Taiwan’s Secretary of State Joseph Wu has defended the United States Nancy Pelosi’s brief but controversial trip to the island.
Joseph Wu condemned the large-scale military exercises initiated by China around the island on Thursday.
He said Ms. Pelosi’s visit was “extremely important” and that China’s response would not prevent democratic politicians from being invited to Taipei.
Wu also warned that China’s territorial goals go far beyond Taiwan.
For the past six years, Mr. Wu has been the public face of Taiwan’s campaign for greater international recognition. He negotiated Nancy Pelosi’s visit and is now facing its rather terrifying consequences. But Taiwan’s foreign minister has no intention of apologizing. The central point of Mrs. Pelosi’s journey was to draw attention to this often forgotten and little-known island.
China sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually return to Beijing’s control. However, Taiwan sees itself as an independent country and any recognition from world leaders infuriates China: she announced on Friday that sanctions had been imposed on Ms. Pelosi and her family during the visit.
“China has long sought to isolate Taiwan internationally,” says Wu. “For an important leader like President Pelosi, the opportunity to visit Taiwan is important. To raise Taiwan’s profile and let the international community understand that Taiwan is a democracy.
He is quick to add that it was not Taiwan that fueled this crisis. It is Beijing, he says, that is trying to change the rules.
“We want to maintain the status quo,” he said, “that is, Taiwan has no jurisdiction over mainland China and the People’s Republic of China (CCP) has no jurisdiction over Taiwan. It is reality.”
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The minister describes a reality that has existed for 73 years since Chinese nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Taiwan after losing the civil war. For decades, the two rival Chinese dictatorships, one nationalist (Kuomintang or KMT), and the other communist (CCP) watched each other across the Taiwan Strait, neither strong enough to tackle the other.
But over the past 25 years, two things have changed. China has become rich and Taiwan has democracy.
Democracy brought a very different political party to power in Taipei.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is led by President Tsai Ying Wen and her Foreign Minister Joseph Wu. They are Taiwanese through and through, and the values they uphold are not Chinese nationalism, but democracy and human rights. “In terms of democracy, Taiwan is number one or number two in East Asia,”
“Taiwan ranks first in the freedom index, and Taiwan also ranks first in economic freedom.
In fact, Taiwan is classified as “free” by the American non-profit research organization Freedom House (it classified China as “not free” in 2022), and the Brookings Institution widely hails the island’s democratization.
The problem for Taiwan is that China is now rich and with that wealth has built a huge war machine. Meanwhile, Taiwan has relied for too long on the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait and America for its security. Joseph Wu admits that it is no longer sustainable.
“Defending Taiwan is our responsibility,” he says.”We have the will and the ability. We need other countries to provide Taiwan with defensive items, but defending Taiwan is our responsibility, we ask other countries not to sacrifice their lives to protect Taiwan.”
These are courageous words. And the young generation of Taiwan seems to have a much stronger will to fight than their parents. But computer models suggest China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would wipe out Taiwan’s aging armed forces within days. According to Mr. Wu, if this were allowed, it would be a serious mistake that would only encourage China to go further.
He describes China’s behavior as “expansionist”.
“Look at their behavior in relation to Hong Kong or the claim of the East China Sea and the South China Sea. This is the typical expansionism of an authoritarian state. “Countries in this region need to be careful what China is trying to do. Taiwan will not be the last piece of China’s dream of expansionism.
