Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that no power or country in the world should underestimate the possibility of separating Taiwan from China, and urged Southeast Asian countries to avoid being used as “chess pieces” by major powers.
Many countries in the region are under pressure to take sides in a region at risk of being “reshaped by political factors,” Wang said in a speech Monday to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat in Jakarta.
He continued, “We must isolate this region from geopolitical calculations. We warn against using it as chess pieces due to the rivalry between the major powers and coercion. The future of our region must be in our hands.”
And the Chinese foreign minister warned of the repercussions of any attempt to separate Taiwan from China or jeopardize the “one China” principle. He added that if this principle is exposed, there will be strong storms in the Taiwan Strait, as he put it.
Wang Yi said that he had informed his American counterpart, Anthony Blinken, of the need to set rules for positive interaction in the Asia-Pacific region, He considered that many countries in the ASEAN region are currently under pressure to abandon neutrality.
The Chinese minister pointed out that the strategic environment in the region is at risk of being reconfigured by political factors.
He stressed that Beijing rejects any fake regional cooperation that excludes specific countries, and that countries in the region should respect each other’s sovereignty and independence.
China insists that Taiwan is part of its territory and refuses to deal diplomatically with any country that recognizes its independence.
Washington maintains close relations with Taiwan and supplies it with weapons, but it does not recognize it as an independent state.