Taiwan is on the front lines defending global democracy

Taiwan has long been marked by struggle: for identity, for democracy, and for independence. Now it sits on the front line of a new Cold War between authoritarianism and freedom.

Nov 15, 2021

The recent U.S.-China rivalry has increasingly put Taiwan in headlines in many global media. This article helps you understand the small island nation from historical, political and economic dimensions in a more detailed way, and explains why Taiwan matters for the global democracy and economy.

Pangying Peng is an off-duty Taiwanese diplomat currently pursuing the public policy master’s program at the Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University. This article only reflects his personal views and life experiences in Taiwan and does NOT represent the Taiwanese government’s stance by any means.

LIKE MANY SMALL COUNTRIES, Taiwan seldom makes headlines in the global media. The U.S. comedian John Oliver’s recent Taiwan skit on his “Last Week Tonight” talk show sparked a sensation and helped promote visibility of the country. If you have followed international news over the past two years, you would probably have learned that Taiwan had one of the most successful COVID-19 responses globally. The nation has recorded only around 16,000 confirmed cases among its 24M citizens in an island slightly larger than Vancouver Island but with a population equal to Australia. You might also have learned that the Economist claims Taiwan as the most dangerous flashpoint in recent U.S.-China tensions. But the most recurring issue regarding Taiwan which you might have heard of is that it is an island whose statehood has been constantly challenged.

The major actor driving this issue is the Chinese government, which despite having never governed Taiwan, claims the island as a breakaway province and vows to “reunify” the island by force, if necessary. By leveraging its global political and commercial clout, the Chinese government has succeeded in demanding most countries, and even multinational corporations, not recognize Taiwan’s statehood, while also excluding Taiwan from the United Nations and major intergovernmental organizations. In recent days, China has even objected to the Canadian municipality of Vancouver establishing “friendship” ties with the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung.

However, despite facing constant political repression and diplomatic isolation from the Chinese government, Taiwan has managed to survive, thrive and prosper. Today, Taiwan is a powerhouse in international trade and the global technology industry, and has become one of only two former Third World countries (the other is South Korea) that has successfully transformed itself into a developed economy and liberal democracy in the post-war era. How could this have been possible for a resourceless and densely populated island prone to natural disasters?

The Struggle for Identity

The first known settlers in Taiwan were Austronesian tribal people, who are seen as the First Nations of Taiwan. From the late 17th to 19th century, Taiwan was administered by China's Qing dynasty, a period that saw significant numbers of immigrants arrive from China. This influx made Chinese migrants the largest demographic group in Taiwan. In 1895, the Qing government lost the Sino-Japanese War and ceded Taiwan to Japan, which ruled the island until 1945. From a geographic perspective, before the 20th century Taiwan was usually viewed as an insignificant island located on the periphery of the Chinese or Japanese Empire, thus the narrative of its history was mostly controlled by the authorities in either Beijing or Tokyo.

Modern Taiwan is unavoidably linked with the contemporary political history of China. The current communist regime, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), has governed China since 1949, but the country was led by the capitalist Republic of China (ROC) regime before that time. The ROC allied with the US and Soviet Union during the Second World War to defeat Japan and became a major co-founder of the UN in 1945. The victory helped the ROC reclaim Taiwan from Japan, but did not stop the country from falling into the mire of civil war between the capitalists and the communists.

In 1949, the PRC gained control of China, and the defeated ROC crossed the Taiwan Strait and retreated to Taiwan with 2M Chinese refugees. Having seen the rapid expansion of Communism in Asia, the US began to support the ROC regime that had resettled in Taipei, deterring the PRC from crossing the strait. As on the Korean peninsula, the Cold War divide that formed across the Taiwan Strait lasts until today. In addition, since Taiwan sits at the midpoint of the First Island Chain defined by the US geopolitical interests, it was forced to stand at the forefront to contain the Communist expansion in Asia without its people first being consulted.

In the first few decades in the post-war era, both the ROC in Taiwan and the PRC in China officially claimed to be the sole legitimate government of the whole China, which is the origin of the “One-China Policy”. Fearing that Communism would take root in Taiwan, the ROC regime implemented a military dictatorship supported by the US. It also adopted a China-centric ideology in its education system, instilling the idea that Taiwan was the “free China” and had the responsibility to retake the Chinese mainland. The imposed attachment to the Chinese mainland disabled Taiwan from narrating its story from a Taiwan-centric view, and forcibly positioned Taiwan to view itself as a component of a delusional greater China.

The ever-changing global political landscape reshaped Taiwan’s destiny in the 1970s. The reality that ROC had lost control of the Chinese mainland, and the huge commercial possibilities of engaging with a regime controlling a market of one-fifth of the world population, drove most countries to shift diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, given that they can only select one under the “One-China policy”. Eventually in 1971, the UN forced the ROC out and replaced it with the PRC. The US also shifted its recognition of China to the PRC in 1978, while maintaining close ties with Taiwan and continually supplying it with defensive weapons as a deterrent against potential PRC invasion.

