Two events happened on Friday last week that, while unrelated, are indicative of the direction President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration seeks to take Taiwan.
The first was Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) on Friday addressing the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China’s (IPAC) annual summit in Brussels. It was significant, as it was the first time a senior member of the government delivered a speech to a European legislature. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) was also present at the summit.
The nation has had many dealings with the inter-parliamentary group, which was founded in 2020. Last year’s annual meeting was held in Taipei, during which Lai gave a speech.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲), who was also present during this week’s summit, was officially invited to join the group in 2023.
The second event was the launch of the Northeast Asia Economic and Security Cooperation Association, a new legislative caucus aimed at bolstering economic and security ties between Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. This initiative, too, is significant in that it is the largest caucus to date, with 35 cross-party legislators, signaling a welcome consensus on the importance of building ties with the two important regional partners.
It is because of the parliamentary-level nature of IPAC that Hsiao was able to attend a meeting at the European Parliament as vice president, hovering just below the level of provocation that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might feel justified in railing against.
With outreach to IPAC, which brings together international partners concerned about the challenges of an increasingly disruptive China, and the association concentrating on securing “non-red” supply chain resilience with like-minded neighbors wary of the dangers of reliance on the whims of the CCP, a unified policy is emerging: dealing with China on a sub-government, parliamentary level. That is less exposed to Beijing’s anger against efforts by the administration to push for formal ties with other governments, or to the CCP intimidating foreign governments to comply with its “one China” principle.
There is another level at which this policy is working: With Washington under US President Donald Trump expecting allies to stand more on their own, the Lai administration is looking to reinforce ties with like-minded nations elsewhere. It is doing this via IPAC, which is part of a wider charm offensive led by Lin in Europe, and through increased engagement and regular meetings with partners and parliamentarians in South Korea and Japan on the regional level, as warmer relations between South Korea and Japan are moving into institutional stability under new administrations. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung signaled a commitment to deepen ties between the two countries when they met at the APEC summit in South Korea.
Hsiao in her speech framed the ties that bind Taiwan with IPAC within the context of shared values and of democracy against authoritarianism.
During the alliance’s inaugural meeting, convener and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) said the focus of the alliance was not on building friendly ties per se, but on business — on action to create opportunities, pool strengths and bolster resilience.
The objective remains the same: To build upon a shared desire to ensure peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, in what all participants understand would be a long-term contest with the CCP.
Chinese state-owned companies COSCO Shipping Corporation and China Merchants have a 30 percent stake in Kaohsiung Port’s Kao Ming Container Terminal (Terminal No. 6) and COSCO leases Berths 65 and 66. It is extremely dangerous to allow Chinese companies or state-owned companies to operate critical infrastructure. Deterrence theorists are familiar with the concepts of deterrence “by punishment” and “by denial.” Deterrence by punishment threatens an aggressor with prohibitive costs (like retaliation or sanctions) that outweigh the benefits of their action, while deterrence by denial aims to make an attack so difficult that it becomes pointless. Elbridge Colby, currently serving as the Under
The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday last week said it ordered Internet service providers to block access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書, also known as RedNote in English) for a year, citing security risks and more than 1,700 alleged fraud cases on the platform since last year. The order took effect immediately, abruptly affecting more than 3 million users in Taiwan, and sparked discussions among politicians, online influencers and the public. The platform is often described as China’s version of Instagram or Pinterest, combining visual social media with e-commerce, and its users are predominantly young urban women,
Most Hong Kongers ignored the elections for its Legislative Council (LegCo) in 2021 and did so once again on Sunday. Unlike in 2021, moderate democrats who pledged their allegiance to Beijing were absent from the ballots this year. The electoral system overhaul is apparent revenge by Beijing for the democracy movement. On Sunday, the Hong Kong “patriots-only” election of the LegCo had a record-low turnout in the five geographical constituencies, with only 1.3 million people casting their ballots on the only seats that most Hong Kongers are eligible to vote for. Blank and invalid votes were up 50 percent from the previous
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi lit a fuse the moment she declared that trouble for Taiwan means trouble for Japan. Beijing roared, Tokyo braced and like a plot twist nobody expected that early in the story, US President Donald Trump suddenly picked up the phone to talk to her. For a man who normally prefers to keep Asia guessing, the move itself was striking. What followed was even more intriguing. No one outside the room knows the exact phrasing, the tone or the diplomatic eyebrow raises exchanged, but the broad takeaway circulating among people familiar with the call was this: Trump did
RSS