Taiwan strongly criticized Elon Musk on Thursday, September 14, for his remarks regarding the island nation, accusing the US tech billionaire of offering unwarranted praise to Beijing. Taipei rebuked Musk after he referred to the self-governed island as “an integral part” of China.
China regards Taiwan as part of its territory and has even expressed readiness to use force if necessary to reunify the two regions. As a result, China has increased its military presence near democratically governed Taiwan in recent years.
Musk’s comments were made during the All-In Summit in Los Angeles, and the video was uploaded to YouTube this week. He remarked, “Their (Beijing’s) policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because … the U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force.”
In response, Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu expressed the hope that Musk would request China to “open @X to its people.” China blocks X, along with other major Western social media platforms like Facebook.
In a late Wednesday post on X, Wu commented, “Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart Ukraine’s counterstrike against Russia.” Wu referred to Musk’s refusal of a Ukrainian request to activate his Starlink satellite network in Crimea’s port city of Sevastopol last year to assist in an attack on Russia’s fleet there.
Wu emphatically asserted, “Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the PRC (People’s Republic of China) & certainly not for sale!”
Meanwhile, China has formulated a new strategy for advancing its goal of “peaceful unification” with Taiwan and unveiled a plan to transform Fujian province into an exemplar zone for “integration” with the island nation. Chinese policymakers have introduced detailed measures to convert the southeastern mainland province into a pilot area for comprehensive development across the Taiwan Strait. This initiative seeks to “deepen cross-strait integrated development in all fields and promote the process of peaceful reunification.” The measures include proposals to facilitate Taiwanese residents’ living, studying, and conducting business in Fujian, as well as encouraging local companies to hire staff from Taiwan. Taiwan’s democratically elected government firmly rejects China’s sovereignty claims and maintains that only the people of Taiwan have the authority to determine their future.
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