Taiwan is “not for sale,” the island’s overseas minister said in a robust rebuke to Elon Musk, who stated Taiwan was an necessary a part of China because the billionaire delved into the contentious matter of ties between Beijing and Taipei.
Musk, the proprietor of the social media platform X, previously often known as Twitter, in addition to the Tesla electrical automobile agency and the Starlink satellite tv for pc community, made the remarks in the course of the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, which have been uploaded to YouTube.
“Their (Beijing’s) policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because … the U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force,” he stated.
Taiwan International Minister Joseph Wu, in a submit on X late Wednesday, responded that he hoped Musk might ask China to “open @X to its people”. China blocks X, together with different main Western social media like Fb.
“Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart Ukraine’s counterstrike against Russia,” Wu added, referring to Musk’s refusing a Ukrainian request to activate his Starlink satellite tv for pc community in Crimea’s port metropolis of Sevastopol final yr to help an assault on Russia’s fleet there.
“Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the PRC & certainly not for sale!” Wu stated, utilizing the acronym for the Folks’s Republic of China.
Taiwan’s democratically elected authorities strongly rejects China’s sovereignty claims and says solely Taiwan’s folks can resolve their future.
This isn’t the primary time Musk, whose Tesla had a big manufacturing unit in Shanghai, has riled Taiwan.
Final October, he advised that tensions between China and Taiwan could possibly be resolved by handing over some management of Taiwan to Beijing, drawing a equally robust reprimand from Taiwan.