TAIPEI: A senior British lawmaker said on Friday (Dec 2) her delegation had discussed defence cooperation with Taiwan during a visit this week to the Chinese-claimed island that Beijing has condemned as “gross interference”.
Britain, like most countries, has no formal diplomatic ties with democratically governed Taiwan but has stepped up its support for the island in the face of a rising military threat from China, as have other Western nations.
After meeting President Tsai Ing-wen, Alicia Kearns, chair of the British parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters the focus of their meetings was how to maintain peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and how can Britain play a role as a fellow democracy.
“We talked about the joint cyber threats that we all face from different adversaries, we discussed disinformation and of course we discussed traditional military conflict,” she said.
“And we talked about how we as an international community work together to prevent, and therefore the importance of deterrence diplomacy. And, yes, defence cooperation was discussed as part of that because it should be part of a whole conversation that takes place.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)