Despite the challenges and diplomatic reversals, Taiwan is in many ways more connected to the international community today than it was during the ‘diplomatic truce’ with China, and its existence as a sovereign state remains secure
Given the highly publicized loss of two of Taiwan’s official diplomatic allies in December last year and June this year, and the possibility that a few more countries could jump ship in the coming months, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Beijing’s renewed pressure on the international community following Tsai Ing-wen’s election has sparked an irreversible domino-effect of abandonment of the democratic nation-state. But as official allies switch recognition, Taiwan is actively but quietly strengthening unofficial ties with a number of key states.
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A ChinaFile Conversation between Richard Bernstein, Margaret Lewis and J. Michael Cole
There are plenty of things the United States could do, and ought to do, to prevent further isolation of Taiwan. Although Washington has no right to tell other sovereign states how to act on what they believe to be in their national (often economic) interest—such as, in Panama’s case, establishing diplomatic relations with China—it could certainly do more to counterbalance Beijing’s efforts to narrow democratic Taiwan’s international space.
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Absent a working Taiwan strategy, Beijing has ramped up the pressure to isolate Taipei internationally
Panama on Tuesday severed diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan) and established official ties with the People’s Republic of China, in a move that is as much part of Beijing’s efforts to isolate the democratic island-nation as a logical extension of its global economic policy.
Not long after President Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez made the announcement, Panamanian foreign minister Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, on a visit to Beijing, signed a communiqué establishing Panama’s diplomatic ties with China.
“The Government of the Republic of Panama recognizes that only one China exists in the world, the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the only legitimate government that represents all China, and Taiwan forms an inalienable part of Chinese territory,” the statement said.
My article, published today in The National Interest, continues here.
After more than a billion dollars in infrastructure investment, port acquisitions and the promise of riches, Panama has decided to sever ties with Taiwan and to embrace the PRC
Panama last night announced it was establishing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, the latest in countries that have decided to sever ties with Taiwan and recognize the PRC.
President Juan Carlos Varela Rodríguez made the announcement on national networks at 8:00p.m. Panama time.
According to La Estrella de Panama, in recent years China has become one of the three largest users of the Panama Canal. In May 2016 Landbridge Group (China) purchased Margarita Island Port, Panama’s largest port. As part of the US$900 million deal to control Panama’s Margarita Island Port, Chinese interests have vowed heavy investments to upgrade port facilities and build a deepwater port capable of docking larger ships. Landbridge is also the firm that acquired the Port of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory.
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Beijing has repeatedly accused its critics of having a ‘Cold War mentality.’ But is being a Cold Warrior really something to be ashamed of? Not if we’re fighting for the cause of freedom against expansionist authoritarianism
It has been a constant refrain among Chinese officials and party-controlled media over the years to accuse whomever opposes China’s expansionist and militaristic ambitions of having a “Cold War mentality.” Rather than shed light on the actual motivations of Beijing’s critics, however, the sobriquet serves little more than as a blanket term to silence and discredit.
Underlying the accusations is the notion, unrelentingly encouraged by Beijing despite ample evidence to the contrary, that China’s “rise” and emergence as a regional superpower is benevolent, natural, and inevitable. Following that logic, which according to Beijing should not be questioned, any criticism or policy that does not yield to this narrative is invariably proof of containment — the U.S. policy against its Cold War opponent, the Soviet Union — and therefore a Western-led (racist) conspiracy to keep China in a state of subjugation.
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It is nearly impossible to find foreign-language books about Taiwan in Taiwanese bookstores. This needs to be fixed, perhaps with incentives from the government
It’s a complaint that anyone who pays attention to Taiwan has heard time and again over the years: We Taiwanese are isolated, repressed by China, and unfairly ignored by the international community. Although there is absolutely nothing false in that statement, Taiwan’s response to this predicament (the public and the government) has often been far too passive — and this starts here at home.
From the outset, it is important to establish the fact that isolation is the offspring of ignorance, of the audience not knowing of that which is being isolated in the first place. Through a sustained and globe-spanning propaganda campaign, China has been hard at work broadcasting a narrative that, little by little, has succeeded in casting Taiwan into the shadows. By dint of an unrelenting assault on the very symbols of Taiwanese statehood (flags, diplomatic presence, participation at multilateral events, presence at academic settings and in the media, and so on), China has sought to isolate Taiwan by rendering it nonexistent in the global imagination.
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Complaints by Taiwanese crew to the new directive appear to have forced the airline company to reverse part of its order
A directive to all Taiwanese cabin crew on Emirates has caused a backlash among employees after it requested they refrain from wearing the Republic of China (ROC) pin on their service waistcoat and replace it with that of China.
The order, issued on Tuesday by the Uniform Standards And Development Manager at Emirates, states that the order followed instructions by the Chinese government and had immediate effect.
