Democracies must rework multilateral strategies to counter China’s hegemonic rise amid geopolitical changes wrought by US President Donald Trump, academics and former foreign officials said yesterday at the Ketagalan Forum: 2025 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue in Taipei.
Former Canadian minister of national defense Jason Kenney said that former prime minister Justin Trudeau had allowed close ties with Beijing elites to dictate the Canadian government’s China policy, but Ottawa is becoming alert to the threat posed by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) expansionist agenda on Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.
Trump’s aggressive trade policies have undermined the global consensus that China would serve as the cornerstone of international trade, and made Canada re-examine Beijing’s unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation and industrial espionage, Kenney said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
China’s meddling in Canadian internal affairs, attempts to establish a de facto police force on Canadian soil, tit-for-tat arrests of Canadian nationals for the extradition of Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟) and its involvement in the fentanyl trade further soured public perception of China, he said.
Canada is deepening its cooperation with Taiwan in security and technology, transiting warships and submarines through the Taiwan Strait, and increasing defense spending to a planned 5 percent of GDP from 1.3 percent, he said.
Canada’s natural resources can lessen the world’s dependence on China for critical mineral and energy exports, he said.
Trump’s levying of 35 percent tariffs and threats of annexing Canada have underscored the importance of national defense and security matters to Canadians, Kenney said.
Although Taiwan shares commonalities in culture, history and language with China, the nation should hold on to its dignity and self-identity, safeguard democracy and bolster its national defense, he said.
Japanese academic Tomohiko Taniguchi, formerly an adviser to former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, said the late Abe had planned to visit Taiwan shortly before his assassination to emphasize the importance of Taiwan-Japan cooperation in regional security.
His belief that “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency” stemmed from the understanding that US military bases would lose all strategic value should China take over Taiwan, he said.
A war against Taiwan would embroil the US and Japan, regardless of their wishes and intentions, he said.
The Australian navy’s adoption of Japanese warships, naval collaboration between India and the Philippines, and the British carrier HMS Prince of Wales’ imminent visit to Japan are evidence of the growing recognition that the Indo-Pacific region must band together to counter China, Taniguchi said.
The world’s democracies are telling Xi that he would pay dearly for realizing his “Chinese Dream,” he added.
Asian nations should accept the reality that there would no return to a pre-Trump world order, said Chilamkuri Raja Mohan, a columnist at Foreign Policy and visiting professor at the National University of Singapore’s Institute of South Asian Studies.
Indo-Pacific nations must take joint action to counter the narrative that they have been taking advantage of the US in security matters, and set conditions to encourage continued US engagement in the region, he said.
US participation and the development of new security frameworks would be indispensable for maintaining the balance of power in Asia, he said.
Political developments in the US would not change the inherent conflict of interest between Washington and Beijing, or that between China and nations on its periphery, he said.
Indo-Pacific nations must accept that China’s rising military power would not dissipate naturally and the necessity of developing an asymmetric strategy to counter China’s advantages, he said.
The US political system is not designed for forging consensus, but for the coexistence of distinct factions, he said, adding that regional governments must understand and establish relations with all US politicians to maintain their long-term strategic interests.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
RSS