Commentary
Would a just-elected President Joe Biden accept a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s democratically elected President Tsai Ing-wen like President Donald Trump did?
In September, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) H-6 bombers and 16 jet fighters crossed the Taiwan Strait “median line” from three different locations. For the past 70 years, the median line has been the dividing line separating China and Taiwan, but in September, China said “there is no so-called median line in the Taiwan Strait,” ending the agreement that has prevented military incidents.
China is constantly crossing the median line perhaps because they’re going to attack Taiwan, diverting attention from China’s virus that’s destroyed every country’s economy, and China will then occupy Taiwan. What would a President Biden do about this? The Chinese leaders think nothing. It’s why CCP ruler Xi Jinping could pull the trigger.
The Taiwanese are grateful to President Trump for signing into law the Taipei Act, which requires the State Department to support Taiwan’s diplomatic relations around the world, and for signing the Taiwan Travel Act, allowing high-level visits between U.S. and Taiwanese officials. It’s wrong Taiwan’s democratically elected president can’t participate in formal diplomatic meetings. Would a President Biden make it right?
Taiwan did the best job of any country at preventing the CCP virus from infecting their island nation. Taiwan closed its borders early and did well-organized contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing that eliminated their few initial clusters. Taiwan didn’t need a lockdown. The Taiwan Model should be applauded and rewarded. The world wants Taiwan to be a part of the global community. It deserves membership into all international institutions and has earned the right for full participation in all global organizations.
In August, the Trump administration announced the United States was establishing a new bilateral economic dialogue with Taiwan focused on technology, health care, energy, and more. Taiwan is hoping to get a free-trade agreement with the United States.
State mouthpiece China Daily reported in September that, according to China’s General Administration of Customs, cross-Straits trade between China and Taiwan this year from January to August reached $158.93 billion, up 10 percent year-on-year. In August alone, Taiwan’s exports to China and Hong Kong accounted for a record high 46.39 percent of the total. Taiwanese businesses increased their investment in China by more than half from January to July, compared with the same period last year. Cross-Straits trade has become more intertwined now than before China’s CCP virus pandemic. Would a President Biden help Taiwan decouple from China or throw up the white economic surrender flag?
Trump is selling Taiwan the air-to-ground missile AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER and a truck-based rocket artillery system. By law, the U.S. government is required to provide weapons of a defensive nature to Taiwan, or would a President Biden let the Taiwanese suffer a major setback and allow communist China to destroy Taiwan’s democracy?
Taiwan has been a sovereign, self-ruling democratic island nation for decades. Taiwanese love their free speech, freedom of the press, independent judiciary, and rule of law. They don’t want the CCP taking away their hard-fought freedoms. China’s state-run fake news media says, “Taiwan’s people want to be ruled by China.” That’s a lie. The last thing the Taiwanese want is to be governed by China’s communist regime; it’s the biggest threat to Taiwan’s way of life.
Taiwan’s democracy shines like a beacon to China’s people. Its freedoms have won the hearts and minds of China’s people, and Taiwan is a model for China’s future development. China’s people want freedom and human rights. The Chinese Dream is democracy.
The United States, UK, EU, every free country, and Taiwan share the same democratic values. President Jimmy Carter switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979. Taiwan has never been a part of communist China. There’s one China, one Taiwan—two different countries. That’s the way it is. Taiwan’s independence is a historical inevitability. Taiwan should be admitted into the United Nations. Make Henry Kissinger’s mistake right; do the right thing and end the one-China policy fiction.
To prove the Taiwanese want nothing to do with China’s no-human-rights governance system, they elected Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party to be their president instead of the Beijing-leaning opposition party Kuomintang (KMT), because Taiwanese hate China’s authoritarian, anti-civil rights communist system. Even the KMT is finally fed up with China’s coercion and bullying, and now they’re urging the island’s government to actively pursue restoration of formal diplomatic ties between the United States and Taiwan, and requesting U.S. official assistance to defend the island against any military action from China.
Would a President Biden restore full diplomatic and military relations with democratic Taiwan? Will Biden send high-level officials to meet with Taiwan’s democratically elected President Tsai-Ing wen?
Before China attacks Taiwan, would a President Biden explicitly state his willingness to defend Taiwan from China’s military attack, or is Joe Biden too weak to fight a war to resist CCP aggression?
Jeremy Taylor produced and directed the award-winning documentary “Burma: An Indictment” and founded FilmFestivalToday.com.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
