Menendez: ‘Taiwan Is Being Abused by China’ and ‘There’s Going to Be a Miscalculation’

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) stated that China is abusing Taiwan, and that if this continues, “there’s going to be a miscalculation, and that would be dangerous for the entire region.”

Menendez said, “Taiwan is being abused by China. China is violating its airspace. It’s playing dangerous games, I would say, by consistently and robustly interfering in its airspace and having Taiwanese fighters scramble. At some point, there’s going to be a miscalculation, and that would be dangerous for the entire region. This is part of China’s coercive efforts against others who they believe have to be exclusively in their domain. This is why strengthening our relationship with Taiwan is so important. This is why sending a message to China that we will not allow what happened to Hong Kong to happen to Taiwan. Taiwan is a major producer of semiconductor chips. If we lose the ability to have that, we already face a strained supply chain and those chips go into about everything that we drive, use, or make. And so, we cannot for our economy, we cannot for the security of the region, let Taiwan fall under those circumstances. And that’s why I hope the president’s message will be rather clear to Xi Jinping that we cannot tolerate that.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

 

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.