Taiwan's Leader Calls on China to Refrain From Threats Ahead of Expected Military Drills

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te called on China to “open its arms rather than raise its fists” as he wrapped up his first overseas tour since taking office in May.
His remarks at a news conference Friday in Palau, a Pacific Island nation, came in response to widespread speculation that China will hold military drills around Taiwan in response to his trip, The Associated Press said.
“No matter how many military exercises and warships and aircraft are used to coerce neighboring countries, they will not be able to win the respect of any country,” he said.
The president spoke a day after China’s Foreign Ministry announced sanctions on 13 American companies and six executives in response to recently announced US weapons sales to Taiwan.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 during a civil war that saw the victorious communists take control in Beijing and the Nationalists set up a rival government in Taiwan, an island of 23 million people off China's east coast. China's long-ruling Communist Party says that Taiwan is part of China and must come under its control at some point.
Lai's trip to the Pacific, which included US stops in Hawaii and Guam, took him into the heart of a maritime region where China is jockeying with the United States and its allies for influence and control. He also visited the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau, three of the 12 countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan. The rest of the world, including the US, has official ties with China.
The Taiwanese leader, who spoke by phone with US congressional leaders while in Guam, dismissed concern that US President-elect Donald Trump may be less committed to Taiwan’s cause than current President Joe Biden has been.
“Taiwan is confident that it will continue to deepen cooperation with the new government, resist authoritarian expansion, create prosperity and development for both countries, and contribute more to regional stability and peace,” he said.
Lai’s two stops in US territory angered China, which opposes US arms sales and military assistance to Taiwan. Washington is the main supplier of weapons for Taiwan’s defense.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian, speaking at a daily briefing in Beijing, accused Taiwan and the US of engaging in official exchanges in Hawaii and Guam and said the US stops provided a platform for Taiwanese independence and separatist activities.
“Lai Ching-te and the DPP authorities have been engaging in Taiwan independence activities under various guises,” Lin said, referring to Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party. “But no matter what they say or do, they will never change the fact that Taiwan is part of China, nor will they stop the overwhelming trend that China will and must be reunited. To seek independence by soliciting foreign support is doomed to failure.”
Lai played up the distinction between authoritarian governments and democracies such as Taiwan and the US, noting Russia's military cooperation with both China and North Korea, including the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia for the war against Ukraine.
“As I have often said before, when authoritarian countries gather together, democratic countries must unite to ensure global and regional stability and development,” he said.
Lai also said that China must stop using threats and inducements to try to persuade other countries to switch diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China, after Paraguay kicked out a visiting Chinese diplomat this week. The envoy had skipped a session at a UN meeting and instead went to Paraguay’s Congress building to urge lawmakers to break off relations with Taiwan.
Lin, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, called Paraguay's accusations unreasonable and unfounded. “Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory,” he said. “Reaffirming and adhering to the one-China principle is legitimate and above board anywhere in the world."
Taiwan's small number of diplomatic allies has dwindled further in recent years as Beijing has successfully wooed several to establish ties with China.

Russia unleashed a drone and missile strike on the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing one, wounding 31 others and leaving tens of thousands without power or heat, officials said on Thursday.
The attack destroyed an energy facility and cut power to more than 20,000 residents and heat to some 17,000, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov, Reuters said.
He said Russian forces struck the city with drones first, then with ballistic missiles during an air-raid alert lasting more than six hours.
Among the wounded was a two-month-old infant as well as rescuers who had responded to the first wave of the attack, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on social media.
Early on Thursday, police and rescue workers combed through the rubble of a decimated apartment building and helped evacuate elderly residents. One building was destroyed and another 30 were damaged, Fedorov said.
A resident who was searching the gutted remains of his apartment described the attack.
"I flew off the couch to get dressed, and, running to the cabinet, I was covered in debris, after which I climbed out and heard my wife screaming," Serhiy, 35, said.
Zaporizhzhia, a strategic industrial city near front-line fighting, has come under frequent attack by Russian forces.
Kyiv's air force said Russia had fired four ballistic missiles at the city, part of a mass overnight attack on Ukraine that also included 92 drones.
Air defenses shot down 57 and another 27 were "locationaly lost", it added.
Russia has carried out regular air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities behind the front line of its three-year-old invasion, targeting the country's weakened energy grid in particular.
On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Moscow's forces had attacked Ukraine's energy system 1,200 times since 2022.
New US President Donald Trump is pushing for an end to the conflict and Russian President Vladimir Putin is concerned about its impact on Russia's economy but Ukraine says Moscow's insistence on retaining conquered territory is a non-starter.

Taiwan's Leader Calls on China to Refrain From Threats Ahead of Expected Military Drills