Having lost its external legitimacy to represent the whole of China, and lacking its internal legitimacy to rule as a dictatorship, the ROC government found it gradually more difficult to justify its China-centric ideology. Therefore, in the 1980s it relaxed its grip on Taiwanese society. Simultaneously, Taiwan’s rapid industrialization strengthened its civil society, and social movements began to surge and challenge the government’s authority. Multiple opposition parties were founded, the democratization process unfolded and the democratic transition was realized in the 1990s.

Since 1996, six presidential elections have been smoothly held. Most importantly, the politically open environment naturally boosted the construction of a long-hidden Taiwanese identity, where Taiwan no longer needs to view itself as an appendage to the Chinese mainland and the China-centric ideological dominance has considerably receded. The island can finally lead the narration of its own story because its citizens are empowered to direct its public policy. And in practice, since 1991 the Taiwanese government has stopped claiming its ambition to retake the Chinese mainland.

But China has never abandoned its ambitions to retake Taiwan, and has only stepped up the diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan as it grows into superpower status. To Taipei, Beijing has set a clear political precondition for any bilateral talks: Taipei must admit that it forms part of China and must work with Beijing to initiate the reunification process. The current Taiwanese President, Dr. Tsai Ing-Wen, re-elected in 2020, follows the aspirations of the people who voted her into office and unambiguously rejects this political condition. However, Taiwan has NOT changed its official name from the ROC yet, despite the dominant Taiwanese identity. There is de facto independence of Taiwan, but its de jure independence remains undeclared.

The reasons behind this absurdity include, foremost, the fact that China threatens to wage immediate war against Taiwan if any action to initiate de jure independence is taken. Furthermore, over the past decades Taiwan’s supposed democratic allies, such as the US, Japan and Canada, all have developed entrenched business interests in China. As a result, while they will acquiesce to Taiwan’s de facto independence, they do not publicly endorse its legal independence, in order to pacify China. Finally, China remains Taiwan’s largest trading partner, and different Taiwanese leaders elected over the decades have adopted a pragmatic approach to balance the reality of economic relations with China, international perception about Taiwan-China relations, and an increasing domestic push for an unambiguous independence.

To date, most countries seem happy to accept the current ambiguity, whereby Taiwan bears all characteristics of an independent state while its legal status remains unclear. There are currently only 15 countries maintaining formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, including the Vatican and some small Pacific and Caribbean countries. But in fact, due to the economic and technological influence of Taiwan, it maintains a large diplomatic network around the world, usually operating under the name of “Taipei Economic and Cultural Office” while performing the same functions as embassies of other countries.

The US has been intensifying its outreach to Taiwan and reassuring Taipei of its continued support since 2017. In response, China has endeavored to force more countries to sever relations with Taiwan, and now sends numerous warplanes to intrude into Taiwan’s air defense zone on a daily basis. Growing US-China tensions highlight the fact that, once again, competing foreign interests continue to shape Taiwan’s command of its destiny.

An Economic Success Story

The success of Taiwan’s economic development model is obvious and undeniable: In 1960, it had a GDP per capita (nominal) at US$150, placing its economy around the level of many western African countries. But, by 2021 this figure had risen to US$33,402, around South Korea and Italy. And if it is adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita, it soars to US$59,074, above Canada, Japan and Germany. Its Human Development Index is comparable to France. Income inequality measured by the Gini coefficient is 34.0, around Spain. Once the poorest of the poor, Taiwan now has a western style economy featuring a large middle class. It is also the 20th largest economy in the world by most metrics. Evidently, the limited recognition of its sovereignty does not impede Taiwan’s involvement in the global market.

When the ROC arrived in Taiwan, it realized the reason why it lost popularity in China was its failed land reforms. Therefore, the first step the government took towards industrialization was land reforms, whereby the redistribution of lands created a huge class of landowners with capital that could be invested to drive future economic growth. However, the success did not come without some help. Generous US aid helped stabilize post-war Taiwan until 1965, when it no longer needed foreign aid. Though Taiwan has a capitalist economy, the government played a significant role in planning the economic development of the island during the period of industrialization from 1960 to 1990. Without much in the way of natural resources, Taiwan recognized that its people are its most valuable resource and committed itself to implementing universal education and healthcare. Government policies were also set to promote export-oriented development and moved the country quickly from labor-intensive manufacturing such as textile and toys upward to electronics in the global supply chain. Above all, the siege mentality resulting from having a hostile neighbour across the strait, or more precisely, the ongoing fear of being annexed by China, has been the momentum of driving growth and innovation: If Taiwan does not manage to grow self-reliant, keeping our technological edge over China, the reunification will be forced upon it.

