A senior Chinese diplomat has demanded that Germany support its “peaceful” conquest of neighbouring Taiwan.
Wang Yi, the head of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office, has demanded that Germany support efforts to peacefully conquer Taiwan, multiple Chinese and German media outlets have reported.
It comes as Western European nations weaken their support for the island nation, with Emmanuel Macron openly coming out last week to say that the European Union should reduce its reliance on America and stay out of any future conflict with China over Taiwan.
In what appears to be an attempt to capitalise on this sentiment, Wang has now told the German delegation headed up by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock currently visiting Beijing that they should abandon any support for Taiwanese independence, and instead back China’s attempts to finally gain control of the long-independent territory.
“To maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait, it is necessary to firmly oppose separatist activities related to ‘Taiwan independence’,” Reuters reports Wang as saying, with Chinese state-run newspaper The Global Times adding that the diplomat compared such support to Chinese support to Germany’s post-Cold War reunification.
U.S. and European Lawmakers Furious Over Macron’s ‘Betrayal’ of Taiwan https://t.co/3MqhMLrlAh
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 12, 2023
Such a probing demand comes at a time of European soul-searching over the issue of Taiwan, with a growing number of EU-based officials pushing for a much more cynical approach to be taken on the issue.
Leading the charge was French President Emmanuel Macron, who openly expressed concern that European involvement in any future conflict over Taiwan would only risk the continent becoming an American “vassal“.
“Being an ally does not mean being a vassal… doesn’t mean that we don’t have the right to think for ourselves,” he said, urging for the continent to stay out of any Taiwan quagmire due to it so far being unable to solve the war already taking place in Ukraine.
This sentiment provoked outrage amongst more Atlanticist-minded politicians in Europe and America, some of whom accused the French President of a “seeming betrayal” of the democratic nation.
The notion was pushed back upon by the German Foreign Minister, who said in Beijing: “A military escalation in the Taiwan Strait, through which 50 percent of world trade flows every day, would be a horror scenario for the entire world.”
“The shock wave of such a world economic crisis would also hit China and Germany as special trading nations. We are therefore watching the increasing tensions in the Taiwan Strait with great concern,” Baerbock explained, adding: “A unilateral and violent change in the status quo would not be acceptable to us as Europeans.”
UK Bracing for Economic Impact of Chinese Invasion of Taiwan, Report Claims https://t.co/z5P5znSiGd
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) February 16, 2023
Macron’s words appeared to gel with some senior politicians in Germany, however, with the parliamentary leader of the ruling Social Democratic Party, Rolf Mützenich, describing the French head-of-state as actually being “right” on the issue.
A faction of the party is now pushing for Germany to take a more “pragmatic” approach to China in light of the fact that the communist nation is their single greatest trading partner in terms of exports, and second largest behind the U.S. for imports.
Others in Europe have previously expressed serious concerns in recent years about how close Germany is getting to China, with politicians in Lithuania claiming that German companies pressured the country out of its support of Taiwan.
“[L]et’s not be naive – multinationals lobbying for China’s interests within their Governments are effectively undermining abilities of collective defence and possibilities for deterrence of Beijing coercion in the future,” Lithuanian MP Dovilė Šakalienė previously said regarding the issue while speaking to Breitbart London.
Germany Swears it Stands by Taiwan Despite Chancellor Permitting Sale of Major Infrastructure to Chinahttps://t.co/qQLWFxLDuX
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 25, 2022
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