During Beijing’s lavish parade of arms earlier this month, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said: “Accelerate the building of a world-class military, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty ... and make greater contributions to world peace and development.”
The day before, President William Lai (賴清德) said: “The peace we want is real peace, achieved through strength. Only by strengthening our defense capabilities ... can we truly safeguard national sovereignty and democracy.”
Two rivals. One message. Lai’s peace meant “sovereignty through defense,” while Xi’s peace meant “sovereignty through a world-class military.”
Sovereignty against sovereignty, armies against armies: fireballs on a collision course — both wrapped in the language of “peace.”
In today’s tense world, leaders invoke “peace,” but are really talking about war, because peace is harder, riskier and costlier.
War is easy. It inflames fear, fury, honor and patriotism — emotions that let leaders summon crowds with a shout.
Peace is hard. It requires restraint, empathy, compromise and foresight. To call for war is to hand out candy. To call for peace is to prescribe bitter medicine.
Northern Ireland knew this. During the Troubles, no one sat near restaurant windows for fear of Irish Republican Army attacks. In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement let people choose identity and citizenship. Weapons were laid down.
However, the first to advocate dialogue were branded traitors.
I saw the same in Israel in 1993. Outside the Knesset, crowds roared. Inside, opposition lawmakers pounded fists. Then-Israeli prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a general turned statesman, said: “We, soldiers, who return from blood-stained battlefields ... we, who bury our children day after day ... say to you now, loud and clear: Enough. Enough blood and tears.”
Then opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage and accused Rabin of betraying Israeli.
Two years later, Rabin was assassinated by one of his own. Thirty years later, the region is again a manmade hell.
Leaders love to say “peace through strength,” but history shows that real peace begins with humility.
In Warsaw, former West German chancellor Willy Brandt knelt, taking responsibility for war, resetting ties with Eastern Europe.
In a cathedral in Reims, France, then-French president Charles de Gaulle invited then-German chancellor Konrad Adenauer to a Mass. On that ground, De Gaulle took his former enemy’s hand: Peace begins here. After a century of hatred and three wars, enemies became partners — the foundation of the EU.
Then-South African president F.W. de Klerk, still holding full state power, freed Nelson Mandela in 1990, lifted bans, ended oppression and chose reconciliation.
To kneel. To clasp hands. To release. Soft gestures — yet stronger than armies.
Their lesson to the strong states today: Military might buys isolation, economic drag, social fracture and cycles of revenge that would one day rebound on the strong.
The costs of war dwarf the costs of peace. The burden of peace falls first on the powerful. Peace is not charity or concession — it is the smartest investment a strong nation can make.
History honors not those who start wars, but those who end them.
Does this mean smaller nations are off the hook? Hardly.
In Taiwan, those who talk about peace are often labeled “pro-China” or “selling out Taiwan.” The common responses are: “You want peace? Tell China,” or “China will never give peace, so talking about it is naive.”
Both sound straightforward, but both rest on the same premise: War is entirely China’s responsibility, and only China can decide peace. If Beijing “won’t give it,” Taiwan need not bother.
That logic strips Taiwan of agency, of the right to shape its future.
Are Taiwanese truly that powerless? Must we wait for China to renounce force, end one-party rule, collapse or democratize before we can even plan? If every key lies in Beijing, Taiwan’s sovereignty is meaningless.
Peace is not a naive prayer. It is strategy. Whatever China’s stance — conciliatory or hostile, trustworthy or not — Taiwan must chart its own path. Only a deliberate, layered peace strategy can buy space and time: space for international support and dialogue, time to strengthen defenses and resilience, and room to prevent accidental conflict.
The Taiwan Strait is not just a cross-strait issue. It is a crowded strategic table: China, the US, Japan, South Korea and Indo-Pacific nations. Taiwan, whose survival is at stake, has an even greater duty to ask: How do we keep everyone at the table without anyone flipping it? That is the heart of peace strategy.
Peace is not wishful thinking. It is smart risk management and cannot be outsourced to China.
Lai is right: Deterrence matters. However, should military force be the only arena of competition? In a contest of fists, does Taiwan have the advantage?
Taiwan has other strengths. Semiconductors indispensable to the world, digital trust infrastructure at the core of the artificial intelligence age, and a civil society built on decades of education, culture and democracy.
A society capable of innovation, practicing self-rule, and is clear about the line between freedom and power, and committed to pluralism and dissent, and trained to discern truth from lies.
This is not abstract. It is real resilience — a weapon for dialogue, persuasion, trust-building, even with China’s leaders and people. It is what can prevent the worst outcome: A US–China confrontation that leaves Taiwan in ruins.
War games are important, but they do not bring peace. Without peace games, peace would never come.
Taiwan need not accept the role of “porcupine on the First Island Chain” — a permanent victim spreading fear at home, sowing division, shrinking freedoms, and abroad begging for sympathy and protection.
By strengthening its resilience, Taiwan can be more than a victim. It can be a contributor to civilization, a generator of new visions of peace.
Peace is not weakness and not concession.
Peace is leverage.
Peace is not surrendering and not submission.
It is the choice, the design and the investment Taiwanese make in our own future.
Lung Ying-tai is a writer, essayist and cultural critic in Taiwan. She was the nation’s first culture minister, from 2012 to 2014, in the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou.
The views expressed in this article are her own.
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