Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Tuesday rejected the idea of unification with China, saying it is “not an option” for Taiwan.
The Chinese state-run Xinhua news agency earlier reported that in a telephone call on Monday with US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said that “reunification” was part of the post-World War II order.
Cho denied Xi’s claim, saying that Taiwan’s 23 million people would determine their own future, and maintaining the “status quo” is essential for regional security and global economic stability.
Separately, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said that Trump’s silence regarding whether Taiwan was discussed in the phone call suggested that the nation is not being used as a bargaining chip in US-China negotiations. His comments were well-intentioned, but they risk reinforcing a misconception: Neither the People’s Republic of China nor the US have administrative authority over Taiwan, so the nation could never be a bargaining chip at all.
As Cho said, only the people of Taiwan have the right to decide the nation’s future. The idea that Washington could negotiate on Taipei’s behalf reflects the same misunderstanding driving controversy over Trump’s remarks about possible talks with Russia on ending its war against Ukraine. No external power can legitimately determine the fate of a democratic society.
As stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act, the US is legally obligated to help Taiwan maintain its self-defense capabilities and Taipei benefits from arms procurements, as they help to deter Chinese coercion. Although there is no mechanism to force Washington to uphold its commitments, it remains in its strategic interests to prevent a Chinese takeover of Taiwan.
Yet US support would mean little if Taiwanese are unwilling to resist. That is why public opinion on unification matters and why China invests heavily in cognitive warfare aimed at weakening public morale.
Polls have shown minimal public support for unification. National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center in 2023 found that only 7.4 percent favored unification. A Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation poll in December last year showed 13.3 percent support, while another foundation survey last month showed 13.9 percent support. Most Taiwanese prefer the “status quo” or eventual de jure independence.
Some observers have asked whether Taiwanese would resist in a conflict. However, Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), in an interview with Canada’s CBC News, said the unity shown during flood relief efforts in Hualien County after Typhoon Ragasa demonstrated the public’s resilience. Social solidarity in crises often reflects how a society responds to external threats.
Concerns have also been raised about whether the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would support legislation needed to boost defense. While the KMT says there is only “one China,” many of its leaders have publicly rejected unification. Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) long adhered to his “three noes”: no unification, no independence and no use of force.
A potential wild card is KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), who has advocated closer ties with China and reduced reliance on US arms. She has also described people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait as “members of the same family,” raising questions about how the party would position itself on security matters.
China is unlikely to renounce the use of force against Taiwan. While US assistance remains important, it will ultimately be the will of Taiwanese that determines Taiwan’s future. The government must continue to counter cognitive warfare, promote unity, broaden defense partnerships, and make clear to China and the world that Taiwan is not a bargaining chip and would not capitulate in the face of coercion.
On March 22, 2023, at the close of their meeting in Moscow, media microphones were allowed to record Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) telling Russia’s dictator Vladimir Putin, “Right now there are changes — the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years — and we are the ones driving these changes together.” Widely read as Xi’s oath to create a China-Russia-dominated world order, it can be considered a high point for the China-Russia-Iran-North Korea (CRINK) informal alliance, which also included the dictatorships of Venezuela and Cuba. China enables and assists Russia’s war against Ukraine and North Korea’s
After thousands of Taiwanese fans poured into the Tokyo Dome to cheer for Taiwan’s national team in the World Baseball Classic’s (WBC) Pool C games, an image of food and drink waste left at the stadium said to have been left by Taiwanese fans began spreading on social media. The image sparked wide debate, only later to be revealed as an artificially generated image. The image caption claimed that “Taiwanese left trash everywhere after watching the game in Tokyo Dome,” and said that one of the “three bad habits” of Taiwanese is littering. However, a reporter from a Japanese media outlet
Taiwanese pragmatism has long been praised when it comes to addressing Chinese attempts to erase Taiwan from the international stage. “Taipei” and the even more inaccurate and degrading “Chinese Taipei,” imposed titles required to participate in international events, are loathed by Taiwanese. That is why there was huge applause in Taiwan when Japanese public broadcaster NHK referred to the Taiwanese Olympic team as “Taiwan,” instead of “Chinese Taipei” during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. What is standard protocol for most nations — calling a national team by the name their country is commonly known by — is impossible for
India is not China, and many of its residents fear it never will be. It is hard to imagine a future in which the subcontinent’s manufacturing dominates the world, its foreign investment shapes nations’ destinies, and the challenge of its economic system forces the West to reshape its own policies and principles. However, that is, apparently, what the US administration fears. Speaking in New Delhi last week, US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau warned that “we will not make the same mistakes with India that we did with China 20 years ago.” Although he claimed the recently agreed framework
RSS