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Elon Musk Doubles Down on Pro-China Analogy
Nov 21, 2023 at 4:38 AM ESTElon Musk this month doubled down on his layman explanation of geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan by comparing the self-ruled island to Hawaii, an analogy that was strongly rejected by the Taiwanese government just weeks ago.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and the owner of X (formerly Twitter), told the Lex Fridman Podcast that Beijing sees the island as part of its territory. He drew criticism online for repeating alleged pro-China rhetoric.
"So they view it as that there's a fundamental part of China, the island of Formosa, not Taiwan, that is not part of China, but should be. The reason it hasn't been is because of the U.S. Pacific fleet," Musk said.
China claims Taiwan as its own, but the Communist Party leadership has never ruled the democratically governed island in its seven decades in power in Beijing.
Musk—the wealthiest person in the world, according to Bloomberg—appeared to be referring to American intervention in the Taiwan Strait during the Cold War and most recently in the mid-1990s, when U.S. naval presence prevented Beijing from seizing Taiwan by force.
For the second time in two months, Musk drew parallels between Taiwan and the U.S. state of Hawaii to highlight its significance to China.
"Now, China does feel very strongly about Taiwan," he said. "From their standpoint, it would be like one of the states—not their like Hawaii or something like that, but more significant than Hawaii. And Hawaii is pretty significant for us."
Elon Musk doubles down on pro-China analogy rejected by Taiwan
China experts have criticized Musk's analogy as inaccurate.
www.newsweek.com
