Brussels urges European Navies to Patrol Taiwan Strait amid China Tensions

The EU’s High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell has urged the navies of the bloc’s member states to patrol the Taiwan Strait.

Borrell earlier dubbed Taiwan part of the EU’s geostrategic belt to maintain peace, adding that the island is also of importance to the bloc in economic terms.

In an article published in a French newspaper on Sunday, he stressed that Taiwan concerns the EU economically, commercially and technologically.

That’s why I call on European navies to patrol the Taiwan Strait to show Europe’s commitment to freedom of navigation in this absolutely crucial area, the EU foreign policy chief pointed out.

His opinion piece comes a few days after Borrell described Taiwan as clearly part of our [the EU’s] geo-strategic belt to ensure peace.

It is not only for a moral reason that an action against Taiwan must necessarily be rejected. It is also because it would be, in economic terms, extremely serious for us, because Taiwan has a strategic role in the production of the most advanced semiconductors.

The comments followed French President Emmanuel Macron last week calling on the EU not to allow itself to be involved into the confrontation between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan, and wondering what interest Brussels would have in adapting the confrontation-minded “American rhythm” on the issue.

Being an ally to Washington DC does not mean being a vassal or does not mean that we don’t have the right to think for ourselves.

Paris, Macron emphasized, supports the One China policy and the search for a peaceful resolution to Taiwan tensions, and should not be followers of Washington’s agenda.

In a separate development last week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Beijing had slapped sanctions on US Congressman Michael McCaul, Chair of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, for violating the one-China principle while visiting Taiwan.

In particular, McCaul led a bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers to Taiwan, seriously violating the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, thus sending a wrong signal to Taiwan independence separatist forces.

The statement came after China conducted large-scale military exercises around Taiwan earlier this month in response to a previous meeting between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in Simi Valley, California.

The Chinese embassy in Washington DC voiced deep concern and firm opposition to the meeting, pledging retaliation.

The China-Taiwan tensions are also exacerbated by the US repeatedly sending warships and surveillance planes to the Taiwan Strait, with Beijing slamming such missions as provocations and portraying Washington as “a security risk creator in the region.

Although the USA does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Washington has a representative office in Taipei and remains the island’s biggest supplier of military hardware.

Taiwan has been governed independently since 1949, when Taipei severed all ties with Beijing following the Chinese Civil War, in which the communist forces of Mao Zedong’s People’s Republic of China (PRC) defeated the Kuomintang nationalists and forced them to flee to the island.

Beijing views the island as its breakaway province, while Taiwan — a territory with its own elected government — maintains that it is an autonomous country but stops short of declaring independence.

Beijing opposes any official contacts of foreign states with Taipei and considers Chinese sovereignty over the island indisputable.

Sputnik / ABC Flash Point News 2023.