Washington and Beijing separately announced late Saturday that Sullivan and China's top diplomat Wang, who is also a Chinese Communist Party politburo member and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission, had met in Bangkok on Friday and Saturday.
Taiwan detected 33 military aircraft and six naval vessels from China between 6 a.m. Friday (Jan. 26) and Saturday around the nation, the Ministry of National Defence of Taiwan reported.
More than half of surveyed US and Taiwan experts said they believed a cross-Taiwan Strait crisis was likely to occur in 2024, although there were mixed views on how exactly it would play out, a report released Monday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said.
The department in its notification to the Congress wrote: “FMF will be used to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defence capabilities through joint and combined defence capability and enhanced maritime domain awareness and maritime security capability.”
The economic woes that China is currently facing, prompted fears that Beijing could in turn become more aggressive, and compensate by escalating the risk of a war with the US over Taiwan, Voice of America (VOA) reported citing experts who closely follow the US-China rivalry.
As part of US-led efforts to stop China from creating high-end semiconductors suitable for military applications, Japan's curbs on the export of advanced chip-making equipment went into effect on Sunday, Kyodo news reported.
Amid China’s increasing influence in the South China Sea and off the coast of Taiwan, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Southeast Asian counterparts in Indonesia to warn them against Chinese coercion, The Washington Post reported.
Chinese President Xi Jinping also stressed an "overall stable Sino-US relationship", but at the same time, stressed that China 'respects' the US's interests and it should also not harm "China's legitimate rights and interests".
When asked about whether the US is considering lifting sanctions imposed on Chinese Defence Minister Li Shangfu, US Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller on Monday said, "No, we are not."
"We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic, and economic pressure against Taiwan and instead engage in meaningful dialogue with Taiwan," said US Department of State Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel during a press briefing on Friday.
Tan said that the Democratic Progressive Party authorities' provocative actions to collaborate with outside forces in pursuit of "Taiwan independence" and their obstinate determination to stand in opposition to the Chinese nation's fundamental interests are the leading causes of rising tensi