Having lived through former British prime minister Boris Johnson’s tumultuous and scandal-ridden administration, the last place I had expected to come face-to-face with “Mr Brexit” was in a hotel ballroom in Taipei. Should I have been so surprised?
Over the past few years, Taiwan has unfortunately become the destination of choice for washed-up Western politicians to turn up long after their political careers have ended, making grandiose speeches in exchange for extraordinarily large paychecks far exceeding the annual salary of all but the wealthiest of Taiwan’s business tycoons. Taiwan’s pursuit of bygone politicians with little to no influence in their home countries begs important questions as to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ strategy for ensuring support among critical Western allies.
Johnson left office in disgrace following the mass resignation of nearly his entire government over cascading waves of scandals and no longer holds any position of influence in his Conservative Party, now in the opposition. His brief visit to Taiwan was to address the Ketagalan Forum, hailed by the ministry as the country’s premier annual security dialogue, organized with the Democratic Progressive Party-leaning Prospect Foundation.
In his speech, which he implied might have been written with the assistance of ChatGPT, Johnson frequently referred to Taiwan as a “segment of the Chinese population,” and mistakenly said that a majority of Taiwanese do not view their country as sovereign. After naively suggesting that the solution to the cross-strait dispute would be to ask Beijing if they really wanted Taiwan, he nodded toward a “one country, two systems” framework and suggested that Taiwan should “invest massively” in China, even though “one country, two systems” has no support among the Taiwanese public, and the Taiwanese economy is moving rapidly to decrease investment in China in favor of friendlier markets in the US, Japan and Europe.
A further comment denigrating the role of migrant caregivers was an unnecessary affront to the thousands of Taiwanese who rely on predominantly Southeast Asian care workers.
By contrast, a keynote by French politician Francois de Rugy highlighted Taiwanese’s absolute rejection of “one country, two systems” and the “popular sovereignty” expressed through Taiwan’s democracy. De Rugy did his homework, but why did the ministry put so much effort into bringing Johnson to Taiwan without educating him on the nation’s political situation?
The ministry has not said how much Johnson was paid to deliver this speech, but the former prime minister has spent most of his time since leaving office collecting speaking fees in the hundreds of thousands of pounds, including ￡253,880.90 (US$341,640) in 2022 from a mysterious Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency venture that soon vanished under accusations of defrauding investors. Amid reports of such eye-popping sums, how can Taipei expect its payment to be of any influence on someone who is equally happy pocketing Chinese money?
The ministry has clearly not learned its lessons from previous attempts at courting expired British prime ministers. In 2023, it paid Liz Truss, who resigned in disgrace as the UK’s shortest-ever serving prime minister, more than US$100,000 to deliver a speech in Taipei. It was later revealed that she was simultaneously lobbying the British government on behalf of Chinese corporations to export sensitive anti-land mine technology to China, which obviously would be intended for use in an invasion of Taiwan.
The excessive payments might be justified if steered toward figures of high or rising influence, but neither Johnson nor Truss holds a seat in parliament or even sway over a faction of their minority party. Instead, they are highly polarizing and discredited politicians, and by associating with them Taiwan is driving away Europeans scarred by Brexit along with a UK now under Labour Party governance.
There is no shortage of influential leaders and rising stars among the Labour and the Conservatives who are strongly supportive of Taiwan, yet Taipei persists in courting the has-beens over the “will-bes.” Sarah Champion, a Labour lawmaker who heads the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group, or British Shadow Minister for Home Affairs Alicia Kearns, a staunch critic of China, would have been excellent alternative keynote speakers.
The ministry’s inability to read British politics parallels similar missteps in Washington. Last year’s keynote speakers at the Ketagalan Forum, handsomely paid hundreds of thousands of US dollars, were former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, two has-beens who would reliably say anything pro-Taiwan, but have no cachet today in Washington, with US President Donald Trump stating publicly that he would never hire anyone who has worked for the two arch-neoconservatives.
Where does Taiwan go from here? First, the ministry needs to pursue a more balanced strategy that cultivates supporters from both left and right in its most critical allies, focusing on rising stars rather than has-beens. Second, President William Lai (賴清德) needs better advice and guidance on emerging trends in Western politics than he is receiving from Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮).
Recent friction in the Taiwan-US relationship is illustrative of a pattern that is doomed to continue if Taipei does not heed rising populist factions across the political spectrum, which is set to repeat itself in London and other Western capitals if Taiwan does not change course. Finally, Taipei must engage in more strategic public diplomacy directly with Western publics, telling Taiwan’s story and making the case for an enduring commitment to the nation.
Sasha B. Chhabra is a visiting fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taipei.
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