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An analysis of President Tsai's foreign and domestic policies during her first year in office
One year has elapsed since Tsai Ing-wen was inaugurated on 20 May. This article assesses her administration’s performance in three specific foreign policy areas - cross-Strait relations, relations with the US, and relations with the broader international community - and briefly touches on her domestic policy and its possible impact on foreign relations.
This article, published today in the Lowy Interpreter, continues here.
After months of waiting, Taiwan’s Council of Grand Justices rules that it is against the constitution to bar same-sex individuals from getting married
In a landmark case that has attracted worldwide attraction, 14 judges from Taiwan’s Council of Grand Justices on Wednesday ruled that it is unconstitutional for the country to deny same-sex individuals the right to get married,
As it currently stands, the Civil Code stipulates that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. Gay advocates argue that this stipulation violates constitutional guarantees of equal rights.
Wednesday’s decision comes after several years of campaigning by LGBT activists in Taiwan, whose efforts gained momentum in the past year following the election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who campaigned on a platform of marriage equality.
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U.S. arms sales to Taiwan have both defensive and political value. While President Trump’s current infatuation with China makes it unlikely that Washington will allow a major arms transfer in the short term, Taipei should already be preparing for the day when the American president realizes that Beijing isn’t the ally he was hoping for
With U.S. President Donald J. Trump currently fixated on North Korea and convinced that China’s help in the matter is indispensable, the prospects of an early arms sale to Taiwan — always an irritant in relations between Washington and Beijing — have gotten dim.
Following months of campaigning on a stridently anti-China agenda, Trump, now that he is in the Oval Office, has not only softened his stance but appears to have been charmed by President Xi Jinping, as have several officials in his administration who have lucrative relationships with China. Many fear that the Trump administration has now embarked on a strategy to appease the Chinese. For example, soon after Trump’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart at Mar-a-Lago last month, the U.S. Navy was denied permission to continue freedom of navigation patrols in the disputed South China Sea, a move seen by many observers as a yet another of many concessions to China.
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Phobia is at the heart of the campaign against the legalization of same-sex marriage in Taiwan. Science and education can cast a light in the dark
Today, May 17, marks the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT). Celebrated in more than 130 countries around the world, IDAHOT is a reminder that while much progress has been made in protecting the rights of members of the LGBTQI community, much work still needs to be done as revisionist forces join hands globally to overturn some of the accomplishments that have been made in recent years.
Twenty seven years ago, on May 17, 1990, the WHO finally declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder, a decision, based on scientific evidence, that helped dispel some of the myths surrounding homosexuality and that no doubt made it possible for some countries in subsequent years to legalize same-sex unions and adoption of children by homosexual couples.
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The Trump administration will eventually awaken to the fact that Beijing cannot, and has no desire to, deliver on North Korea
Supporters of Taiwan have experienced both elation and dejection in recent months as President Donald Trump first seemed prepared to embrace the democratic island-nation only to turn around and instead engage in a romance with Chinese president Xi Jinping.
The initial optimism resulted in large part from Trump’s campaign rhetoric, which promised a much more rigid line on China and an end to President Obama’s supposedly “weak” way of dealing with the authoritarians in Beijing on issues from currency manipulation to territorial expansion, human rights to cyber espionage. For those who regard geopolitics as a zero-sum game between states, this stance held the promise of creating more space and opportunities for Taiwan.
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Beijing is reportedly planning to implement a ‘new strategy’ to win the hearts and minds of young Taiwanese. Like everything else that has come before it, it’s bound to fail
With every effort to push its unification agenda meeting abject failure in recent years, the Chinese government is reportedly planning a “new approach” to Taiwan affairs, one that it is said will focus on social contact by prioritizing young people and small businesses.
Beijing’s review of its approach to Taiwan, along with an ongoing shakeup of the people in charge of implementing cross-Strait policies, comes after a very frustrating eight years of rapprochement between the two sides under former president Ma Ying-jeou. To Beijing’s dismay, rather than win hearts and minds deepening investment and closer contact achieved the opposite effect and contributed to the consolidation of Taiwan’s idiosyncratic identity — an amalgamation of localist consciousness, historical and geographical factors, liberalism, democracy, as well as Japanese and Western influences — distinct from that which prevails in China.
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The moral case, however justified, has little chance of success in the current environment. Rather than continue with such a strategy, Taiwan needs to approach the matter asymmetrically by appealing to the self-interest of other nations
As Beijing ramps up its campaign to limit Taiwan’s international space in retaliation for Taipei’s refusal to embrace a “one China” formula that has little appeal in Taiwan, the Tsai Ing-wen administration has been struggling to come up with a strategy to make its case for participation in international organizations. In the current global environment, however, more of the same old public diplomacy won’t work.
