Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen spoke virtually to an event at a U.S. think tank, where she acknowledged the strength of the current relationship between the United States and Taiwan, Breitbart reports.
“As effective as our military is,” Tsai said, “we cannot stand alone without support from the community of like-minded democracies. I am proud that the relationship between Taiwan and the U.S. has never been closer.” She continued, saying that “we share a high degree of mutual trust and a common strategic picture of how we can work together to protect and preserve a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Her remarks were made by video to an event with the Hudson Institute, a think tank with a focus on national security and foreign relations. The comments are indicative of just one of the ways the United States is attempting to balance out China’s dominance in the region, as the Communist nation considers the small nation of Taiwan to be part of China.
Taiwan’s ambassador to the United States, Hsiao Bi-khim, acknowledged the “recent trends of a more belligerent and aggressive” China in recent months.
Although China has come under intense global scrutiny due to its mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, that hasn’t stopped the government there from conducting military drills in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the region, moves that are increasingly seen as defiant flexing of their military might.
Prior to the pandemic, China was facing global condemnation for its harsh crackdowns on peaceful, pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong; although the use of military force to suppress these protesters has continued, the shifting media focus to the coronavirus has all but eliminated that story from international headlines.
Tsai noted that China was even taking advantage of the coronavirus crisis, pointing out that “when the rest of the world has been distracted in responding to one of the most significant crises in recent history, we’re seeing a growing effort to pose ever more challenging threats to free and democratic societies. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Hong Kong.”