Vice President William Lai’s (賴清德) victory in the presidential election was a rejection of China’s pressure and interference and a reaffirmation of Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy.
It also challenges China’s expansionist ambitions in the South and East China seas, where Beijing has asserted its territorial claims and maritime rights, often at the expense of its neighbors.
Taiwan, which controls several islands and reefs in the disputed waters, is strengthening ties with the US and other like-minded countries, such as Japan and Australia, to counter China’s aggression and influence.
China’s first response to Lai’s victory was to poach the allegiance of Nauru, a Pacific island nation that switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China on Monday. This was a symbolic gesture to demonstrate China’s global sway and to isolate Taiwan diplomatically. Taiwan at present has formal relations with only 12 nations, mostly in Africa, Latin America and the Pacific.
However, China also signaled a shift in its approach to Taiwan, emphasizing peaceful unification rather than a military solution. This reflects China’s domestic constraints, such as slowing economic growth, rising social unrest and COVID-19 pandemic impacts. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) might not want to risk a confrontation with Taiwan and the US, which has pledged to support Taiwan’s security and defense under the Taiwan Relations Act and the “six assurances.”
China is likely to continue coercing Taiwan through actions such as military exercises and “gray zone” tactics near the Taiwan Strait, and imposing sanctions and trade barriers on non-essential Taiwanese goods.
However, China would also avoid crossing the red line that both Taipei and Washington respect — no unilateral changes to the “status quo.”
This means China would not militarily annex Taiwan, nor would Taiwan declare formal independence. Both countries would maintain a delicate balance in their cross-strait relations.
Khedroob Thondup is a former member of the Tibetan parliament in exile.
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
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,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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