If Taipei needed any reminder of this, it occurred in Perth, Australia, on Monday, when pressure by Chinese and allied African envoys at a Kimberley Process meeting resulted in the expulsion of the delegation from Taiwan, which has been participating in the KP meetings as an observer since 2007.
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The Australian government had a chance to show leadership. Instead, it was a coward and gave in to Chinese pressure
The Taiwanese delegation at a Kimberley Process meeting in Perth, Australia, was forced to leave on Monday after the Chinese delegation and a number of African delegations aligned with China created a ruckus and asked for the Taiwanese to be expelled.
The four-day Kimberley Process intersessional meeting is chaired by Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop. This is the first time Australia hosts the intergovernmental meeting. Taiwan joined the Kimberley Process, which seeks to end the global trade in “blood,” or conflict, diamonds, as an observer in 2007.
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The CCP party congress later this year will activate survival instincts of Communist officials in order to secure their power. Taiwan and the South and East China Sea could be areas that officials needing a quick success or distraction might turn to
Facing intense pressure on several fronts in the lead-up to the 19th Party Congress in the fall, Chinese President and CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping will likely be compelled to bolster his credentials with the more radical elements—and thereby placate his enemies—within his party. Expect, therefore, an eventful second half of 2017.
At the heart of the coming drama are succession and elite politics within the CCP and their interplay with a series of unprecedented structural challenges facing China on both the domestic and global fronts. Not since the 14th Party Congress in 1992 has the quinquennial CCP reshuffle, in which the future Politburo Standing Committee will be selected and, presumably, the identities of the party members who will replace Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang in 2022 will be revealed, been of such import.
This article, published today in The National Interest, continues here.
Four foreign diplomats on Thursday shared their countries’ experiences with legalization of same-sex marriage with a Taiwanese audience. There’s a lot to be learned from those precedents, and a few things that President Tsai herself should pay heed to
The election of Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and her party’s securing a majority of seats in the January 2016 elections created much optimism within the LGBTQ community about the prospects of soon achieving marriage equality in Taiwan. Much of that enthusiasm stemmed from the fact that marriage equality was a major item in the DPP’s slick election campaign, so much so that after her election, several international media were headlining Taiwan as the first country in Asia likely to legalize same-sex marriage.
Since President Tsai entered office on May 20 last year, some progress has been made on the issue, but the pace has been much slower than expected. After undergoing some modifications, a bill has made its way up the legislative process, and the case has also been brought before the Council of Grand Justices, which will render its verdict on on May 24.
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A Chinese activist’s attempt to defect to Taiwan earlier this week could have shaken the careful balancing act that has prevailed across the Taiwan Strait since May 20 last year
The decision by the Taiwanese government earlier this week to deny political asylum to a Chinese dissident who had left his tour group at the weekend may have saved the Tsai Ing-wen administration serious headaches amid a controversy surrounding the detention of a Taiwanese rights activist in China.
At first glance, Zhang Xiangzhong’s attempt to obtain asylum in Taiwan looked like a straight-up case of a Chinese dissident seeking freedom from authoritarian rule in China. The 48-year-old civil rights activist from Shandong Province claims he had served three years in jail after taking part in the New Citizens Movement (he was arrested in July 2013). Upon his release in July 2016, Zhang says he was under constant surveillance by the Chinese security apparatus.
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The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy and the Permanent Secretariat of the Community of Democracies today opened the 2017 CoD Youth Forum at TFD headquarters in Taipei, bringing together young human rights activists and academics from around the world to discuss the many challenges facing democracy
Titled “Strengthening Youth Participation in Democracies Worldwide,” the three-day workshop is one of the first CoD events to focus specifically on youth and their role in democracy.
Nearly 40 speakers and participants, from countries as varied as Burma, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, Taiwan, Mongolia, Mexico, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Morocco, Pakistan, the U.K. and the U.S., are taking part in this year’s workshop. Among the participants from Taiwan are Lin Fei-fan, Wei Yang, Poyu Tseng and Jennifer Lu.
Among the topics discussed at the panels are “Security and Democracy: Extremism, Cultural Bigotry and the threats to Democracy,” “Unbalanced Globalization: Impact on Democracy,” “Effective Youth Participation – The balance between social movements and political participation,” “Global Youth Solidarity for Democracy,” and “Establishment of a Youth Pillar.”
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Physical violence and denial of access to members of the press are two tactics that have been used with alarming frequency in recent months by civic groups bent on blocking legislation proposed by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party
Same-sex marriage and pension reform are two pieces of legislation that have resulted in escalatory action since late 2016 by civic organizations that are primarily associated with the pan-blue camp. In the former case, conservative Christian organizations have spearheaded efforts to block a marriage equality bill; in the latter, retired personnel, as well as deep-blue organizations such as the Blue Sky Alliance, have led the movement. While marginal, the Alliance has a track record of disruptive behavior and physical violence against officials.
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