Ancient Greek historian Thucydides’ saying that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must” explains the cruelty of a state in its pursuit of military power to maintain its continuity and survival in an anarchic world.
Today, more than 2,000 years later, the conditions required for a nation’s survival no longer depend solely on military strength — sometimes the ability to form alliances and exert influence that arises from a country’s political system, cultural values and way of life are more effective than warfare.
After the Democratic Progressive Party returned to power, cross-strait relations have stalled on whether there is a so-called “1992 consensus” or if it was in fact a matter of reaching “no consensus in 1992.”
Since then, China has bullied Taiwan on countless occasions, with the result that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her administration, which have expressed goodwill toward Beijing and remained humble for two years, have been forced to protest against China’s overbearing actions, saying that “we will no longer tolerate” them.
In an interview with Agence France-Presse, Tsai called on the international community to constrain China’s infringements on free and democratic countries.
She also urged other nations to unite with Taiwan in defending itself against China’s expanding hegemonic influence.
Roger Boyes, a columnist on international diplomatic affairs, exhorted the international community not to tolerate China’s bullying of Taiwan in his article titled “China Can’t be Allowed to Bully Democracies.”
Since Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) took over as the fifth-generation leader, China has abandoned the foreign policy strategy of concealing its strength and biding its time devised by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) in response to the drastic changes in Eastern Europe, and replaced it with Xi’s doctrine of “striving for achievement.”
To the outside world, China is promoting a new model of international relations as it expresses its disagreement with the global governance proposed by Western democracies and challenging the liberal democratic world order.
As for its Taiwan policy, China has adopted “namefare” tactics, which, much like “shamefare,” a term coined by Harry Kazianis, a senior fellow for defense policy at the Center for the National Interest, uses non-military means to comprehensively eliminate Taiwan’s status as a de facto sovereign state from UN bodies and non-governmental organizations to global chain enterprises international and airline companies.
Meanwhile, China keeps producing fake news to create the illusion that Taiwan is a part of China.
China’s bullying of Taiwan is the behavior of a hegemonic power on the rise, displaying its confidence and showing that it is not afraid of interference from a democratic alliance led by the US as it strives for hegemony.
It also attacks the distribution of power at the top of the global governance system.
By waging namefare to eliminate the Republic of China and Taiwan, Beijing intends to define actions and regulations it has drafted unilaterally in the international community, drawing a clear-cut red line and making it clear to other countries what its national core interests are.
China could make a comeback to hegemonic power on the back of continuing economic growth, as it plans to once again dominate Asia and establish a new tributary system. This makes it the “most destabilizing factor in Asia,” in the words of former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
Facing China’s namefare bullying, the most effective defense for Taiwan is to persist with its democratic system and open civil society.
In addition to forming an alliance with the international community based on democratic values, Taiwan also needs to take stock of, integrate and take an innovative approach to its soft power, in particular by deploying public diplomacy, using various diplomatic strategies, such as informational, cultural, financial, and elite-to-elite relations, showcasing its political values, culture and way of life, to counter China’s bullying.
After all, as China is acting like the bully by pressuring the world with fake news, it is going against the times.
Masao Sun is a former diplomat.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017