DObviously, the Taiwanese are stubborn people. This is the bitter conclusion that Beijing perhaps draws from the election, Saturday January 13, of Lai Ching-te as president of the island, won for the third time in a row since 2016 by a Party candidate. Progressive Democrat (DPP), whose charter proclaims independence ambition.
The score achieved by the elected president (40%, against two opponents) is certainly a clear decline compared to that of the outgoing president, Tsai Ing-wen, who obtained 57% in 2020 for her second term, and the DPP lost the majority in Parliament. But even if this party and the elected president, in practice, refrain from seeking independence and favor the status quo, it is clear that the Taiwanese electorate stubbornly refuses the reunification claimed by China.
According to opinion studies, nearly two-thirds of the island’s inhabitants today identify themselves as “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese” or “Chinese and Taiwanese”, compared to 17% thirty years ago. The repression in Hong Kong since the territory was returned to China has also removed any appeal from the concept of “one country, two systems” for voters in Taiwan.
Mr. Lai expresses this Taiwanese obstinacy more radically than Mr.me Tsai, which adds to the irritation of Chinese power. Any step towards independence will be “severely punished by history and the law”, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned on Sunday. In return, Beijing was asked by Taipei diplomacy to “respect the result of the election, face reality and renounce repressing Taiwan”.
Great restraint
Faced with this almost structural tension but capable of degenerating at any time in a highly militarized region, what can Westerners do? Calming things down appears to be the best solution at this stage, in a world subject to a multiplicity of crises. President Joe Biden took care on Saturday to recall that the United States did not support the independence of Taiwan.
His Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, posted a congratulatory message on the social network “to the Dr Lai Ching-te for his victory in the presidential election »as well as “Taiwanese people for the vigor of their democratic system”, but Washington stressed that two former senior American officials who arrived on the island on Sunday, Stephen Hadley and James Steinberg, to meet the new elected officials were acting in “private capacity”. We are far from the coup of Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives then in office, whose visit to the island in 2022 had suddenly increased tension with Beijing.
For their part, the Europeans showed great restraint. The press release from the Quai d’Orsay, like that of the diplomatic service of the European Union, congratulates ” the electors “ And ” the elected “, without specifying the name of the winner of the vote, and salutes their attachment to the democratic process. It also recalls the importance of “peace, stability and the status quo” in the Taiwan Strait.
This reminder is timely. This is precisely the one that was missing from Emmanuel Macron’s declarations, at the end of his visit to Beijing in April 2023. His invitation not to follow the “American rhythm” in the relationship with China had sparked lively controversy. It would also be appropriate for Beijing to observe the same restraint, stop threatening Taipei and avoid any escalation across the strait.