Canada should embrace democratic, imperiled Taiwan now, experts say
In Canadian diplomatic lore, October 13, 1970 will likely be remembered for a single momentous event.
That was the day Canada became one of the first Western countries to officially recognize the People’s Republic of China, 20 years after the Communist Party took control of the world’s most populous nation.
But the dramatic gesture had a less-noticed footnote, too. As the government made its announcement in Parliament that morning, the nationalist Chinese — the Taiwanese — quietly shuttered their Ottawa embassy, the ambassador heading to the city’s Uplands airport for a final flight out.
Tearful Chinese Canadians bid Yu Chi Hsueh farewell, the Ottawa Citizen reported at the time, as the ambassador insisted he had tried hard to stave off Canada’s “deplorable” move.
“Somehow, I have failed the mission.”
The decision by then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau made sense at the time, recognizing the reality of what had happened in mainland China, and of a corrupt dictatorship in Taipei.
A half-century later, Canada, like most nations, still doesn’t recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Taipei again has diplomats here, but they’re part of a trade office, not an embassy, and are effectively banned from Global Affairs Canada’s Pearson building.
Yet much else is different. Taiwan now has a lively democracy that mirrors Canada’s values. A resurgent China has angered many Canadians with its alleged “hostage diplomacy,” faced mounting condemnation for humanrights abuses and issued veiled threats to take back Taiwan by force.
That all leads some China and Taiwan watchers, including at least three former Canadian government representatives to the country, to call for change. It’s time Ottawa shed a policy crafted during the Cold War, they say, and try to draw Taiwan deeper into the community of nations, perhaps even push one day for its recognition as a sovereign country.
Full recognition now might disastrously poison relations with China, Canada’s secondbiggest trading partner, and heighten tensions in the region, most analysts agree. But even without that step, they argue Ottawa could go further in embracing a democratic nation menaced by the world’s newest, totalitarian, super power.
“There’s more that we could do. We’ve been excessively cautious and deferential to China,” said Hugh Stephens, an Asia Pacific Foundation fellow and former head of Canada’s trade office in Taiwan. “We’ve tended to selfcensor more than we really needed to.”
That pandering seemed to be highlighted by a recent media report alleging that the federal government had threatened to cut off funding to the Halifax International Security Forum if it gave its highest award to Tsai Ingwen, Taiwan’s president. As the story blew up, the Liberals denied they had issued such a threat, and supported a Conservative motion this week to support Tsai and the forum.
“The world has to just recognize that Taiwan, 23 million people, is an independent country,” said Scott Simon, a University of Ottawa professor and Taiwan expert.
“Taiwan is not part of the People’s Republic of China, it has never been part of the People’s Republic of China,” he added. “They’re threatening to annex a territory they’ve never controlled, and they’re threatening to use military means if necessary … We really should not accept this.”
Deeper trade ties, permitting actual encounters between top government representatives and encouraging other people-to-people interaction would all help, say analysts like Kathleen Mackay. She was head of Canada’s Taipei trade office from 2012 to 2015.
Behind Canada’s current stance is Taiwan’s turbulent history of the last hundred years or so. Having been part of China’s Qing dynasty from the 17th century on, the island of Formosa, 160 kilometres off the southern coast of mainland China, fell into Japanese hands in 1895 after the first Sino-japanese war.
The Kuomintang or nationalist government occupied the island after the Second World War, and when the nationalists lost the Chinese civil war to the Communist Party in 1949, retreated there completely.
The Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek continued to insist its Republic of China was the true government of the mainland, too. In Taiwan, it imposed martial law that lasted until 1987 and for decades ruled with an iron fist, its forces killing thousands of Chiang opponents.
The Republic of China had an embassy in Canada from 1942 until that day in 1970. It was expelled from the United Nations in 1971, and the U.S. joined a growing number of other countries to recognize the People’s Republic as China’s one ruler in 1979.
There were more indignities from Canada in 1976, when the Pierre Trudeau government threatened to deny visas to Taiwanese athletes heading to the Montreal Olympics if they insisted on competing for the “Republic of China.”
But in Taiwan, democracy started to flourish in the 1980s, with the first direct election for president in 1996. Power has since peacefully changed hands between the Kuomintang, its allies and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). DPP candidate Tsai Ing-wen was elected president in 2016, the territory’s first female leader, and re-elected in a landslide last year.
With its commitment to Indigenous and LGBTQ rights, the environment and middleclass interests, Tsai’s administration is very much in tune with the current Liberal government here, argues Charles Burton, a former diplomat to China and Mcdonald Laurier Institute fellow. “Taiwan and Canada share modern progressive democratic values,” he said in a recent commentary.
University of Alberta professor Gordon Houlden saw ample evidence of the territory’s robust democracy when he headed the Canadian mission there from 2004 to 2006. His locally hired staff at first would wear the colours of the opposing parties they supported, while he learned to be wary of “an extremely free and very aggressive media.”
But as Taiwan has blossomed politically and economically, it’s also faced increasing intimidation from across the Taiwan straits. That includes routine Chinese military activity near the island, and statements by president Xi Jinping that Taiwan “must and will” become part of the People’s Republic.
For decades, Chinese schools and propaganda have driven home the notion that the island belongs with the motherland, and any CCP ruler that went soft on the question would likely lose support, says Houlden.
“It’s baked into the Chinese educational system, their philosophy, their thinking … the indivisible nature of China,” he said. “That runs right through Chinese history like a bright red thread.”
So, if Canada actually recognized Taiwan as fully independent, China would surely end diplomatic relations with this country the next day, says Stephens, with a host of dire consequences affecting trade and people on the ground.
Even that Commons motion supporting Taiwan’s president earned a stiff rebuke this week from Beijing.
Simon believes that official recognition should at least be included on the list of measures Canada could take, a step that ought to be contemplated if China were to cross some red line.
What else, then, can Canada do?
Analysts advocate looking to other countries that have embraced Taiwan more freely and not been clobbered by China, like Japan, New Zealand — which has a free-trade agreement with the island — and the United States.
For Canada, it could mean working with other nations in the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-pacific Partnership, the regional free-trade accord, to bring Taiwan on board.