Commentary
Far too often, when people discuss Taiwan, there is a mindset that it is a tiny little place sitting uncomfortably close to communist China. After all, it has only 23 million people—smaller than the city of Shanghai with its 25 million people.
But while Taiwan’s population is small in comparison to mega countries like China, India, and the United States, it is much larger than many well-known, well-recognized countries, including:
El Salvador—6.8 million people.
Austria—9 million people.
Israel—9.5 million people.
Sweden—10 million people.
Greece—10 million people.
Portugal—10 million people.
Cambodia—15.5 million people.
Netherlands—17.7 million people.
Chile—19 million people.
And it is nearly as big as Australia—25.9 million people.
In fact, there are over 100 countries with less population than Taiwan.
Why is this important?
It is important because, by every normal standard, Taiwan is a thriving independent country that has the 21st largest GDP in the world. And its people, refugees from the brutality of Mao Zedong’s
murder of over 65 million people, have fought hard to overcome communism and become a true democracy. There is zero doubt that the
Taiwanese people value democracy, and they achieved it themselves. Further, international observers describe Taiwanese elections as “free, fair, and highly competitive.”
The
U.S. State Department stated, “As a leading democracy and a technological powerhouse, Taiwan is a key U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific.” Further, Taiwan is the United States’s eighth-largest trading partner, and the United States is Taiwan’s second-largest trading partner.
China, on the other hand, is one of the worst human rights abusers in the world, does not have free elections, does not have a free market, and considers the United States to be its enemy. China has been
stealing over $300 billion in intellectual property annually from the United States year after year. And China has been using predatory trade practices to
gut U.S. manufacturing. And let’s not forget that China is responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, to put it mildly, communist China is not our friend.
If China does conquer Taiwan, it will mean the deaths of tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese. It will make the world a less free and less safe place. It will vastly strengthen China and position it for further aggression. And with Taiwan being the largest producer of semiconductors, China will have a stranglehold on
92 percent of advanced semiconductors, for example, logic semiconductors whose components are smaller than 10 nanometers.
Further, it is the trillions of dollars of U.S. trade deficits with China that have funded the massive buildup of the Chinese military that has put Beijing in a position to threaten Taiwan. Our trade policy with China has been both disastrous and, in some cases, downright traitorous.
Given that it has stolen American technology and the United States’s disastrous
policy of engagement with China that has put it in a position to threaten Taiwan, it is time for the United States to fully recognize Taiwan as the independent, free democracy that it is and reject the “One China” policy.
This will, of course, anger Beijing. But if we are willing to use talk of a potential war with China to push for ever bigger defense budgets, and if we are willing to
lavish over $75 billion on Ukraine to
prevent democracy from dying, then we ought to be willing to do the right thing and formally recognize Taiwan as a country fully independent of communist China. If we do, many other nations are sure to follow, and it will further weaken Beijing’s bogus claim that the murderous communist revolution that put the Chinese Communist Party in power has any right to strip away democracy from the Taiwanese people.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
