U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has stressed American support for Taiwan, suggesting at Asia’s premier defense forum that recent Chinese military activity around the self-governing island threatens to change the status quo.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during a plenary session at the 19th International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-la Dialogue, Asia's annual defense and security forum, in Singapore, Saturday, June 11, 2022.
Taiwan and China split during a civil war in 1949, but China claims the island as its own territory and has not ruled out using military force to take it. “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is what happens when oppressors trample the rules that protect us all,” he said. “It’s what happens when big powers decide that their imperial appetites matter more than the rights of their peaceful neighbors. And it’s a preview of a possible world of chaos and turmoil that none of us would want to live in.”
China “firmly opposes and strongly condemns it,” and the Chinese government and military will “resolutely smash any Taiwan independence plot and resolutely safeguard the reunification of the motherland,” Wei reportedly told Austin. Austin stressed the “power of partnerships” and said the U.S.’s “unparalleled network of alliances” in the region has only deepened, noting recent efforts undertaken with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN; the growing importance of the “Quad” group of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia; and the trilateral security partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom, known as AUKUS.He dismissed Chinese allegations that the U.S.
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