China’s mission to the European Union (EU) expressed outrage on Monday over last week’s visit to Taiwan by several EU lawmakers.
Still smarting from the EU ignoring pressure from Beijing to avoid making a trade deal with President Donald Trump, the Chinese government lashed out at the EU for supposedly threatening China’s “internal affairs” by meeting with Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te.
The Chinese Mission to the EU said on Monday that it was “strongly dissatisfied” and “firmly opposed” to members of the European Parliament visiting Taiwan.
“The Taiwan question concerns China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and lies at the core of China’s core interests,” a spokesperson for the Chinese mission said. “The Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair and brooks no external interference.”
The Chinese mission demanded a halt to all “official interaction between the European Parliament and the Taiwan authorities,” on the grounds that such interactions violate the “One-China Principle” by conferring legitimacy upon Taiwan as an independent nation.
The mission said further European “wrongdoings’ might send dangerous signals to “Taiwan independence” separatists.
The meeting that angered China took place in Taipei last Tuesday, when President Lai met with members of the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the European Democracy Shield (EUDS). The committee is devoted to preventing authoritarian governments, such as China, from interfering in the politics of democratic nations, such as Taiwan.
China is rather blatant about interfering in Taiwan’s politics. Taiwan held an unprecedented recall election over the weekend, based on accusations that members of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party have been colluding with the Chinese Communist government to weaken Taiwan’s government and military. The election, which was ultimately unsuccessful in recalling any of the 24 targeted KMT legislators, was ramping up at the time of the European Parliament’s visit to Taipei.
When challenged on its policy of meddling in Taiwanese politics, Chinese Communist officials insist everything about Taiwan is a Chinese “internal affair,” so whatever it does to influence Taiwanese politics is purely Beijing’s business.
As the mission to the EU demonstrated with its remarks, China increasingly tends to deflect criticism of its political meddling by accusing the Western world of meddling in Taiwan. These deflections are usually accompanied by ominous warnings that Europe and the U.S. might inspire Taiwanese “separatists” to do something rash that would invite a Chinese military response.
President Lai told the visiting European lawmakers last week that Taiwan stands on the “frontline of the democratic world.”
“Taiwan and the European Union enjoy close trade and economic relations and share the values of freedom and democracy. However, in recent years, we have both been subjected to information manipulation and infiltration by foreign forces that seek to interfere in democratic elections, foment division in our societies, and shake people’s faith in democracy,” Lai said.
Lai denounced China’s “grey-zone aggression,” which includes a perpetual “onslaught of disinformation,” and touted his government’s “whole-of-society” response.
“The Taiwanese people firmly believe that when our society is united and people trust one another we will be able to withstand any form of authoritarian aggression,” he said.
Members of the EUDS said they traveled to Taiwan to study its techniques for repelling Chinese aggression and to develop closer ties with the government in Taipei.
China may have been shrewd in muting its criticism of the EUDS visit until the Taiwanese recall election was done, or it might have simply been unable to contain itself any longer after the EU rebuffed Chinese pressure to sign a historic trade deal with the United States over the weekend.
Some observers wonder if the EU deal will increase pressure on China to sign its own agreement with the U.S., a situation the Chinese would deeply resent. Others suspect China will grow more intransigent than ever and more eager to make arrangements with other countries that will weaken the new American trading bloc.
On Monday, President Lai canceled a planned trip to Central and South America that would have included a stopover in the United States, reportedly because President Trump did not want Lai to antagonize China by stopping over in New York. Lai’s office said his official reason for canceling the trip was to work on trade negotiations with the U.S. along with recovery efforts from the typhoon that hit Taiwan over the weekend.
Trump rejected reports that he wanted to pave the way for a summit meeting with Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, although he said he was still interested in visiting China. Such a visit would be harder to arrange if Beijing was furious over Taiwan’s president stopping in New York.
“The Fake News is reporting that I am SEEKING a ‘Summit’ with President Xi of China. This is not correct, I am not SEEKING anything! I may go to China, but it would only be at the invitation of President Xi, which has been extended,” Trump said on Monday night via his Truth Social platform.
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