Any attempt to change Taiwan's status quo by force or coercion cannot bring true peace, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said in a letter to Pope Leo released by the presidential office on Friday. "I firmly believe that any attempt to change Taiwan's status quo through force or coercion cannot bring true peace," he said. Beijing says World War Two documents like the Cairo Declaration, as well as the 1971 U.N. resolution, give international legal backing to its sovereignty claims over Taiwan. Taiwan's formal name is the Republic of China, the name of the government that fought on the side of the Western allies in World War Two. The republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong's communists who established the People's Republic of China.

Source: The Telegraph January 30, 2026 04:51 UTC