Fifty-six percent of respondents in a poll in the US said they would support the US and its allies coming to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion, up from 47 percent in August last year, Newsweek reported on Friday. Only 12 percent opposed the idea.
“You’re seeing a shift in American public opinion from the ‘don’t know’ and ‘no’ sections to the ‘yes’ side,” Raymond Kuo (郭泓均), director of the Taiwan Policy Initiative at Rand Corp, told the magazine.
The survey also found that 41 percent viewed China as “the greatest threat” to the US, exceeding the 35 percent who said Russia.
Other polls have also indicated that there is rising anti-China sentiment among Americans, including one by Gallup that found a record low 15 percent of US adults viewed China favorably, down from 72 percent in 1989. A survey by The Economist and YouGov showed that three-quarters of respondents viewed China as either an enemy (40 percent) or unfriendly to the US (35 percent). Prior to 2020, 20 percent viewed China as an enemy.
This shift could be partly due to international recognition of Taiwan as a democratic ally and economic partner, possibly exacerbated by China’s human rights record in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, its threat to global economic well-being and democratic values, and its attempts to disrupt the international order.
By embracing Russia in an “unlimited friendship” instead of condemning the invasion of Ukraine, China has proven itself to be an accomplice of authoritarian hegemony. Unsurprisingly, European public opinion of China has also plummeted.
Countries are increasingly naming China as a “threat” in national reports, not merely a “competitor.” In Asia, Japan and South Korea list China as a major threat. Polling has shown that China is perceived as India’s greatest threat (43 percent) due to a border dispute, while a vast majority of respondents in Australia saw China a military threat to the country with a trust in China at record low.
Australia fell out with China after Beijing imposed trade barriers on Australian exports after a spat about the origins of COVID-19. Now more Australian are concerned about China’s territorial ambition in Taiwan strait, South China sea and the Pacific region.
China’s military expansion in the South China Sea has raised alarm among countries in the region. The Philippines has expanded its military cooperation with the US, launching their largest-ever joint drill and reopening bases to Washington.
While ignoring his nation’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian (黃溪連) on Friday last week “advised” Manila not to keep “stoking the fire by giving the US access to Philippine bases near Taiwan,” saying that it should “unequivocally oppose Taiwan independence” if the country “cares genuinely about the overseas Filipino workers in Taiwan.”
Huang’s remarks provoked outrage in the Philippines, with some lawmakers demanding that he be expelled. “China seems to be issuing a threat not just against the Philippines as a country, but to innocent overseas Filipino workers who were obligated to work abroad to create better lives for their families,” Philippine Representative France Castro said.
The Philippine Defense Council said that cooperation with the US aims to improve their defense capabilities. Some lawmakers said that China should follow the 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, which rejected China’s claims in the South China Sea.
Resentment over China’s expansionism is on the rise and for good reason: Beijing’s coercive behavior in the Taiwan Strait is part of its ambition for a global authoritarian hegemony.
Like-minded countries should establish a defense network, not only to aid Taiwan if the need arises, but to protect other countries from China’s aggression.
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Owing to the combined majority of the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), the legislature last week voted to further extend the current session to the end of next month, prolonging the session twice for a total of 211 days, the longest in Taiwan’s democratic history. Legally, the legislature holds two regular sessions annually: from February to May, and from September to December. The extensions pushed by the opposition in May and last week mean there would be no break between the first and second sessions this year. While the opposition parties said the extensions were needed to
RSS