Joseph Wu: China preparing For War

Jaushieh Joseph Wu, foreign minister, Taiwan

- Namrata Biji Ahuja/ Taipei

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Jaushieh Joseph Wu says his country is battle ready as China has been preparing for war for quite some time. In an exclusive interview with THE WEEK, he says China has been firing missiles over Taiwan, has launched large-scale sea and air exercises very close to the island and breached the median line demarcating the de facto border. Wu, however, is confident that not just the United States, which is Taiwan’s traditional ally and guarantor of its security, but also other democracies like the UK, Japan, Canada and Australia will support his country if a war breaks out.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q/ What is the present situation in Taiwan?

A/ China is still conducting daily military exercises not far away from Taiwan. And if you look at the way the Chinese are conducting these exercises in the aftermath of the visit of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, you can tell that this is a whole package which they have been practising for a long time. China wants to use this opportunity as a pretext for the exercise. It fired missiles over Taiwan, into the waters to the east of Taiwan and even into Japan’s exclusive economic zone. It also conducted large-scale air and sea exercises and launched a massive disinformation campaign against us. At the same time, it announced economic coercion measures and launched cyberattacks. Putting all these together, you can see that China has been preparing for quite some time for a war against Taiwan and we have to be prepared for a possible future attack.

Q/ This is not the first time Taiwan is facing a threat from China. Why do you think it is more critical this time?