The UK should “establish full diplomatic relations” with Taiwan to signal to Beijing that its territorial ambitions or an attempt to overturn the rules-based international order would not be tolerated, UK House of Lords member Frances D’Souza said on Tuesday last week.
D’Souza made the call via teleconference at a panel jointly held by the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club and National Taiwan University in Taipei.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the UK has become alert to the danger China poses to the Indo-Pacific region, she said.
Photo: screen grab from the Presidential Office’s Web site
The next British government — to be formed after a general election anticipated sometime late this year — is urged to check Beijing by taking measures including publicly condemning “gray zone” tactics and sanctioning Chinese officials, she said, adding that London is advised to decrease the number of Chinese students, ban imports of technologies that could be exploited for spying and recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty.
While the UK establishing formal ties with Taiwan would almost certainly anger Beijing, it would also send a clear message to the world that Taiwan is becoming a de jure state from de facto independence, D’Souza said.
Beijing’s embrace of Sinocentrism in internal and external policies is motivated by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) belief that the international order is biased against China, she said.
This means restructuring the global order, which Xi sees as a mistake of history, to one that puts Chinese interests and values above the rest of the world, she added.
Xi has already formulated an ideology that he would compel the international to accept and set development goals for the next 10 years to enable China to expand its influence in the Indo-Pacific region and throughout the globe, D’Souza said.
China’s short-term goals are achieving stronger ties with Russia and North Korea, and obtaining a leadership role in the UN, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, ASEAN and other international forums, she said.
Beijing intends to seize the US’ role in leading the global system by using its economic and military power to command maritime routes, enabling China to influence and control world trade, D’Souza said.
This strategy is aimed at exerting pressure on surrounding nations and obtaining long-term leases for the use of strategically valuable territory, she said, citing the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka as an example of the latter.
The global community’s message to Beijing must be that the world would not let China forcefully take territories, bully other nations or overturn the existing rules-based international order toward achieving its ambitions, D’Souza said.
Beijing must be warned that persisting on its current path would lead to severe consequences, and that a war between China and the West would be catastrophic for it and the world, D’Souza added.
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