OPINION
In a move that will almost certainly enrage the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – which is to say, it’s the right thing to do – a UK government report has explicitly referred to Taiwan as “an independent country”.
This is a bold move: the CCP is adamant that the independent island state is their territory and that, eventually, they’ll take it back. Too many governments around the world gutlessly play along with Beijing’s acquisitiveness, parroting the “One Country, Two Systems” slogan of the Chinese communists.
The Taiwanese themselves want no part of it. While only a small percentage of Taiwanese support openly declaring complete independence immediately, very few favour ‘unification’. An easy majority favour either maintaining the status quo indefinitely or moving gradually to independence.
That number would surely rise if the Taiwanese could be certain of allies having their back.
Members of Britain’s parliament are telling PM Rishi Sunak that that’s exactly what they should do.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should back diplomatic visits “inward and outward with Taiwan,” according to British lawmakers who regard the island democracy as “an independent country” despite Chinese Communist ambitions to rule it.
The cross-party report states clearly what is anathema to Beijing.
“Taiwan is already an independent country, under the name Republic of China (ROC),” the British Parliament’s primary foreign affairs committee declared in a new report on the United Kingdom’s Indo-Pacific policy. “Taiwan possesses all the qualifications for statehood, including a permanent population, a defined territory, government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states – it is only lacking greater international recognition.”
The only reason for the lack is because too many other countries are cowed by China’s bullying.
The Chinese Communist regime has vowed to subjugate the island and will not have diplomatic relations with any country that treats Taiwan as an independent state. The unveiling of the report drew a rebuke from the Chinese Foreign Ministry, in tandem with British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly’s arrival in Beijing for meetings with Chinese officials.
“The relevant report of the British parliament blatantly referred to Taiwan as ‘an independent country,’ which distorts the facts and is totally misleading,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Wednesday. “We urge the relevant committee of the British parliament to abide by the one-China principle, observe international law and the norms governing international relations, respect China’s core interests, stop sending wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, take concrete actions to fulfill the UK’s political commitments on the Taiwan question and maintain the sound and steady growth of the China-UK relations.”
At least some British lawmakers are echoing the immortal words of Dale Kerrigan:
“It is imperative the foreign secretary steadfastly and vocally stand by Taiwan and make clear we will uphold Taiwan’s right to self-determination,” senior British lawmaker Alicia Kearns, who chairs the committee that produced the report, told Politico’s Europe affiliate. “This commitment aligns not only with British values but also serves as a poignant message to autocratic regimes worldwide that sovereignty cannot be attained through violence or coercion.”
The Colorado Gazette
Which is what Xi Xinping and the CCP are really afraid of, one suspects.
Taiwan is, after all, the direct antidote to the CCP’s dictatorship in Mainland China. The island-state has shown that it is possible for an authoritarian regime to liberalise and become a full democracy. Taiwan was initially ruled as yet another brutal, bloody dictatorship. To damn the KMT under Chiang Kai-shek with faint praise, at least they didn’t kill anywhere near as many people as the CCP did.
More importantly, they eventually took the boot-heel off, to the point that Taiwan today is one of the free-est countries in the world. Taiwan scores 8.68 on the Human Freedom Score; Australia and New Zealand, 8.84 and 9.01, respectively. Japan and the USA tie at 8.73.
China scores just 5.57, just above the bottom 10.
The KMT is still one of the major political parties, currently in opposition, but regularly exchanging government with the current ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party.