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U.K. report supports Taiwan Strait stability, voices China concerns

ROC Central News Agency

03/14/2023 12:23 PM

London, March 13 (CNA) The latest edition of the United Kingdom's security and international policy report, the Integrated Review 2023 (IR23), has stressed support for stability across the Taiwan Strait and urged Taipei and Beijing to resolve their issues through dialogue.

It was the first time an Integrated Review, first published in 2021, has mentioned Taiwan, singling out "Taiwan" twice and the "Taiwan Strait" three times while saying that China represented an "epoch-defining challenge" to the international order.

In the forward of the IR23 report issued Monday, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak highlighted the threats posed by both Russia and China.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine and weaponization of energy and food supplies and irresponsible nuclear rhetoric, and China's escalating aggression in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait have threatened to create a world defined by "danger, disorder and division and an international order more favorable to authoritarianism," he wrote.

According to the 2023 report, the U.K.'s concerns over the actions and stated intent of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been growing.

China "has chosen to strengthen its partnership with Russia just as Russia pursued its invasion of Ukraine, and continued to disregard universal human rights and its international commitments, from Tibet and Xinjiang to Hong Kong," the report said.

"Its 'new ultilateralism' is challenging the centrality of human rights and freedoms in the [United Nations] system," the report said.

The IR23 also said Beijing "has pursued rapid and opaque military modernization with huge new investments, militarized disputed islands in the South China Sea, and refused to renounce the use of force to achieve its objectives with regard to Taiwan."

In the report, the U.K. government emphasized its long-standing position about the Taiwan issue, which should be resolved "peacefully" by people on the two sides in the Taiwan Strait via "dialogue" instead of through any unilateral attempts to change the status quo.

The report voiced support for stability across the Taiwan Strait and opposition to any unilateral change in the status quo and in the East and South China Seas, saying: "We will support all parties to work together to ensure that heightened tensions do not lead to escalation."

Echoing the IR 2023 report, U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told the British Parliament that China's size and significance connected the country to almost every global issue.

"We cannot be blind to the increasingly aggressive military and economic behavior of the Chinese Communist Party, including stoking tensions across the Taiwan Strait," Cleverly said.

In response, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) thanked the U.K. for the release of the report, and said Taiwan and the U.K. have become good partners in pursuit of democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law.

(By Chen Yun-yu, Novia Huang and Frances Huang)

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