The support for Taiwan expressed in a Jan. 6 statement following a meeting among senior U.S., Japan and South Korea foreign affairs officials in Washington D.C. is sincerely appreciated by the government and people, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Jan. 7.
The statement was jointly released one day after the inaugural Trilateral United States-Japan-Republic of Korea Indo-Pacific Dialogue among U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel J. Kritenbrink, Japan’s Deputy Minister/Director-General Yasuhiro Kobe and South Korea’s Deputy Minister Chung Byung-won.
According to the MOFA, the three partner countries noted worrying trends in the Indo-Pacific, including China’s recent escalating dangerous behavior relating to legally baseless maritime claims in the South China Sea.
The officials reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as indispensable to security and prosperity in the international community, and opposed any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion anywhere in regional waters, the ministry said.
The latest statement follows a similar stance expressed in the Camp David Principles released after the Aug. 18 trilateral summit in the U.S. state of Maryland among U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, it added.
China is attempting to influence Taiwan’s upcoming presidential and legislative elections through economic coercion, cognitive warfare and other grey-area tactics, the MOFA said, adding that such behavior has posed serious challenges to regional security and raised concern in the global community.
The latest statement shows that maintaining cross-strait peace and stability is a global consensus, the MOFA said, adding that the government will continue to work with the three countries and other like-minded partners to promote peace, stability and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific. (SFC-E)
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