cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7296941
[This is an op-ed by Lihsin Liu, Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vancouver, Taiwan’s de facto consul general in Vancouver, Canada.]
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As Canada strengthens trade ties with China, it must also maintain firm guardrails to defend Indo-Pacific security and peace in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing’s growing military pressure, economic coercion, and alignment with Russia threaten global supply chains and stability, making a balance between engagement and deterrence essential for Canada’s interests.
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China has allied with Russia on the frontline of Ukrainian war. China and Russia have grown more closely aligned through forums such as BRICS and expanded strategic cooperation, including China’s increased investment under its “Polar Silk Road” to support trade and access in the Arctic. They have also engaged in intensive grey-zone tactics toward Taiwan, including media infiltration, economic coercion, transnational repression, and the sabotage of undersea cables that are critical to communications across the Western Pacific Rim.
China is attempting to weaken Taiwan’s democracy and undermine the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait. While over half of the global container traffic passes through this international waterway each year, the magnitude of any fallout should not be underestimated. Any conflict that arises from the Taiwan Strait will impact the world including Canada.
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The issue of Taiwan is not an isolated bilateral talking point, but an overwhelming concern on international security for stakeholders in the region. Besides, China has weaponized trade with Canada in the past, and may very well do so again. If Canada undertakes future actions to safeguard Canadian citizens’ human rights from China’s transnational repression, address overcapacity and non-market behaviours originating in China, or defend the rules-based international order in ways that do not align with the PRC’s purported “core interests,” it should expect political and diplomatic pushback.
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As Prime Minister Carney has entered into a new partnership with his PRC counterpart on trade and re-engagement, Taiwan hopes he could also have firm guardrails and express Canada’s support for a peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait after he returns home. Taiwan, like so many other stakeholders in the region, is ready to deepen its partnership with Canada to establish reliable, resilient, and predictable supply chains defined by strong protections on intellectual property and rigorous protocols on fair trade. From critical minerals to liquefied natural gas and carbon capture to artificial intelligence, we can advance the frontiers of innovation and open new pathways to prosperity.
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China is attempting to weaken Taiwan’s democracy and undermine the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.
I keep seeing this claim. But when I peel back the skin, what I end up seeing are American business interests fighting for control of the Taiwanese economy.
Most notably, we’ve got Trump appointee and wife of the Senate Majority Leader, Elaine Chao working on behalf of her family’s enormous trans-pacific shipping empire to guarantee future family profits. We have Justin Sun and Changpeng Zhao, both bitcoin tycoons who lost enormous fortunes when China banned bitcoin mining and discouraged banking on the mainland, pivoting to Taiwan, Indonesia, and Malaysia to continue doing business. Incidentally, over 30% of Taiwan’s billionaires allocate to cryptocurrencies, well above the global average. And then we have a network of lobbyists and influence peddlers - Ballard Partners, for instance - which have made a lucrative practice of trading on US foreign policy hostility to China for personal profits.
So much of this does seem to focus on the US demand for Taiwanese chipsets amid a tech sector finance bubble. I can’t help but wonder where all these concerns go (and who pays a guy like the Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office) if that bubble pops.
But given the trillions invested by US interests in this tiny rebel island, I’m not seeing China as the primary contributor to Taiwanese democratic dysfunction.
Taiwan’s brawling in parliament is a political way of life
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would ‘damage democracy’
Taipei (AFP) – Taiwanese lawmakers tackled and doused each other with water on Friday as President Lai Ching-te’s party tried to block the passage of bills they say could harm the self-ruled island’s “democratic system”.
