Jun
26
Why Taiwan Deserves More Support From The West
Filed Under China, Taiwan, Tibet | 5 Comments
The latest Taiwan Communique, published by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, has an interesting essay by Charles Tannock of the British Conservative Party. Tannock notes that while China’s thuggish occupation of Tibet gets much (and well deserved) international attention, “the injustice of Taiwan’s ongoing international isolation has barely stirred a flicker of interest despite Taiwan’s recent presidential election and referendum on UN membership.”
As Tanner explains:
This seeming double standard can be explained partly by a sense of guilt. The West has, for the most part, embraced Kosovo’s independence in an effort to assuage its own culpability for not preventing late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing there. Similarly, much of the world is protesting on behalf of Tibet because countless millions have witnessed China’s brutal suppression of Tibetan culture.
Taiwan, on the other hand, does not grab our attention, because it is stable and flourishing economically. But it has never been part of the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is an unrecognized independenct state with a vigorous democracy and high standards of human rights. Because Taiwan has not allowed itself to become a victim, the world simply does not feel guilty about it, and so ignores it.
Tanner may have a point about Western guilt, but could there be a worse reason to protest Beijing’s thuggish occupation of Tibet than to simply try and make one’s self feel better? Even worse is to ignore Taiwan’s international marginalization at the hands of Beijing because it doesn’t make one feel “guilty” enough to care.
Note that Tanner says guilt only partially explains this situation…here he gets to the good stuff:
The campaigns that the West waged throughout the 1980s in solidarity with democratic forces in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe helped bring about the end of communist domination. A similar commitment to the democratic rights of Taiwanese could have salutary effects in China. Moreover, Taiwan is a natural ally of any party that espouses the values of pluralistic politics, free markets and human rights.
It seems particularly shortsighted, indeed hypocritical, for the US and Britain to seek to spread democracy and human rights throughout the world while failing to recognize and reward the Taiwanese, a people who have embraced these concepts wholeheartedly.
Unquestioning recognition of the “one china” policy sends the message that we appreciate more a country that is a big, communist dictatorship rather than a small multiparty democracy.
Indeed, the U.S. does stubbornly cling to the antiquated “one China” policy. The lack of formal recognition of Taiwan by the U.S. actually lends support to Beijing’s remarkably successful efforts at marginalizing Taiwan internationally. This doesn’t mean there isn’t support for Taiwan in the U.S. government. The U.S. Senate has a Taiwan Caucus with twenty five members and the U.S. House of Representatives Taiwan Caucus has 151 members.
Still, at the end of the day, U.S. policy can be boiled down to appeasing the communists in Beijing at the expense of democratic Taiwan.
Comments
5 Comments so far
[...] Why Taiwan Deserves More Support From The WestThe latest Taiwan Communique, published by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, has an interesting essay by Charles Tannock of the British Conservative Party. Tannock notes that while China’s thuggish occupation of Tibet gets … [...]
[...] Why Taiwan Deserves More Support From The WestThe latest Taiwan Communique, published by the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, has an interesting essay by Charles Tannock of the British Conservative Party. Tannock notes that while China’s thuggish occupation of Tibet gets … [...]
I agree that Taiwan DESERVES more love from the West. As you pointed out, the One China policy is simply too much to give up. It’s not as much that we prefer a big communist country over a small democratic one. It’s that we prefer trading with a big, communist country over not trading with the same big, communist country.
Though this isn’t the best compromise, we currently trade with China and Taiwan and have given (albeit limited) security guarantees to Taiwan.
I agree that Taiwan DESERVES more love from the West. As you pointed out, the One China policy is simply too much to give up. It’s not as much that we prefer a big communist country over a small democratic one. It’s that we prefer trading with a big, communist country over not trading with the same big, communist country.
Though this isn’t the best compromise, we currently trade with China and Taiwan and have given (albeit limited) security guarantees to Taiwan. Unless and until China makes more serious threats to Taiwan’s right to exist, I think we have to accept the lesser of two evils.
Pragmaticallypolitical,
Thanks for taking the time to comment…someday, hopefully, China will be more like Taiwan, and people will look back and examine why it took the U.S. and the rest of the West so long to just say no to one China.
Mike