Taiwan offers the global democratic community much more than just semiconductors, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told an audience at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution in San Francisco on Thursday, while defending her “boring” leadership style as a necessary asset to find common ground.
Tsai spoke about how Taiwan has managed differences, responded to crises and built societal resilience.
Discussions about Taiwan often focus on semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), cross-strait relations, the risk of conflict and occasionally touch on its popular food and drinks, she said.
Photo: CNA
However, those topics are only part of the story, Tsai said, pointing to the nation’s 23 million people and their experience of building a democracy under challenging circumstances.
“That experience has shaped who we are and continues to shape how we approach the future,” she said.
Democracies face growing challenges from outside and within, as increasingly sophisticated authoritarian influence campaigns coincide with domestic populism and political polarization, she said.
The domestic divisions make it harder to reach a consensus on how to respond to outside threats, she added.
Tsai also warned that advances in AI have lowered language barriers, making it easier to spread disinformation across borders.
“Ill-intentioned actors, especially from outside, use social media platforms to spread false and misleading information to drive a wedge between fellow citizens, between societies and their governments, and even between countries,” she said.
However, decades of external pressure and intense domestic political competition have taught Taiwan how to safeguard democracy while keeping its institutions open and its society resilient, Tsai said.
Taiwan has moved from authoritarian rule to its first direct presidential election in 1996 to become the vibrant democracy it is today, she said.
“That transition taught us how to confront deep political differences without allowing those differences to make democratic progress impossible,” she said.
Managing relations with China has required preparedness and restraint, Tsai said, adding that decades of pressure from Beijing have made Taiwan more resilient and pragmatic.
Although Taiwanese hold differing views on what form relations with China should take, there is a consensus on maintaining the cross-strait “status quo,” avoiding unnecessary provocation, and protecting Taiwan’s democracy and security, she said.
“Democracy, resilience and partnership are the foundation of our collective future,” Tsai said, adding that no amount of threats or coercion would shake Taiwan’s determination to engage with and contribute to the world.
While some people described her as “boring” during her time as president, Tsai said that “being boring can be useful” in an era of increasing political polarization in which provocation attracts more attention than restraint.
This is especially true when needing to ensure Taiwan’s security while finding enough common ground to keep democracy moving forward, she added.
Tsai arrived in the US on Monday and is scheduled to return to Taiwan tomorrow.
Additional reporting by Su Yung-yao
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