Taiwan, “the most dangerous place in the world”?

On 8 April, Beijing launched military manoeuvres to encircle the island of Taiwan for several days. A Chinese show of force in retaliation for the meeting in the United States between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and Kevin McCarthy, Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Tensions are rising between Beijing, which supports the “one China” policy, and the majority of Taiwanese, who fear a forced reunification and whom the United States supports.

A few days before, French President Emmanuel Macron, who was on a State visit to China to discuss the war in Ukraine, caused misunderstanding among American and European allies: making a real plea for European strategic autonomy and against a logic of blocs, he expressed a clear defiance of American policy on the Taiwanese issue (“being an ally does not mean being a vassal”) and spoke of “crises that are not ours”…

* The Economist

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