Elon Musk offers proposal to resolve China-Taiwan tensions after Russia-Ukraine
Days after floating a possible deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, billionaire Elon Musk has now offered a proposal to resolve the tensions between China and Taiwan.
Speaking to the media outlet ‘The Financial Times’, Musk suggested that tensions could be resolved by “handing over some control of Taiwan to Beijing”.
Stating that the conflict over Taiwan was “inevitable”, Musk said, “…figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy”. “And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong,” Musk was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
China has vowed to bring Taiwan under its control. Chinese President Xi Jinping has earlier said that the “reunification” with Taiwan “must be fulfilled”. However, the Taiwan government has been strongly objecting to China’s claims.
On Tuesday, Elon Musk and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky indulged in a squabble on Twitter after the Tesla CEO asked Twitter users to weigh in on a plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In a Twitter poll, Musk proposed UN-supervised elections in four occupied regions that Moscow last week moved to annex after what it called “referendums”, and that Ukraine permanently cede Crimea to Russia – to which he received a massive backlash from the Ukrainians.
“Ukraine-Russia Peace: Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is the will of the people, Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake), Water supply to Crimea assured, Ukraine remains neutral,” Musk wrote on Twitter with a “yes or no” poll.
The Tesla Inc chief followed up with another poll – “Let’s try this then: the will of the people who live in the Donbas and Crimea should decide whether they’re part of Russia or Ukraine.”
To this, Zelensky responded with his own poll. “Which @elonmusk do you like more? – one who supports Ukraine, one who supports Russia,” he tweeted.