Taiwan reacts after Musk called it an "integral part of China"

The government of Taiwan criticized Elon Musk for claiming that the island is part of China, supporting the position of the Asian giant that insists that the territory is theirs and that it will eventually integrate it.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu used Musk's social media to respond to comments he recently made about the island and express concern about some of the decisions the billionaire tycoon has made in the face of international conflicts.

"Hope Elon Musk can also ask the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) to open X (formerly known as Twitter) to its people. Perhaps he thinks banning it is a good policy, like turning off Starlink to thwart Ukraine's counterstrike against Russia," Wu said, noting that Taiwan is not part of China and the island is not for sale.

In the tweet, Wu also referenced reports that Musk limited the Ukrainian military's access to Starlink satellite internet to prevent an attack with six small submarines on the Russian naval fleet.

Musk's comments

The billionaire tycoon said in a podcast that Taiwan is "an integral part of China" and even compared Taiwan to Hawaii. Musk also blamed the United States for preventing reunification between the two nations.

"China has really since for half a century or so — longer at this point — their policy has been to reunite Taiwan with China. From their standpoint, maybe it is analogous to, like, 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 force," he said.