Taiwan on Thursday received a welcome return on four decades of friendship when the Tuvaluan foreign minister said his nation would not only remain a staunch ally, but wanted to form an alliance with Taipei’s three other Pacific-island allies to bolster resistance to Chinese encroachment and interference in the region.
In a not-unrelated move, the Solomon Islands’ Malaita Premier Daniel Suidani on Thursday said that his administration would work with the US and others to develop a deep-water port at Bina Harbour.
It has also asked the US and Australia to be part of the province’s security to help protect it from Chinese developers and illegal fishing in its waters, even though the central Solomon Islands government switched diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China in September, a move that Suidani said his administration did not recognize.
While it would be nice to think that Tuvalu’s declaration and Malaita’s resistance to Chinese investment are solely the result of years of Taiwanese friendship, and concern about Beijing’s ulterior motives, they actually have more to do with a renewed interest in the South Pacific by the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, who, however belatedly, have woken up to the threat posed not only to their national interests from Beijing’s aggressive moves to poach Taiwan’s allies in the region, but to the free flow of transportation, communications and commerce in the region.
Tuvalu and Malaita Province have been the focus of a renewed diplomatic push by Washington in recent months.
Officials from USAID, and the US departments of defense, state and commerce visited Malaita in August, while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sept. 27 urged Tuvalu to work with Taiwan to push for democracy in the South Pacific, a call he repeated in his message congratulating the tiny nation on Oct. 1, the 41st anniversary of its independence.
Meanwhile, the US Congress wants to support Taiwan and its remaining diplomatic allies through the proposed Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) Act.
The US Senate unanimously passed its version of the TAIPEI bill on Oct. 29, as did the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs with its version the following day, although the full House has yet to vote on it.
Washington watching Taiwan’s back is nice, but the government cannot rely on that alone to combat China’s economic and diplomatic offensive. It needs to build alliances with non-governmental organizations in the region and around the world instead of spending so much time and money focused on the UN and its bodies.
Taiwan’s greatest strength is its democracy and commitment to human rights, which have made it a beacon of hope and an inspiration in Asia, something that has become ever more important in light of protests in Hong Kong and the growing exposure of Beijing’s crimes in Xinjiang.
That Taiwan was chosen to host the 40th Congress of the International Federation for Human Rights last month, the first time the group has met in Asia, is significant, just as was the decision by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to open its first Asian bureau in Taipei.
The federation’s members come from more than 120 nations, and the representatives who attended the congress had a chance to see firsthand the advances this nation has made, while every time RSF reports from Taiwan or issues a statement from Taipei, it is a reminder to the world that this nation is not part of China, regardless of Beijing’s claims.
Tuvalu might be tiny, but it made its voice heard this week by saying no to China and backing Taiwan, just as Taiwan has been voicing support for the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong and criticizing Beijing’s abuse in Xinjiang and elsewhere.
China might be a big cat, but mice can roar.
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