The streets of Tokyo over the past few days could have been mistaken for a little Taiwan. Resounding cheers for Taiwan filled the Tokyo Dome at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) last week, with fans packing the stands. Among them was Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰), whose low-profile visit to the stadium on Saturday inevitably attracted attention.
Cho’s seemingly simple act of “baseball diplomacy” broke new ground, overcoming some significant and long-standing political taboos.
The trip was the first time that a sitting premier has stepped foot on Japanese soil since the severing of official relations with Taiwan 54 years ago — something of a home run for high-level visits in the Taiwan-Japan relationship.
The last time an official of equal rank made such a visit was in 1970, when then-premier Yen Chia-kan (嚴家淦) attended Expo ’70 in Osaka. Since then, Taiwan-Japan relations have remained necessarily understated and informal, limited under the shadow of Tokyo’s “one China” policy.
However, more than half a century has passed since then. Cho’s quick trip to Japan, even in his capacity as a private citizen and baseball fan, could never have been achieved without the tacit understanding and support of high-level officials in Taiwan, Japan and, indeed, the US.
The development gives further diplomatic weight to Japan’s affirmation that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency,” and is a tangible confirmation of Taipei’s position of strategic resilience, as it shuttles between friendly nations in the Indo-Pacific region.
Similar unspoken agreements are also emerging in the South Pacific. The Chinese-language United Daily News reported that General Lu Kun-hsiu (呂坤修), commander of the army headquarters, made several secret trips to the Philippines. That is an important piece of the puzzle for military cooperation in the region.
Lu’s visits reportedly involved negotiations on military base upgrades and cooperation on ammunition supply chains. That would demonstrate that the defense of the first island chain is gradually turning from a matter for individual countries to manage on their own into a collective consensus among Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines under US integration.
Between Cho’s political breakthrough in the north and Lu’s military engagements in the south, Taiwan’s efforts in flexible and comprehensive diplomacy are deftly transforming geopolitical threats into grounds for regional defensive partnerships.
Ironically, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and other Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians have been so preoccupied with calculating the minutia of public funds to be reimbursed that they have, in their shortsightedness, failed to see the forest for the trees and recognize the diplomatic ground being broken.
Of course that shallowness stems from the KMT’s collective anxiety over its own incompetence in diplomacy — a weakness that is rooted in its fear and need to appease China.
The government’s unwavering diplomatic advancements have been met with quibbling over batters paying for their bats. However, in the end, responding to geopolitical breakthroughs with smear tactics only highlights one’s own deficiencies.
Taiwan is continuing to stride confidently onto the world stage. Taiwan must win its diplomatic battle to defend national sovereignty, and ensure that our flag of democracy stands firm against the waves of the Pacific.
Yang Chih-chiang is a teacher.
Translated by Gilda Knox Streader
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