The tension around the island has reached very high levels in recent weeks, due to the massive incursions of Chinese fighter planes into the island’s Defense space and the alarm raised by the Minister of Defense of Taipei, Chiu Kuo-cheng, which believes the China able to a large-scale invasion by 2025. For the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, reunification will take place, while the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, replies that the island it will not give in to pressure from Beijing and asks world democracies to support Taipei against Chinese authoritarianism.
Taiwan aims to expand support beyond United States and look to Europe. A delegation of 65 government officials and entrepreneurs is visiting three European countries (Slovakia, Czech Republic and Lithuania) in these days; next week, however, the foreign minister of the island, Joseph Wu, will travel to Slovakia and the Czech Republic to participate in some events and dialogue with the mayor in Prague Zdenek Hrib and the President of the Senate, Milos Vystrcil. Travel is maddening Beijing: today promised that it will take “all necessary measures” to safeguard its sovereignty, in view of the double European mission of the head of diplomacy of Taiwan: “Nobody should have any illusions about this”, thundered the Beijing spokesman.
Meanwhile, in a climate of growing irritation Xi And Biden they are planning a first summit by the end of the year, perhaps as early as November, according to two sources aware of the plans cited by Reuters. No in-person encounters appear in sight, as Beijing remains silent on the increasingly unlikely presence of Xi at the summit of G20 of Rome, or to the Cop 26 of Glasgow. It would be held in a video conference: the topics are still to be fixed, even if Taiwan appears at the top of the agenda.
The goal, the sources explain, is to stabilize relations in view of a long-term competition between the two major world economies. Even before then, the Chinese president could respond, perhaps indirectly, to the words of the head of the White House: Monday Xi he will give a speech on the 50 years since the restoration of the seat in the United Nations to China until then occupied by Taiwan, a decision that started the diplomatic isolation of Taipei.
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