Four days after President William Lai’s (賴清德) Double Ten National Day speech reiterating that “the Republic of China [ROC] and the People’s Republic of China [PRC] are not subordinate to each other,” China on Monday held a “Joint Sword-2024B” military drill that surrounded Taiwan, claiming it was “a stern warning to the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces.”
While it was widely expected and predicted that China would have a strong reaction to display its displeasure regardless of what Lai said in his speech, its drill has seen an international audience focus on Lai’s speech, and also lit a backfire on China’s ambitions on cross-strait “unification” and regional domination.
In the speech, Lai mentioned the historical fact that “the ROC was established 113 years ago by a group of people who rose and overthrew an imperial regime, hoping to establish a free, democratic nation of equality and benevolence,” following his previous “motherland” comment in a ceremony ahead of the speech to highlight the truth that the 75-year-old PRC cannot be the “motherland” of the democratic ROC.
Although the ROC government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 after the forces of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) were defeated by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Lai in the speech reminded Taiwanese not to forget “the Battle of Guningtou 75 years ago” and “the Aug. 23 Artillery Battle 66 years ago,” in which the ROC had defeated the PLA’s attempts to invade Taiwan.
Those battles clearly highlight that the PLA never managed to gain control of Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War and that the PRC has never controlled or ruled Taiwan for even a day.
“China has no right to represent Taiwan,” Lai said.
Lai’s speech has been widely considered to be restrained, repeating well-known facts and stances on Taiwan’s position, and extending goodwill by offering dialogue with China.
It took five days for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office to release a statement proclaiming Lai’s speech to be another “two country” assertion, but failing to deny the historical facts highlighted by Lai.
Since then-US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, China has conducted at least four large military exercises surrounding Taiwan. A report released by the Taiwanese Opinions Foundation showed a trend of more Taiwanese objecting to cross-strait unification, which this year reached a new high of more than 90 percent of Taiwanese feeling loathing or apathy toward China, and 77 percent against unification, 23 points higher than a survey in 2016.
China’s drill has been seen as a show of its military muscle that aims to deter possible international aid to Taiwan in a military conflict, but it has caused more support for Taiwan from more than 40 like-minded nations, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The US Department of State said that “China’s response with military provocations to a routine speech is unwarranted,” while democracies such as Japan, France and UK all emphasized the importance of peace in the Taiwan Strait and opposed “unilateral actions that change the status quo.”
In the past year, the warships of 10 nations have transited the Taiwan Strait, including the first German ships in two decades and the unprecedented passage of a Japan Self-Defense Forces naval destroyer.
In additional to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and AUKUS, a growing number of other military collaborations among like-minded democracies in the Asia-Pacific region, such as the Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement, have also arisen, aiming to contain China’s provocative military expansionism.
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