Fifield on Taiwan

An excellent editorial by Dom Post Editor Anna Fifield on Taiwan. Fifield was the bureay chief for the Washington Post in Beijing for many years:

It’s a threading of a diplomatic needle that has allowed countries like ours to have diplomatic and economic relations with China, while also having strong if unofficial relations with the vibrant and robust democracy that is Taiwan.

But it’s a needle that’s becoming increasingly difficult to thread as the Chinese Communist Party under leader Xi Jinping has laid bare its true aims.

It has stripped Hong Kong, a key financial hub for New Zealand businesses, of almost all its democratic freedoms; it has committed cultural genocide in Xinjiang; has militarised islands across the South China Sea with impunity; and is now seeking to extend its reach into the Pacific, our neighbourhood.

All those actions together point to China strongly becoming more authoritarian after decades of gradual liberalising.

There is now almost no freedom of speech or assembly or religion in China. Lawyers, independent academics, human rights activists, religious leaders, journalists – they are all unwelcome as Xi pursues his “China Dream” to restore China to what he sees as its rightful place at the top of the global order. That’s one of the key reasons I chose to leave China at the end of 2020.

Taiwan, on the other hand, is a pluralistic democracy with a robust opposition – so robust there are still occasionally fist-fights in the parliament – and a dynamic civil society.

The 25 million people who live in Taiwan deserve to be able to determine their own future, not have it dictated to by force of arms.

But we should have no qualms about where our values lie. In the last two weeks alone, European, Japanese and Australian delegations have visited Taiwan. Pelosi is there now, and a British parliamentary mission is planned.

Where are we? Ardern has sidestepped questions about Taiwan. Our foreign minister – nominally at least – Nanaia Mahuta hasn’t uttered a peep since the tensions brought about by the Pelosi visit.

Weird to have a Foreign Minister who doesn’t seem to like to travel.

We do not exist in the world only as a trading nation. Our outsized standing on the global stage is connected to our steadfast commitment to multilateralism and human rights and democracy. We must stand up, loud and clear, for that.

Strong agree.