US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, Japanese Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy Bureau Director-General Kobe Yasuhiro, and Republic of Korea Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Chung Byung-won met in Washington, DC, on January 5 for the inaugural US-Japan-ROK Indo-Pacific Dialogue. Following the meeting, the three sides issued a joint statement on January 6 reaffirming the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait as indispensable to security and prosperity in the international community. The statement noted the recent dangerous and escalatory behavior supporting unlawful claims by China in the South China Sea and reiterated opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion anywhere in the waters of the Indo-Pacific.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan) sincerely welcomes the joint statement and appreciates that following their trilateral leaders’ summit of August 2023, the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea continue to publicly emphasize and support peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and reiterate their staunch opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the regional status quo by force or coercion.
Having repeatedly fabricated pretexts for escalating its military coercion and threats against Taiwan, China has recently continued to employ gray-zone tactics to harass Taiwan, such as dispatching balloons across the median line of the Taiwan Strait and into Taiwan’s airspace over consecutive days. It has also continued to engage in economic coercion, including through the suspension of preferential tariffs on a number of goods under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, and waged various forms of cognitive warfare.
These actions, which are clear attempts to influence Taiwan’s presidential election and pose a grave challenge to regional security, have generated significant concern among the international community. Joint statements issued over the past year following such bilateral and multilateral forums as the US-Japan-ROK trilateral leaders’ summit, the Australia-United States ministerial consultations, and G7 leaders’ and foreign ministers’ meetings have shown that a high degree of international consensus exists regarding the importance of cross-strait peace and stability. As a responsible member of the international community, Taiwan will continue to work with the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and other like-minded nations to advance peace, stability, and prosperity throughout the Indo-Pacific.
