Harvard professor emeritus Ezra Vogel recently visited Taiwan for the release of the Hanzi edition of his new book on former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平). During his visit, Vogel said Taiwan’s democracy was inspiring for China and could serve as a model for China’s democratic development.
While I fervently hope that China will become a democratic country, I cannot agree that the Taiwanese experience can serve as a model. First, Taiwan’s transition to democracy was very much due to the unique situation in Taiwan during the 1980s. The majority of Taiwanese had been disenfranchised during four decades of martial law under the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration and rose up to claim their right to a representative government. It is therefore very much a democracy with a Taiwanese character.
The situation is similar to the US’ experience: Americans are proud of their democracy and how they achieved it. No one on this side of the Atlantic would say that the US was the “first democracy on British soil.” US citizens do not deny their British heritage, or Irish, or Italian, or Afro-American, but emphasize that US democracy is the result of combined influences from many different cultural backgrounds.
The second reason is that the Chinese need to find their own unique way to achieve democracy. This cannot be spoon-fed or “inspired” by an old arch-enemy. Imagine if the US had sent an emissary to London in the early 1800s and told the British that the US presidential model should be inspiring them to do away with the House of Lords and Commons and set up an US-style congressional system. That would not have sat well with the British, who are proud of their history.
A third element of importance here is that of mutual recognition: The UK and the US are now the best of friends because they respect the others’ system of government and recognize each other’s sovereignty. The British queen has been the guest of honor at the White House in Washington, while the US president is a welcome guest in London.
As of now, the situation between Taiwan and China is still less than rosy: the latter claims sovereignty over Taiwan, although in the long history of the island it has never been ruled by China, while Taipei is twisting itself into “mutual non-denial” concoctions which are little understood, even to close observers.
As I have argued before (“Taiwan deserves normalized relations,” March 6, page 8), the best solution is for the international community — including China — to normalize their relations with Taiwan. This requires visionary leadership, in Taiwan itself and among the leaders of the US and Western Europe.
However, it is possible: This year, the US is commemorating the War of 1812, when the British returned to the US and burned down the White House and US Congress. Nobody thought 200 years ago that there would ever be mutual recognition, but now the US and the UK are the best of friends. There are even joyous celebrations in Washington titled “British Invasion Week.”
In the same way, Taiwan and China need to move toward mutual recognition. However, since China is big and Taiwan is small, the international community needs to be more supportive of Taiwan and prevail on China to accept Taiwan as a friendly neighbor, just like the British eventually came to terms with the existence of the US.
That would be a good model for China to follow.
Nat Bellocchi served as chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan from 1990 to 1995. The views expressed in this article are his own.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017