'War with China is not unavoidable,' says Taiwan's foreign minister

Wu pointed out that while the war in Ukraine has had severe global economic consequences, a war in the Taiwan Strait would be a "disaster" for the world because about half the world's goods pass through the waterway and approximately 90 percent of high-end semiconductor chips are produced in Taiwan.

The Taiwanese foreign minister said Russia and China were beefing up their military cooperation, pointing to joint military exercises in the Indo-Pacific region. "Russia remains very active" in the Far East despite the war in Ukraine, he stated.

He said Taiwan agreed with the US government's assessment that Chinese President Xi Jinping had not yet decided whether China would attack Taiwan by 2027. "We see no imminence in the Chinese military actions and war is not unavoidable," Wu said. He added, however, that China was "posturing to pressure" Taiwan and trying to reach its goal without the actual use of force.

Wu added that the threat existed and pointed to China's military drills close to Taiwan as a strategy to "compress" Taiwan's reaction time in the event of a conflict. He said Taiwan was trying to "beef up" its defence capabilities and hailed its close cooperation with the US.

Finally, Wu urged the European Commission to begin negotiations with Taiwan over a bilateral investment agreement, noting that that it was also in Europe's interest to start negotiating with Taiwan.      

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