• 37: Why China Is Alienating the World: Backlash Is Building—but Beijing Can’t Seem to Recalibrate, submitted on 2021-10-07 02:43:48+08:00.
• 38: Tsai Ing-wen: Taiwan and the Fight for Democracy. A Force for Good in the Changing International Order, submitted on 2021-10-08 00:56:43+08:00.

37: Why China Is Alienating the World: Backlash Is Building—but Beijing Can’t Seem to Recalibrate, submitted on 2021-10-07 02:43:48+08:00.

—– 37.1 —–2021-10-07 03:01:50+08:00:

[SS from the essay by Peter Martin, author of China’s Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy, from which this article is adapted.]

In recent years, China has faced mounting international criticism of everything from its apparent detention of more than one million Muslim Uyghurs in “reeducation” camps to its sweeping crackdown in Hong Kong, its controversial industrial policies, and its role in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. But increasingly, it is China’s diplomats who are doing the most damage to the country’s reputation. Popularly known as “Wolf Warriors,” after a series of blockbuster movies that depicted Chinese heroes vanquishing foreign foes, they have picked fights everywhere from Fiji to Venezuela. In March 2020, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian outraged U.S. officials when he claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic began only after American athletes had brought the virus to Wuhan. Last November, Zhao tweeted an illustration of an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child, prompting Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to demand an apology. And in September, China’s new ambassador to the United Kingdom, Zheng Zeguang, was banned from the British Parliament over Chinese sanctions against British lawmakers…

Officials in Washington have begun to see Beijing’s inability to shift course as an advantage in the emerging competition between the two countries. During bilateral talks in March, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, lectured his U.S. counterparts on the United States’ moral failings, including police killings of Black citizens. In response, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan reminded Yang of what he called the United States’ “secret sauce”: the ability to acknowledge and fix mistakes. “A confident country,” Sullivan said, “is able to look hard at its own shortcomings and constantly seek to improve.” The implication, of course, was that China seemed unable to do the same, at least in its foreign policy.

38: Tsai Ing-wen: Taiwan and the Fight for Democracy. A Force for Good in the Changing International Order, submitted on 2021-10-08 00:56:43+08:00.

—– 38.1 —–2021-10-08 01:06:26+08:00:

[SS from the essay by Tsai Ing-wen, President of Taiwan.]

Taiwan’s refusal to give up, its persistent embrace of democracy, and its commitment to act as a responsible stakeholder (even when its exclusion from international institutions has made that difficult) are now spurring the rest of the world to reassess its value as a liberal democracy on the frontlines of a new clash of ideologies. As countries increasingly recognize the threat that the Chinese Communist Party poses, they should understand the value of working with Taiwan. And they should remember that if Taiwan were to fall, the consequences would be catastrophic for regional peace and the democratic alliance system. It would signal that in today’s global contest of values, authoritarianism has the upper hand over democracy.

Beijing has never abandoned its ambitions toward Taiwan. But after years of double-digit investment in the Chinese military, and expansionist behavior across the Taiwan Strait and in surrounding maritime areas, Beijing is replacing its commitment to a peaceful resolution with an increasingly aggressive posture. Since 2020, People’s Liberation Army aircraft and vessels have markedly increased their activity in the Taiwan Strait, with almost daily intrusions into Taiwan’s southern air defense identification zone, as well as occasional crossings of the tacit median line between the island and the Chinese mainland (which runs along the middle of the strait, from the northeast near Japan’s outlying islands to the southwest near Hong Kong).

Despite these worrying developments, the people of Taiwan have made clear to the entire world that democracy is nonnegotiable. Amid almost daily intrusions by the People’s Liberation Army, our position on cross-strait relations remains constant: Taiwan will not bend to pressure, but nor will it turn adventurist, even when it accumulates support from the international community. In other words, the maintenance of regional security will remain a significant part of Taiwan’s overall government policy. Yet we will also continue to express our openness to dialogue with Beijing, as the current administration has repeatedly done since 2016, as long as this dialogue proceeds in a spirit of equality and without political preconditions.

—– 38.2 —–2021-10-08 21:59:21+08:00:

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