Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday told a forum in Taipei that Taiwan’s viewpoint is more important for Asia-Pacific democracies than ever before. Giving attention to Taiwan’s perspective amid the turbulent international situation was likely a welcome message to the local audience. Taiwanese would be forgiven for wondering where their voice is among all the to-and-fro between the US, China and their respective allies on the geopolitical stage. War in the Taiwan Strait would, after all, be felt most directly and terribly in this country.
Turnbull also said that people need to “stand up for truth and call out lies for what they are.” That comment, made in the context of social media, is also applicable to international discourse driven by state actors, either explicitly in what Council on Geostrategy cofounder James Rogers has termed “discursive statecraft” — which he defines as “attempts by governments to articulate concepts, ideas and objects into new discourses to degrade existing political and ideological frameworks or generate entirely new ones” — or in the form of state-sponsored cyberattacks.
War in the Taiwan Strait could spiral out of control and become a global conflict. It is understandable that world leaders express concern in terms of the consequences for their own security.
During an interview with The Economist at the end of April, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger said it is possible to “create a world order on the basis of rules that Europe, China and India could join [with the US], and that’s already a good slice of humanity. So if you look at the practicality of it, it can end well.” Kissinger followed up on that idea during an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Friday last week, in which he said he believed the issue of Taiwan should be left to time.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs pushed back, saying that Taiwan’s future is to be decided by Taiwanese through democratic means, and that it is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) causing the tensions. There is not necessarily a contradiction between the ministry’s and Kissinger’s positions.
The CCP is certainly not sitting idly by. It had been employing discursive statecraft successfully for decades due to international compliance until the rise of “wolf warrior diplomacy,” the COVID-19 pandemic and its overreaction to then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August last year. Since then, there has been a massive outpouring of international solidarity with Taiwan. Through individual, bilateral and multilateral mechanisms, more than 300 members of parliaments from 50 countries and the European Parliament have spoken out on behalf of Taiwan, the foreign ministry said. The US, too, has rallied allies to speak up for peace in the Strait and the Indo-Pacific region.
Time is changing the dynamics of China’s power, too. In addition to the geopolitical headwinds, it is facing economic and demographic challenges, with an aging society exacerbated by decades of the one-child policy, abandoned only in 2021. There is also the looming fallout from the massively over-leveraged real-estate sector and the internal dynamics of a distinctly innovation-suffocating centralized, communist, moralistic industrial policy, decided by a single individual to whom, so the reports say, few have the desire or the courage to show dissent or even bring bad news to.
Next year’s presidential and legislative elections will reveal much about what Taiwanese want. Opinion polls show that the majority would reject unification, but there is also a sense that many are spooked by the prospect of war, cracking under the weight of Beijing’s intimidation and the accumulated effect of its discursive statecraft.
I came to Taiwan to pursue my degree thinking that Taiwanese are “friendly,” but I was welcomed by Taiwanese classmates laughing at my friend’s name, Maria (瑪莉亞). At the time, I could not understand why they were mocking the name of Jesus’ mother. Later, I learned that “Maria” had become a stereotype — a shorthand for Filipino migrant workers. That was because many Filipino women in Taiwan, especially those who became house helpers, happen to have that name. With the rapidly increasing number of foreigners coming to Taiwan to work or study, more Taiwanese are interacting, socializing and forming relationships with
Two weeks ago, Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) raised hackles in Taiwan by posting to her 2.6 million Instagram followers that she was visiting “Taipei, China.” Yeoh’s post continues a long-standing trend of Chinese propaganda that spreads disinformation about Taiwan’s political status and geography, aimed at deceiving the world into supporting its illegitimate claims to Taiwan, which is not and has never been part of China. Taiwan must respond to this blatant act of cognitive warfare. Failure to respond merely cedes ground to China to continue its efforts to conquer Taiwan in the global consciousness to justify an invasion. Taiwan’s government
Earlier signs suggest that US President Donald Trump’s policy on Taiwan is set to move in a more resolute direction, as his administration begins to take a tougher approach toward America’s main challenger at the global level, China. Despite its deepening economic woes, China continues to flex its muscles, including conducting provocative military drills off Taiwan, Australia and Vietnam recently. A recent Trump-signed memorandum on America’s investment policy was more about the China threat than about anything else. Singling out the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a foreign adversary directing investments in American companies to obtain cutting-edge technologies, it said
The recent termination of Tibetan-language broadcasts by Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) is a significant setback for Tibetans both in Tibet and across the global diaspora. The broadcasts have long served as a vital lifeline, providing uncensored news, cultural preservation and a sense of connection for a community often isolated by geopolitical realities. For Tibetans living under Chinese rule, access to independent information is severely restricted. The Chinese government tightly controls media and censors content that challenges its narrative. VOA and RFA broadcasts have been among the few sources of uncensored news available to Tibetans, offering insights
RSS