In the midst of the current volatile international environment, Taiwan’s relations with the three Baltic states — Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia — have been growing ever closer. This welcome trend stands as a model of deep and forward-looking international cooperation.
During vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) just-concluded visit to Europe, she had an important meeting with the chairpersons of the three Baltic states’ parliamentary foreign affairs committees. As well as demonstrating firm mutual support, this meeting also strengthened the participating countries’ shared determination to fight for freedom and democracy.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been interacting with the Baltic states for a long time. During her two terms as president, she has promoted communication and cooperation with them, making considerable progress in such areas as national defense and cybersecurity. Taiwan and the Baltic states have worked together to strengthen their democratic systems and defend themselves against network cybersecurity threats.
They have also supported each other’s right to be heard in the international arena. Such friendship and cooperation have not only won over important international allies for Taiwan, but also opened a new chapter for the Baltic states in their relations with the Asia-Pacific region.
According to official figures, Taiwan has made a sizeable contribution to helping Ukraine by donating more than US$58 million in financial aid and more than 700 tonnes of humanitarian relief supplies. This contribution bears witness to the Taiwanese public’s firm support for freedom and democracy, and demonstrates Taiwan’s sense of responsibility in the international community.
Cooperation between Taiwan and the Baltic states is expected to grow deeper in matters such as upholding regional security, promoting information exchange and bolstering network defense.
Participation in international organizations and structures such as Estonia’s Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (COE), Latvia’s Strategic Communications COE and Lithuania’s Energy Security COE will enable Taiwan not only to share information and resources with the Baltic states, but also to exert its influence and contribute its strengths to jointly upholding the international order of freedom, democracy and peace.
With Hsiao as our incoming vice president, we have good reason to believe that the existing friendship and cooperation between Taiwan and the three Baltic states will become even firmer, and that she will win more support for Taiwan and opportunities for our country to cooperate with other members of the international community. Taiwan has demonstrated its role as a global citizen that responsibly and actively participates in international affairs.
Without doubt, Hsiao’s trip to Europe has been an important step in this effort. Taiwan’s relations with the Baltic states are not just a partnership based on common values, but also an alliance of global resistance against authoritarianism and for the promotion of democratic values.
Chang Yi-ying is self-employed.
Translated by Julian Clegg
With each passing day, the threat of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan grows. Whatever one’s view about the history, there is essentially no question that a PRC conquest of Taiwan would mark the end of the autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the island’s 23 million people. Simply put, the PRC threat to Taiwan is genuinely existential for a free, democratic and autonomous Taiwan. Yet one might not know it from looking at Taiwan. For an island facing a threat so acute, lethal and imminent, Taiwan is showing an alarming lack of urgency in dramatically strengthening its defenses.
As India’s six-week-long general election grinds past the halfway mark, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s messaging has shifted from confident to shrill. After the first couple of phases of polling showed a 3 percentage point drop in turnout, Modi and his party leaders have largely stopped promoting their accomplishments of the past 10 years — or, for that matter, the “Modi guarantees” offered in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto for the next five. Instead, making the majority Hindu population fear and loathe Muslims seems to be the BJP’s preferred talking point. Modi went on the offensive in an April 21
The people of Taiwan recently received confirmation of the strength of American support for their security. Of four foreign aid bills that Congress passed and President Biden signed in April, the bill legislating additional support for Taiwan garnered the most votes. Three hundred eighty-five members of the House of Representatives voted to provide foreign military financing to Taiwan versus only 34 against. More members of Congress voted to support Taiwan than Ukraine, Israel, or banning TikTok. There was scant debate over whether the United States should provide greater support for Taiwan. It was understood and broadly accepted that doing so
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US