Why the Taiwanese want nothing to do with Mr Xi. By Will Glasgow.
Imagine living under the daily threat of having your hard-won democracy snuffed out by Xi Jinping’s Chinese Communist Party. It’s not a thought experiment for Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, nor for any of the proud democracy’s 23 million citizens. It’s their reality. …
“We have been watching the Chinese infiltration attempts, hybrid warfare, disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks, and all that.”
Then there are the military exercises. Last Sunday, Beijing sent another 27 warplanes to menace the island. That makes more than 800 military flights this year — more than double last year. …
The next day, China circulated footage of the maiden voyage of its navy’s new amphibious assault ship, which had set out from Shanghai. The enormous ship includes a landing deck for helicopters and plenty of room below for amphibious tanks. In other words, it is purpose-built for an invasion of Taiwan. …
Xi still speaks of Taiwan as the Communist Party’s rightful spoils after winning the Chinese Civil War, which most historians date as ending in 1949.
People in Taiwan — which has never been ruled by the People’s Republic of China and is now one of the world’s most successful democracies — have a very different opinion. …
Taiwanese democracy is relatively free:
Taiwanese born before 1987 grew up in a martial society where the wrong political ideas would get you thrown in jail — or worse. …
Life in Chiang’s Taiwan was far from the nightmares Mao oversaw on the mainland, which included the world’s deadliest man-made famine and the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. But it was a regime that, if in place today, would be unlikely to score an invitation to US President Joe Biden’s democracy summit next week. …
Martial law ended in 1987 and the Taiwanese freely elected their first president in 1996. …
The Washington-based research centre Freedom House gives Taiwan a score of 94 out of 100, based on a measure of political rights and civil liberties. That puts it just below Australia (97/100), but well above most of the 100-odd countries invited to Biden’s summit, including America itself (83/100).
Xi’s China is on the other “not free” end of the spectrum. It scored 9/100, as will tend to happen when you send millions of people from minority groups into indoctrination camps, command all media to follow the party line and create a cult around an all-powerful leader.
Promoting a fantasy to change reality is such a leftist tactic:
Not surprisingly, polls find that Taiwanese people have close to zero interest in living under Beijing’s rule. It is a reality the Chinese Communist Party refuses to accept, and Xi is the tone-setter for this delusion. …
In 2016, he suspended all diplomatic contact between Beijing and Taipei after President Tsai Ing-wen refused to endorse the idea of a single Chinese nation after she was elected.
As Australians know well, Xi isn’t one for dialogue unless it is entirely on his terms.
Instead of talking, Xi unilaterally proposed for Taiwan a “one country, two systems” formula, modelled on Hong Kong. That idea — unpopular on announcement in Taiwan — was then completely discredited across Taiwan’s political system as, months later, Beijing launched a sweeping crackdown on Hong Kong. Tsai was re-elected in a landslide in 2020.
The Taiwan issue is coming to a boil. Perhaps the battle for Taiwan has already begun. China will be at peak readiness to invade by 2025.
