Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu is due to travel to Europe next week, in a previously announced visit that may see him visiting Brussels and Prague, among other destinations, unnamed sources have told a UK media outlet.
The sources claimed that while in Prague, Wu will attend a security conference slated for June 14, when he may speak immediately after Czech President Petr Pavel opens the event.
European leaders typically do not share the stage with senior Taiwanese officials, so Wu’s speech will come as a diplomatic breakthrough, one of the insiders claimed.
Neither Beijing nor Taipei or Pavel’s office have commented on the matter yet.
Reports about Wu’s upcoming visit to Europe come after French President Emmanuel Macron earlier warned that Europe should not let itself be drawn into the confrontation between the US and China over Taiwan conforming to "the American rhythm."
Beijing-Washington tensions escalated again after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April, with China launching massive three-day military drills near the island in what it called a "warning" to Taipei and foreign powers.
This was preceded by the Taiwan visit of then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in early August 2022, which was slammed by China as a gesture of support for separatism. Beijing held large-scale military exercises in the vicinity of the island in a retaliatory move at the time.
Beijing perceives Taiwan, which has been governed independently of mainland China since 1949, as an inalienable part of the PRC’ sovereign territory and opposes any official contacts between the island and other countries.
Although the US does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Washington has a representative office in Taipei and remains the island's biggest supplier of military hardware. The US also often sends its warships and surveillance planes to the Taiwan Strait, with Beijing slamming such missions as provocations and dubbing Washington "a security risk creator in the region."