Taipei [Taiwan]: Amid the increased security threats from Beijing, Taiwan’s National Security Bureau (NSB) Chief Chen Ming-tong said talks with China would be impossible while the country continues to threaten Taiwan with force. Chen’s comments came in response to the release of the US Department of Defence’s (DOD) China Military Power Report for 2021, which stated that China aims to match American military power in the Indo-Pacific by 2027, with the intention of forcing Taiwan to negotiate on its terms, Taiwan News reported. “Threats to intimidate Taipei to come to the negotiating table is a long-standing strategy of Beijing but it will not work,” Chen said. Chen added that the NSB has been paying attention to this approach for a long time and that it continually monitors the situation to identify potential points in time when China may try to leverage this pressure to realise its goals, Taiwan News reported. Meanwhile, when Chen was asked by reporters whether Taiwan has any recent intel regarding the DOD’s estimate that China plans to have more than 1,000 nuclear missiles in its arsenal by 2030, he answered in the affirmative. Taiwan is a democracy of almost 24 million people located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The two sides have been governed separately for more than seven decades. Taipei, on the other hand, has countered the Chinese aggression by increasing strategic ties with democracies including the US, which have been repeatedly opposed by Beijing. China has also threatened that “Taiwan’s independence” means war. On June 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to complete reunification with self-ruled Taiwan and vowed to smash any attempts at formal independence for the island.
