On Feb. 15, the UK’s Economist Intelligence Unit released its latest report on the state of democracy around the world.
Out of the 167 countries and territories covered by the report, titled Democracy Index 2023: Age of conflict, Taiwan is considered a full democracy, ranking first in Asia and 10th around the world. The index showed that global democracy regressed last year, yet Taiwan countered this trend, a fact that all Taiwanese should take pride in.
The report sheds light on the rising tide of authoritarianism, with groups consolidating power within and forming alliances with authoritarian powers without.
The international order is filled with uncertainty — a challenge that Taiwan also faces.
The nation’s brightly shining democracy carries a dark shadow on its back: To this day, Taiwan is still not a normal country. The global community has yet to recognize Taiwan as a full member, while undemocratic countries proliferate and tie themselves to Beijing’s phrasing of how “Taiwan is part of China.”
Frankly speaking, the UN as well as international organizations have long put democracies at a disadvantage.
The sharpest contradiction is that democratic countries use “one China” policies to appease Beijing in the name of strategic ambiguity, running counter to their own values.
Sinking lower than that, they are regrettably willing to sacrifice their own values for trade, energy resources and food, contributing to the expansion of forces opposed to democracy.
Taiwan’s democracy shows that there is a discrepancy regarding its statehood. Despite its success as a democracy in holding off the COVID-19 pandemic, it was kept out in the cold at the World Health Assembly, leaving Taiwanese with mixed feelings.
The problem seems to be that, from the post-Cold War era to globalization, the West has fallen into a trap as multinationals pursue massive profits.
To further enhance their manufacturing strengths and outperform one another, many have relocated operations to authoritarian states.
While seeking to further develop and expand their production skills, technologies, income and military, they have neglected the need to improve the rights and freedom in these countries.
Apart from lining their own pockets and ideology, authoritarian groups are able to leverage these improvements to their economies and livelihoods to fast-track the legalization and acceptance of despots and dictators.
As Western governments and policies continue to favor multinational conglomerates, these countries have experienced an outflow of industries, finance, technologies and talent.
As a result, Taiwan’s labor, industry, technology and national security secrets are constantly “being stolen.”
Dictators have inserted themselves within Western democratic movements, exporting autocracy and disinformation that directly leads to the ebb of democracy worldwide.
China’s economy took off rapidly and Taiwan found it difficult to resist China’s economic magnetism. In one move, Taiwan fell dangerously close to the risk of its own industries being hollowed out.
There is a saying: “The river flows east for 30 years, then it flows back west for another 30.”
The trajectory of the post-Cold War era to globalization began to change in 2017.
Following Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, the US-China relationship was redefined and a trade war was launched against Beijing. Trump overturned “Nixonism” and US President Joe Biden is continuing along the same path blazed by Trump.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which spanned both administrations, could be called an accelerator for the trade war.
Today, the pandemic has mostly ended. Either Trump or Biden could be re-elected in November, but the relationship between China and the US will not return to what it once was.
During all this time, Taiwan has been extremely fortunate.
When President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was elected to her first term in office in 2016, Beijing swiftly yanked away the welcome mat it threw out for former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) during his eight years in office. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait have kept their distance, yet this gave Tsai’s administration the initiative needed to move forward.
In 2020, her policies effectively halted the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan, the world’s first example of a democracy successfully fending off the coronavirus.
Just as important, during her first presidential term, the nation’s economic reliance on China declined. Tsai’s second term in office also unburdened Taiwan’s economy from the effects of China’s economic slide due to its “zero COVID” policy and foreign divestment from China.
Because of this, as Tsai approaches the end of her presidency, she is able to confidently tell Taiwanese businesspeople that the Taiwan of today is “the world’s Taiwan.”
Tsai was by no means bragging when she said that. The “SS Tsai” has carried Taiwan along on a safe voyage over the past eight years. Whether it has created a stable and long-lasting route for Taiwan moving forward remains to be seen when Vice President William Lai (賴清德) assumes the presidency in May.
As the past five years around the world have shown, new historical forces are changing the geopolitical landscape: The US-China trade war starting in 2018, the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine starting in February 2022, the “long-term COVID” effects on China’s economy starting in 2020 and the Israeli-Hamas war beginning late last year.
What Chinese President Xi Jinping has (習近平) dubbed the “century of change” has turned out not to be the “fall of the West and rise of the East” (with China in charge, no doubt), nor “Chinese stability and Western chaos,” but the collision of China’s digital totalitarianism and economic loss.
In the eyes of the Western world, China’s “new era” — heralded by its breaking of the two-term presidential limit — has transformed the country from an opportunity into a risk. The term “de-risking” has become a keyword.
The “China dream” is seeing setbacks and Xi is now saying that “China’s external environment has changed rapidly in the past five years, uncertainties have increased significantly, especially since the West, with the US at the helm, has tried to limit us with its attempts to contain us on all sides, besieging us, suppressing us, bringing about an unprecedented, severe challenge to our national development.”
Yet, what caused this? Which directive led to this?
As early as 2016, Taiwan, including its government and entrepreneurs, recognized the risks posed by China, sparing the nation from a double-punch to its economy and democratic system.
For many years, Taiwanese politicians and businesspeople have repeated mantras such as “if cross-strait relations are bad, Taiwan’s economy would not be good” or “if cross-strait relations are good, Taiwan’s economy would prosper.” These brainwashing cliches are nothing more than Chinese propaganda, that there are only two paths in cross-strait relations — war and decline or peace and prosperity.
However, since 2016 — particularly in the past five years — the truth has triumphed over such nonsense.
Following the denouement of the embarrassing circus that was the Ma administration, Taiwan began de-risking from China as quickly as it could. Only then was the nation able to avert disasters in areas such as public health, democracy and the economy.
At the end of 2022, Beijing ended its “zero COVID” policy, yet its economic restart has lacked drive and disasters have spread.
China is set to follow in Japan’s footsteps in 1992 when its economic bubble burst. Young Chinese are quickly being reduced to a “lost generation,” and their plight has become a popular topic for discussion in international forums.
With such a background in mind, Taiwan is hastening its pace toward becoming “the world’s Taiwan.” We can put the “Chinese fantasia” to rest.
Translated by Tim Smith
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