Taiwan’s foreign minister estimated on Wednesday that after the re-election of President Xi Jinping last week, China will redouble its efforts to seduce Taiwan’s allied countries.
“It is possible that our diplomatic situation will worsen,” Joseph Wu told Taiwan’s parliament.
China, which considers Taiwan part of its territory, aims to take control of it, even by force if necessary, and for decades has encouraged the island’s allies to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei in Beijing’s favor.
Taiwan’s chancellor believes Chinese pressure will intensify on the 14 countries that still maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei, as Chinese officials will want to “show their loyalty” to Xi.
“We received intelligence information alerting us … We hope that our diplomatic relations will not be influenced by China,” Wu said.
“All our embassies and missions are on high alert (…) We will verify the information and take steps to consolidate diplomatic relations,” he added.
Beijing has intensified military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taipei since the 2016 election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen.
Tsai made her first public comments on Wednesday on the Communist Party of China Congress, which ended over the weekend, calling for unity in the face of “the spread of Chinese authoritarianism”.
“The more prepared we are, the less chance there is for Beijing to advance; the more united we are, the stronger and safer Taiwan will be,” she said at a meeting of her party.
Tensions between Taiwan and China reached their highest level in years in August after Beijing held unprecedented military drills to protest a visit to the island by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Beijing is critical of any diplomatic action that could give Taiwan international legitimacy and has responded with growing anger to visits by Western politicians.
