Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rebuked Elon Musk for calling the island “an integral part of China,” saying that Taiwan is “not for sale” and that it is also not a part of China.
Listen up, Taiwan is neither for sale nor a member of the PRC. Joseph Wu, Taiwan’s foreign minister, made the statement late on Wednesday on X, a platform that was once known as Twitter. The People’s Republic of China, which is China’s official name, is referred to as PRC.
The statement was in response to something Musk had said at the recent All-In Summit in Los Angeles.
“I believe I have a solid grasp of China. I’ve visited with senior leadership there numerous times and at various levels for many years,” Musk added. “As a foreigner, I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of China.”
Since the island’s 1949 civil war-induced separation from the Chinese mainland, Taiwan has been administered separately from the mainland. Taiwan is still seen by Beijing as a portion of its territory that needs to be unified with the mainland, possibly by force.
The CEO of Tesla, X, and SpaceX, Elon Musk, continued, “China’s policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their perspective, it might be comparable to Hawaii or something, like an essential component of China that is arbitrarily excluded from being a part of China.
Outside of business hours, CNBC was unable to quickly reach Musk for comment.
Wu added in his tweet that he hoped Musk could also petition the Chinese Communist Party to permit access to X, which is now prohibited in China, for its citizens.
“I hope Elon Musk can ask the CCP to make X available to its citizens. Perhaps he believes that banning it is a wise course of action, similar to cutting off Starlink to stop Ukraine from retaliating against Russia, Wu speculated.
Musk is said to have prevented a Ukrainian military assault on Russia in the early stages of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine by restricting access to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Ukraine both criticized the action.
Musk has incurred the wrath of the self-governing island before.
The businessman received criticism from Taiwan last October for saying that tensions between China and Taiwan might be eased if Beijing had some sort of authority over Taiwan.