The Taiwanese Foreign Ministry on Thursday expressed outrage at China for stepping forward to accept messages of sympathy from around the world for the deadly earthquake that struck eastern Taiwan on Wednesday morning.
Even as Taiwanese rescue workers were still working to recover earthquake victims and restore power and transportation to the disaster area, China’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.), Geng Shuang, decided it would be a good time to reassert that Beijing truly “owns” the democratically governed autonomous island, so all condolences should be directed to the Chinese Communist Party.
Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang listens to a question during a briefing in Beijing on November 28, 2019 (WANG ZHAO/AFP via Getty Images).
Geng was attending a U.N. meeting about children’s rights when another of the participants mentioned the Taiwan earthquake. Geng said that his government was “concerned” about the damage to “China’s Taiwan” and was prepared to render assistance.
“We thank the international community for its expressions of sympathy and concern,” he said.
This was too much for the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), which issued a statement saying it “solemnly condemns China’s shameless use of the Taiwan earthquake to conduct cognitive operations internationally.”
MOFA said Geng’s remarks demonstrate that China “has no goodwill towards Taiwan.”
Taiwan and China had a testy exchange on Wednesday when Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Office rebuffed an offer of earthquake assistance from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.
“We noticed that the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Office had expressed concern about the earthquake in waters off Hualien this morning. We greatly appreciate its concern, but there is no need for the mainland side to assist us in disaster relief,” the Taiwanese office said.
Time magazine on Thursday recalled that China and Taiwan had a comparably tense exchange after the devastating Taiwan earthquake of 1999. In fact, “lingering bitterness” from the earlier quake could be one reason the Mainland Affairs Office was so brusque with its Chinese counterpart.
The Taiwanese felt China took advantage of the 1999 quake to “inappropriately” assert its claims on the island and also blamed Beijing for delaying international emergency relief flights and shipments. The chief of the Mainland Affairs Council at the time accused China of “making political gestures at the expense of one country’s disaster.”
“Aid from China is always conditional,” associate professor of political science Ja Ian Chong of the National University of Singapore told Time.
China further alienated Taiwan by deciding to launch yet another huge, intimidating set of air and naval patrols into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday – the largest of China’s exhausting “gray zone” incursions in 2024 so far.
The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense announced, “30 PLA (People’s Liberation Army) aircraft and 9 PLAN (People’s Liberation Army Navy) vessels operating around Taiwan were detected up until … 6:00 a.m. today. 20 of the aircraft entered Taiwan’s northern, middle line, and SW ADIZ (southwestern air defense identification zone.”
The latest show of force from China came immediately after dictator Xi Jinping spoke with President Joe Biden by telephone for the first time in almost two years.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden take a walk after their talks in the Filoli Estate in the U.S. state of California, Nov. 15, 2023 (Li Xueren/Xinhua via Getty Images).
The White House readout of the call said Biden “emphasized the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Xi evidently decided to respond by sending a swarm of warships and combat aircraft into Taiwan’s ADIZ.
