The arrogance and ignorance of Beijing are highlighted in recent comments by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Liu Jieyi (劉結一) as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) continues a policy of intimidation toward Taiwan ahead of the consequential elections on Saturday.
Liu said: “Today, we are closer than any other historical period and are more confident in achieving the goal of our grand mission of the Chinese renaissance.”
Mr Liu continued, “Beijing is more capable than ever of reuniting Taiwan with the mainland given the rise of its global influence.”
Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) complex — comprised of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP politburo and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army — continues to deliberately ignore the will of the people of Taiwan.
China’s ignorance assumes Taiwan desires to be controlled by it.
Liu and the CCP complex are falsely operating on a misguided belief that Taiwan is part of the PRC. Not so, if one looks at history.
Misdirected foreign policy under then-US president Richard Nixon and then-US secretary of state Henry Kissinger created a cloud of confusion over the status of Taiwan. This culminated when former US president Jimmy Carter nullified the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty in 1979.
Convoluted diplomatic arrangements were created to avoid offending delicate communist sensibilities. But in reality, Taiwan’s status is not so complicated. “Reunification” is a deception based on a false premise. Taiwan has never been a part of the PRC, so “reunification” is impossible.
The CCP complex ignorantly assumes that Taiwan and its citizens desire to be part of the PRC due to China’s increased world influence.
This assumption is overwhelmingly not true. This confusion needs to be cleared before China makes another Hong Kong misstep.
The question that must be answered is this: Is Taiwan an independent country or a province of the PRC? The people of Taiwan already know the answer and will give it during the elections.
Today, Taiwan is a nation of more than 23 million citizens that has a sovereign border, its own military, flag, national anthem, economy and one of the best-functioning democracies in Asia. When Taiwanese are asked about being part of China, the answer is a clear “no.” Indeed, polling of those under the age of 35 shows that the answer is a resounding “no.”
For the past three decades, China has isolated Taiwan from the international community. It has bullied countries and businesses into breaking ties with Taiwan through intimidation, coercion and threats of losing access to the Chinese market of 1.3 billion people.
The free world should refuse to bow to this bullying and ignore China’s claims of sovereignty over Taiwan. The rest of the world can and must prioritize the liberty and well-being of the 6.2 billion people who live outside mainland China.
As a part of this challenge, countries which value freedom and democracy will be called upon and citizens across the globe will have to voice their support of the island nation of Taiwan. If not, the PRC will move on it and a chaos worse than Hong Kong would occur.
I, for one, stand with the independent nation of Taiwan.
Ted Yoho is the US representative for Florida’s Third Congressional District and is the ranking Republican member of the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation.
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
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
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS