Taiwan President sends defiant message to Beijing
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen called for stability in relations with China in her inaugural address yesterday but said she would not accept Beijing’s political terms that would “downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo”.
Re-elected by a landslide late last year, Tsai said relations with Beijing had reached a “historical turning point” and that “peace, parity, democracy, and dialogue” should form the basis for contacts between the sides as a means to prevent intensifying antagonisms.
Tsai said Taiwan would also work to increase its participation in international society, even as Beijing seeks to shut it out and poach allies away from the self-governing island democracy it claims as its own territory.
“We will not accept the Beijing authorities’ use of ‘ one country, two systems’ to downgrade Taiwan and undermine the cross-strait status quo,” Tsai told an audience at the baroque Taipei Guest House in the centre of the capital.
Tsai represents the ruling Democratic Progressive Party which advocates Taiwan’s formal independence, something Beijing says it will use force to prevent.
Her election to a second four-year term came after the repression of pro-democracy protests in the nearby Chinese semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong solidified public opinion in Taiwan against moves towards accepting rule by Beijing.
The sides split amid civil war in 1949 and Beijing has cut off ties with Tsai’s government over her refusal to accept its demand that she recognise the island as a part of China, to be unified eventually under the “one country, two systems” policy enacted in Hong Kong.
Beijing’s diplomats have prevented Taiwan from joining international gatherings such as the World Health Organisation and reduced its number of diplomatic allies to a handful, while its military has boosted patrols and exercises aimed at intimidating the island’s population.
In her speech, Tsai emphasised the need to boost national security, including against non-traditional threats such as cyber and “cognitive” warfare, defined partly by the use of disinformation on social media.
Tsai, 63, is a former law professor and unique in being the only modern woman leader in Asia to rise to the top without being part of a political dynasty.
Prior to her address, congratulatory remarks from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were read out praising Tsai’s “courage and vision in leading Taiwan’s vibrant democracy is an inspiration to the region and the world”.
The US support comes amid rising friction between Washington and Beijing over trade, technology and allegations of Beijing’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic that began last year.