Taiwan has criticized Elon Musk for his latest comments on China, rebuking the Tesla and X boss for saying that Taiwan was an integral part of China.
Musk made the remarks during his appearance at the All-in Summit in Los Angeles this week.
"Their (Beijing's) policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China," he said. "From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to Hawaii or something like that, like an integral part of China that is arbitrarily not part of China mostly because...the US Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force."
This is the latest in a series of comments the billionaire made in the long-standing tension between Beijing and Taipei, as per Reuters. Last October, Musk suggested that tensions between China and Taiwan could be resolved by handing over some control of Taiwan to Beijing, which Taipei has similarly criticized.
Taiwan's Foreign Minister to Musk: Persuade China to 'Open X,' Other Western Sites
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu retorted Wednesday (September 13), urging Musk to ask China to "open @X to its people," referring to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which the Tesla boss also owns. Wu also urged Musk to tell Beijing to open other Western sites to the Chinese people.
Taipei's top diplomat also stressed to Musk, who has cordial relations with Chinese officials, that Taiwan is "not for sale."
"Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart Ukraine's counter-strike against Russia," Wu added, referring to Musk refusing a Ukrainian request to activate his Starlink satellite network in Crimea's port city of Sevastopol last year to aid an attack on Russia's fleet there.
Since then, Ukraine has allegedly used military jets to deliver cruise missiles in this week's attack on the major Black Sea port, which damaged at least two Russian warships.
Taiwan's democratically-elected government has repeatedly stressed it strongly rejected China's sovereignty claims, saying only the Taiwanese people could decide for their future.
