On Wednesday last week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) met with US House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California during a transit returning from her state visit to Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in Central America. On the eve of the meeting, China announced a naval patrol conducted by its military-civilian dual-use coast guard fleets along the Taiwan Strait, while dispatching its aircraft carrier groups to navigate the waters close to Taiwan’s southeastern maritime border.
Right after Tsai returned to Taiwan, China on Sunday announced another round of military exercises against Taiwan. As usual, China never stops its intimidation of Taiwan, although it might show a smiling face to other countries to achieve its tactical goals.
China is again flexing its muscles to intimidate Taiwan and its 23.5 million citizens, so as to limit their international space and right to survival. In August last year, after then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, China held large-scale military exercises around Taiwan using real ammunition. This blatantly damaged regional peace and stability, with serious concerns raised in the region, as well as by the EU, G7 countries and the US.
Over the past few decades, it has been a long-term practice to have frequent parliamentarian exchanges between Taiwan and the US, including offers to facilitate the Taiwanese president’s transit via the US when visiting diplomatic allies in Central and South America.
The military exercises can only be explained if China is becoming increasingly assertive to project its vision of a new international order.
Instead of urging Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is maintaining a favorable position toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. China’s authoritarian expansionist attitude should not be ignored, while we still regret not much having been done before Russia’s invasion.
Notorious communist tactics used to divide Western democracies were once again witnessed when French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen were received differently during their visit to China last week.
As Von der Leyen said before her visit to China, stability and peace are among her main concerns. Annually, more than 50 percent of maritime shipping goes through the Taiwan Strait, and about 70 percent of regular semiconductors and more than 90 percent of advanced semiconductors are manufactured in Taiwan. While China has been reluctant to be an accountable world power, full autonomy of industry supply chains would be ideal.
However, we should face the truth that this cannot be achieved overnight. It is practical to work with like-minded partners, such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and allies in Europe and the US to reinforce the resilience of critical industry supply chains.
Taiwan is one of the most dynamic, free and democratic countries in Asia. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it demonstrated its expertise in public health, as well as its strong willingness to help. Taiwan’s fully fledged democracy is an excellent model for countries that are transitioning into democracies. It positive development can also contribute to a better world.
Furthermore, Taiwan is fighting for the values of democracy and freedom, and for our way of life on the front lines. It faces millions of cyberattacks, disinformation and military intimidation on a daily basis from its aggressive neighbor across the Strait. It makes no sense for those in Europe to sit and pretend that nothing is happening until it is too late, as happened in eastern Europe.
Fortunately, more European leaders are realizing that naivety must be discarded, and only solidarity can prevail. Von der Leyen, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg have clearly stated on different occasions that the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait concerns regional peace and stability.
There is absolutely every reason to be vocal about and for Taiwan, and to defend the “status quo” of Taiwan, not only because it concerns our prosperity, but also because it concerns the universal values and way of life underpinned by freedom and democracy.
Democracy and freedom have never been inherited, but can only be earned, defended and preserved. Let us cherish what we have now, and set an example for our children by defending our way of life. History must not be repeated again. That is why I will be vocal on Taiwan, and vocal for Taiwan.
Georges Dallemagne is a politician and member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. He cochairs the Belgian Parliament’s Belgium-Taiwan Friendship Group.
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) has formally announced his intention to stand for permanent party chairman. He has decided that he is the right person to steer the fledgling third force in Taiwan’s politics through the challenges it would certainly face in the post-Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) era, rather than serve in a caretaker role while the party finds a more suitable candidate. Huang is sure to secure the position. He is almost certainly not the right man for the job. Ko not only founded the party, he forged it into a one-man political force, with himself
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