries around the issue of Taiwan as an excuse to attempt to muddle international opinion and divert attention from Russia’s violent invasion of Ukraine. MOFA once again strongly condemns Russia for violating the United Nations Charter in launching a brutal military invasion of another country. Taiwan will continue to support Ukraine and work with like-minded countries to help the Ukrainian people rebuild their homeland.
Recently, China’s authoritarian government has stepped up its threats, sending over a thousand sorties of military planes to intimidate Taiwan. China has also escalated its cognitive warfare campaign to try to affect the morale of Taiwan’s people. The CCP’s various tactics aim to undermine the peaceful status quo across the Taiwan Strait, making obvious its ambition to annex Taiwan. China’s provocations have severely threatened Taiwan’s peace and stability, jeopardized a free and open Indo-Pacific, and endangered global stability and prosperity. The CCP government is the true aggressor. China and Russia should be condemned and spurned by the international community.
Having long faced China’s heavy-handed and unwarranted provocations, Taiwan will continue to work closely with like-minded nations, strengthen its self-defense capabilities, build support internationally, and staunchly uphold the universal values of freedom and democracy as well as the rules-based international order, so as to protect a free and open Indo-Pacific region and preserve worldwide peace and stability.