The visit of the Belgian Prime Minister to Beijing, the Red Sea crisis, a Chinese cooperation agreement with the Maldives or the 30th anniversary of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Lesotho… The elections in Taiwan They are as ubiquitous on global covers as they are clandestine on Chinese ones. You guess the heavy digestion in Beijing of two pieces of news as terrible as they were predictable: the prominence of the island and the victory of the most hated candidate.
Chen Binhua, spokesperson for the Taiwanese Affairs Office of the State Council, has had to deal with the response. “These elections cannot change the development of cross-Strait relations nor the mutual desire of compatriots on both sides to get closer,” he said. The last conclusion is debatable after imposing the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), with pro-independence roots, to the Kuomintang (KMT), in favor of long-term and conditional reunification. Less doubtful, based on mathematical criteria, is his conclusion that this victory does not represent the majority opinion on the island: the PDP’s votes have gone from 57% in the last elections to 40% in Saturday’s elections.
It integrates geopolitical casuistry and the most basic union courtesy for leaders to congratulate the winner of an election. But if he is Taiwanese and has been described by Beijing as “troublesome,” Chinese anger is taken for granted. His diplomacy has had more work to criticize the United States, the European Union, Japan, Canada & mldr; The Chinese embassy in Tokyo has described it as “serious interference in the chinese internal affairs” their congratulations to Lai Ching-te, PDP candidate, and the allusions to Taiwan as an “extremely crucial partner and important friend.” “The Government of Japan will work to deepen cooperation and exchanges with Taiwan,” the Foreign Ministry had advanced.
US applause for Taiwan
The State Department of The United States applauded the island for “demonstrating once again the strength of its robust democracy and its electoral process.”. A few hours later, Beijing disgraced Washington with that statement that, in its opinion, “seriously violates American promises to maintain only cultural, economic and other ties of an unofficial nature.” David Cameron, Foreign Secretary The United Kingdom saw the elections as “proof of Taiwan’s vibrant democracy.” and the Chinese embassy in London conveyed its “opposition to wrong British practices.” The Russian departure from the global script was foreseeable. His Foreign Ministry avoided congratulations and recalled that Taiwan is part of China. The response, in this case, came from the island, which accused Russia of “voluntarily becoming a bully of China’s communist regime and its one-China principle.”
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The wave of congratulations certifies the success of the international strategy of Tsai Ing-wen, the outgoing president, whose policies her successor has promised to continue. The trickle of defections among her allies, nine during Tsai’s two terms, has left her with barely a dozen, all irrelevant and some difficult to find on a map, and which can do little to increase the international echo of she. Taiwan’s efforts are focused on those with whom, despite lacking official relations, they maintain strong harmony and have sufficient strength to ignore pressure from Beijing. Tsai’s last trip underlined this: little was written about her official visits to the nations of Central America and much about her “technical stopovers”; in United States. Lai will seek to deepen his ties with the European Union.
China had warned the Taiwanese that they had to choose “between peace and war, between prosperity and weakness.” The vote showed that the Taiwanese are not permeable to their messages in the same way that the subsequent congratulations on their democracy certify that they enjoy greater visibility every day.