Today, specialization in the semiconductor industry has rendered Taiwan the most advanced microchip maker in the world. Controlling these chips amounts to controlling the most strategic material in the 21th century, like the oil supply in the 20th century, as they power your MacBook, I-phones, computers and automobiles, and even help missiles navigate. The country that controls this manufacturing can throttle the others’ military and economic power. This industry has been dominated by only a handful of players from Taiwan, South Korea and the US, where TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) and Samsung Electronics control more than 70% of the market. TSMC, however, has so far stayed ahead of Samsung and American manufacturer Intel in terms of making smaller and more advanced chips, becoming the foremost chip supplier of Apple and Qualcomm, and making the world , including China, highly dependent on Taiwan in the tech industry. Google has also made Taiwan its main hardware R&D hub outside the US. Interestingly, Chinese tech giant Huawei has been cut from the supply of TSMC since 2021 due to the pressure that the US government put on Taiwan. It is also said that some chips that Taiwan exported to China in the past have been used for missiles targeting itself. Apart from the semiconductor industry, Taiwan also has other renowned brands such as Foxconn in electronics, ACER and ASUS in computer hardware and Giant Bicycles.

Problems underlying Taiwan’s economy include the concentration of its industries in high tech and related production, as well as the high percentage of exports to its major security threat—China. The current Taiwanese government has striven to diversify Taiwan’s products and export markets.

On the Frontlines of Global Conflict

The mentality of Taiwanese society has significantly changed over the last three decades in the course of democratic consolidation. Taiwanese identity has been reinforced after Taiwanese people living under democracy repeatedly observe how the Chinese government treats its people in arbitrary and repressive ways. Democratic beliefs such as freedom of speech and respecting the rights of the underprivileged and minority groups have been adopted and practiced. Social values are no longer only defined by political elites. Because of having experienced a dictatorship that habitually violated human rights, checks and balances are pervasively established in every sphere of public life to curb concentration of power and ensure that government power is monitored and checked.

In addition, civil society and the media have grown used to challenging the authority of the government by scrutinizing its policies. The traditional top-down governance philosophy has gradually been dismissed. Those who take a paternalistic “we-know-best” approach to governing and are not responsive to the dynamic public will be voted out of office in the next election. Most importantly, sacrificing democratic ways of living in exchange for the rapid economic growth currently experienced by China is widely deemed unacceptable, because Taiwan has learned a lesson from its similar past. Today, Taiwan is highly ranked in political and civil liberties, press freedom, gender equality and indigenous rights. The Economist ranked Taiwan as the 11th most democratic country in the world in its 2020 Global Democracy Index. It has also so far been the only Asian country to legalize same sex marriage.

As a westernized Chinese-speaking democracy, Taiwan has become incomprehensible to Beijing. In the conception of the Chinese government, public opinion can be easily contrived, managed and quashed under its one-party authoritarian system, and it is so used to diverting public attention from its political mismanagement to external issues by stoking nationalist fervor. In view of this, the Chinese government assumes the practice is fundamentally the same everywhere else, and sees so-called Western democracy as simply hypocrisy. But the vibrant and participatory democracy functioning well today in an island that shares the same language and cultural roots with China perplexes Beijing. The oversight that keeps holding Taiwanese government accountable and the peaceful political transition realized by universal suffrage in Taiwan without claiming any lives of elites involved in political struggles make Beijing anxious. Since the Chinese government has consistently claimed that Taiwan is part of its territory while propagating the notion that western democracy does not suit the Chinese scenario, the fact that there exists a stable democracy in Taiwan is a paradoxical thorn in its flesh.

Regular elections providing legitimacy to the Taiwanese government also bothers the Chinese Communist Party, because it reminds Chinese citizens of a well-functioning democracy established by their “compatriots” and raises the question of why they cannot possess one. Therefore, the Chinese government has taken every effort to discredit Taiwan’s democracy in its domestic propaganda. It has also taken many initiatives to sabotage Taiwan’s democracy by abusing its environment of free speech. For example, Chinese political operatives often utilize social media that China has banned its own citizens from using to spread disinformation and sow discord among Taiwanese voters during elections. However, most of these operations have failed and instead only reinforced the antipathy of the Taiwanese people towards Beijing. The Chinese government naïvely believes that resorting to nationalist fervor claiming that “we are a family sharing the same blood” in its propaganda directed at Taiwan can dilute Taiwan’s identity and change popular voting sentiments in favor of pro-China politicians. Ironically, what makes Taiwan a country today is the shared democratic values amongst its people, not obsolete and totalitarian nationalist rhetoric.

Taiwan’s democracy is its best shield from the security threat posed by China. Any political decision made by Taiwan’s leader has a legitimate foundation provided by its democratic process and reflects its people’s aspirations, and these decisions might even touch upon the issue of de jure independence in the future as the generational shift is ongoing in Taiwan. If Beijing still chooses to challenge Taiwan by force while deeming the conflict to be an internal affair, it will not only be deemed unjustifiable by the international community, especially the Western democracies, but will face strong global backlash.

Taiwan is on the front lines defending global democracy

Taiwan has long been marked by struggle: for identity, for democracy, and for independence. Now it sits on the front line of a new Cold War between authoritarianism and freedom.

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