Taiwan has hit back at Elon Musk after he called Taiwan an "integral part of China" on Sep. 13.
In retaliation, Taiwan's foreign ministry said that the island is "not for sale".
Taiwan is 'not for sale'
Musk made the comment at the All-in Summit in Los Angeles that was live-streamed on YouTube.
He was at the summit to speak on topics including Ukraine, X (formerly called Twitter), the creator economy, China, and artificial intelligence.
Musk said,
"[Beijing's] policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their standpoint, 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 U.S. Pacific Fleet has stopped any sort of reunification effort by force."
In response, Taiwan's foreign minister Joseph Wu said in a post on X,
"Listen up, Taiwan is not part of the [People's Republic of China] & certainly not for sale!"
He also said that Musk should also ask China to allow its people to use X, where it is currently banned.
Meta-owned Facebook and Twitter have been blocked in China since 2009 by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the fatal Xinjiang riots.
Wu also said, "Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off Starlink to thwart Ukraine’s counterstrike against Russia."
He was referring to Musk's refusal to a request from Ukraine to activate his Starlink satellite network in Crimea's port city of Sevastopol to aid an attack on Russia's fleet there in 2022.
Hope @elonmusk can also ask the #CCP to open @X to its people. Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off @Starlink to thwart #Ukraine’s counterstrike against #Russia. Listen up, #Taiwan is not part of the #PRC & certainly not for sale! JW https://t.co/HEhyTYYXFp
— 外交部 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ROC (Taiwan) 🇹🇼 (@MOFA_Taiwan) September 13, 2023
Online reactions
A commentator on X noted Musk's pro-China stance, saying, "Not the first time Musk is 'gravitating' towards the Chinese narrative on this issue."
Another user said, "Elon needs to stay in his lane."
Yet another X commentator stated, "[Musk] also needs to read up on the history of how Hawaii was annexed by the US, it was not amicable."
Former U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower declared Hawaii as a state of the U.S. in 1959, after a long history of coups, annexations, and overthrowing of the monarchy by the Americans.
In 2019 before Musk became the CEO, Twitter suspended 1,000 "state-backed" Chinese accounts waging disinformation campaign on Hong Kong during the latter's protests.
China-Taiwan relationship has been deteriorating after former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August 2022.
China has been ramping up its display of aggression towards Taiwan, the latest on Sep. 14 where 35 Chinese warplanes were located around the island.
Musk made the controversial comment from 34:27 to 34:42 in the video here:
Top image from Flickr & Wikimedia Commons.