Democracies should be wary of sacrificing their own values: J. Michael Cole
Taiwan News
Date: 2018/01/03
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Canada should learn from Taiwan how to defend itself from
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (left) with China’s President Xi Jinping. (By Associated Press)
Chinese infiltration and industrial espionage, a recent op-ed piece in the Toronto Globe and Mail advocated.
In a piece titled “How can democracies counter China’s growing clout?,” Taiwan-based J. Michael Cole, a Senior Fellow with the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute, says western democracies like Canada should pay attention to the risks of moving closer to authoritarian countries like China.
Creeping censorship and political warfare against the basic democratic values held by the West were mentioned as examples of the costs inherent in engaging Beijing.
Cole recommended closer links between Canadian government officials, academics, reporters and business people with their counterparts in Asian democracies, and particularly Taiwan, due to their experience in dealing with the communist country.
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