Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry has formally distanced itself from a Twitter screenshot showing what looks like correspondence between itself and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling it out as a fake.
The screenshot, showing what appears to be Zelensky marking Kiev’s solidarity with Taipei over Chinese missile tests near Taiwan earlier this month, elicited a reply of “Who are you?” from the Foreign Ministry.
Possibly digitally altered screenshot of alleged exchange between Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
© Photo : Twitter
But the exchange was photoshopped and never took place, according to Taipei.
Addressing the issue on Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tsui Ching-lin told reporters that the faked screenshot had caused several foreign news agencies to erroneously report that Taipei does not know who Zelensky is.
Tsui clarified “that the above-mentioned dialogue between the two sides never happened, and that the screenshot is fake, created in Photoshop.” The spokesperson called “for an end to the dissemination of false information to avoid unnecessary speculation and misunderstanding.”
Taiwanese media have reported that the screenshot was created using a dormant Twitter account which has not posted since March 2020. However, a cursory search for the tweets in question don’t turn up any hits, possibly indicating that they’ve been deleted.
Taiwan and Ukraine do not maintain diplomatic relations, with Kiev joining most of the rest of the world in support for the One China Policy in the 1990s. However, informal ties have warmed in recent months, with Taipei sending tens of millions of dollars’ worth of assistance to Ukraine amid the escalation of the crisis between Kiev and Moscow, and ramping up exchanges between officials.
In June, The Washington Post ran a story misleadingly suggesting that the Ukrainian president had called “for international support for Taiwan before China attacks” at an Asian security forum.
Chinese English-language media characterized the story as a “pathetic” “fake” that “emboldens Taiwan secessionists,” with the Global Times saying it showed “how low some US media outlets like the Washington Post can be in order to spin anti-China public opinion,” and pointing out that Zelensky never mentioned China or Taiwan in his “vague” comments.
Publicly, Zelensky has been careful not to criticize the PRC, which is Ukraine’s largest trading partner, or ramp up tensions over sensitive issues like Taiwan. Last month, he told reporters that he would like to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping, and praised Chinese “neutrality” in the Ukraine crisis. “This neutrality is better than if China would join Russia,” he said.
Beijing considers Taiwan an integral part of China destined for eventual formal peaceful reunification along the "One Country – Two Systems" model currently applied to Hong Kong and Macau. At the same time, the PRC has threatened to use military force to resolve the crisis if authorities in Taipei set a course for independence. The Taiwan question has become a major source of global tensions under the Biden administration, with the US president repeatedly pledging to “defend” the island in case of a Chinese invasion, and senior US lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently traveling to Taipei, in contravention of treaties underlying China-US relations.