Taiwan always comes at the end of the list of threats to global security. When analysts discuss threats to world peace, there are three that come up: the war in Ukraine, the Israel-Palestinian conflict ... and the situation in Taiwan. It is in the news because on Saturday, its people voted in the president that Beijing really didn’t want,
William Lai belongs to the DPP party, which has a more assertive approach to Beijing than the Chinese Communist Party would like. And since then, the Chinese have been quite the busy bees, condemning any country which had the temerity to congratulate Mr Lai: that’s the UK, the US and Japan told.
The annihilation of Hong Kong democracy after its return to China didn’t reflect well on us. We don’t want Taiwan to go the same way
China lays claim to Taiwan. And the reason why Beijing doesn’t care for Mr Lai is evident from its Taiwan Office during the election: “He would continue to follow the evil path of provoking ‘independence’ and take Taiwan further away from peace and prosperity, and closer to war and decline”. In other words, Mr Lai wants Taiwan to stay as it is.
But for China’s Xi Jinping, Taiwan is on his legacy wish list; his aspirations for One China will not be complete until Taiwanese democracy has gone the way of Hong Kong’s. We know how that went. Just think of the situation of another Lai, Jimmy Lai, who’s in prison now for his pro-democracy activism in Hong Kong.
So, why should we care about Beijing’s despotic approach? If we’re to be brutally pragmatic, most of the world’s semi-conductors are made in Taiwan. Almost half the world’s container ships pass through the Taiwan Straits, and we’ve just seen what happens to prices after the disruption to shipping in the Red Sea. If China was to assimilate Taiwan by force and the international response included sanctions, and possibly a military response from the US and Japan — it’s the threat of such a response that keeps Taiwan safe, then we shall all pay the price. Literally.
But there’s a little more to it than that. The annihilation of Hong Kong democracy and its independent press after its return to China didn’t reflect well on us. We don’t want Taiwan to go the same way. So we should continue to support Taiwan. And hope Donald Trump feels the same.
