《TAIPEI TIMES》 Peace in Strait vital: US, EU officials

BACKING: More than half of Americans support the US increasing its military presence near Taiwan and boosting arms sales to deter China’s aggression, a US survey showed

By Liu Tzu-hsuan / Staff reporter

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US and EU officials reiterated the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and expressed concern about an increase in Beijing’s military activities in the region.

US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino on Thursday met for the fifth high-level meeting of the US-EU Dialogue on China and the fourth meeting of the US-EU High-Level Consultations on the Indo-Pacific, the US Department of State said in a news release on Sunday.

Nuland and Sannino “underscored the overriding importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, where the United States, the EU, and countries worldwide have clear interests, and regional and global security and prosperity are at stake,” the department said.

The US and the EU are committed to maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait and oppose any unilateral actions that undermine cross-strait peace and stability, which would “have major economic and security implications for the region and globally,” it said.

They also reiterated the importance of maintaining open channels of communication with Beijing, while expressing concern about “China’s repeated and ongoing information manipulation,” it said.

The US and the EU are open to “continued substantive engagement with China both in areas of common interest and on challenges where China has global responsibility,” it said.

They reiterated that the US and the EU support a free and open Indo-Pacific region, “which is inclusive, prosperous, secure, based on the rule of law and protects shared principles,” the release said.

Following the success of the first joint US-EU naval exercise in March, the two sides discussed plans to advance practical maritime cooperation and technical exchanges in the region, it said.

In other news, more than half of Americans support the US increasing its military presence near Taiwan to deter Chinese aggression, a survey released on Sunday by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute showed.

To deter China from invading Taiwan, 56 percent of respondents said that they “support” increasing US military presence near Taiwan, down from 61 percent in November’s poll, while 30 percent said they “oppose” it.

On increasing US arms sales to Taiwan, 52 percent of respondents said they supported the measure, while 31 percent opposed it, the survey showed.

Regarding China’s sanctioning of US politicians and non-governmental organizations after meeting with Taiwan’s elected leaders, 60 percent of the respondents said they considered the meetings “the right thing to do because they showed support for a threatened democracy,” while 21 percent said they were “the wrong thing to do because they risked provoking China.”

The survey was conducted from May 30 to June 6, collecting responses from 1,254 US adults with a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES