The Ticino once again feels misunderstood – about a small episode before the looming big question.
Marco Chiesa has nothing against a trip to Taiwan or China, but certainly not now.
There is fighting in Ukraine and threats around the Taiwan Strait. The Federal Council will not meet again until next week. Central President Gerhard Pfister has not actively tweeted for a long time. Federal Bern dozes. The SVP makes headlines – this time involuntarily.
President Marco Chiesa wanted to go to Taiwan “as soon as possible”, headlined the “Sonntags-Zeitung”. Despite the extremely tense situation with China following the detour of Nancy Pelosi, Madam Speaker of the US House of Representatives. And despite warnings from Wang Shiting, the Chinese ambassador in Bern, who urges Swiss foreign policymakers to distinguish between “right and wrong” in this conflict.
Chiesa thinks it’s right that the Swiss-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group that he chairs is traveling to Taipei. Nothing actually stands in the way of a visit to Beijing; if there weren’t a threat of war over the island state, which China does not recognize. “I very much hope that I can visit Taiwan in the near future, and one day also China, which would mean that relations have normalized and the danger of an armed conflict has been averted,” the Ticino native wrote in the “Sonntags-Zeitung”. quoted.
In the article, Chiesa’s general hope for peace becomes an urgent, political mission. At the diplomatic level, the “sensitive trip” of the Swiss is even “comparable” to the Pelosi visit, it says. In the same article, SVP foreign policy expert Roland Rino Büchel appeases that China is under no intention to be provoked. On Sunday evening, the “Blick” headlines that the Swiss policy on Taiwan is “dividing” the SVP. Already on Monday afternoon Christoph Blocher steps in and boils down the supposed polemic. “The visit is hyped, parliamentarians are allowed to travel to Taiwan, and there are also trips to China,” the SVP doyen told CH-Media. Amen?
The SVP President, who is on vacation, once again feels misunderstood by the media. It was quoted correctly, says Chiesa. But the turning of the article surprised him. The trip of the parliamentary friendship group had been planned for a long time, but had been postponed several times due to Corona. It is possible that another appointment will be made in the first semester of 2023, says Chiesa. But certainly not now, in the current geopolitical situation. “Believe me, I’m not going to play Nancy Pelosi” – Ticino humor is when you laugh anyway.
The small episode conceals a big question: How will Switzerland behave if China actually attacks Taiwan? Is the “cooperative neutrality” envisaged by Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis ready for a reality check? As the “Tages-Anzeiger” recently reported, the Federal Council will soon be discussing whether it should take on specific EU measures against China, so-called thematic sanctions. By then at the latest, the political summer siesta will be over in Bern.