Jubilee Post News & Views
Special Desk
Taiwan will defend its democratic way of life, President Tsai Ing-wen said in a defiant speech amid heightened tensions. We will not bow to pressure from China, the president said.
Her remarks on Taiwan’s National Day came after China’s President Xi Jinping vowed to fulfil reunification. China denounced Tsai’s speech, saying it incited confrontation.
Taiwan considers itself a sovereign state, while China views it as a breakaway province. This is the bone of contention. Beijing has not ruled out the possible use of force to achieve unification.
China has sent a record number of military jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone in recent days. Three Chinese planes, including two fighter jets, even crossed into the zone, Taiwan’s defence ministry said.
China calls for ‘One China’ policy which is the diplomatic acknowledgement of China’s position that there is only one Chinese government. Under the policy, the US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than the island of Taiwan, which China sees as a breakaway province to be reunified with the mainland one day.
The One China policy is a key cornerstone of Sino-US relations. It is also a fundamental bedrock of Chinese policy-making and diplomacy. However, it is distinct from the One China principle, whereby China insists Taiwan is an inalienable part of one China to be reunified one day.
Tsai was re-elected by a landslide in 2020 on a promise to stand up to Beijing. In her speech she said Taiwan was standing on democracy’s first line of defence. She said the island would not “act rashly” but would bolster its defences to “ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us”.
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That path, she said, offered neither a free and democratic way of life for Taiwan nor sovereignty for its 23 million people. Tsai also repeated an offer to talk with Chinese leaders on an equal footing, a suggestion Beijing has so far rejected.
Despite the recent heightened tensions, relations between China and Taiwan have not deteriorated to levels last seen in 1996 when China tried to disrupt presidential elections with missile tests and the US dispatched aircraft carriers to the region to dissuade them.
