The Globe Post
Date:  January 8, 2020
By: Niki J.P. Alsford

Following months of fierce campaigning dominated by populism, smearing, fist-pumping, and sexist remarks, Taiwan, an island of 23 million people, will head to the ballot boxes this Saturday to vote for their political leader. As the only place in the Chinese-speaking world that does so, democracy for the Taiwanese has become a core value and a potent arrow in their quiver of public diplomacy.

Yet, this achievement is shrouded in darkness as Beijing’s clouds loom large over the island. In Xi Jinping’s 2019 New Year speech, the Chinese president spoke long and loud about his dream to unify Taiwan, stating a clear rationale that would see Taiwan becoming a “special administrative region” of China. Its political institutes would be morphed into subnational bodies, similar to those in Hong Kong. Xi asserted a revised version of the so-called 1992 Consensus, saying, “The two sides of the Strait belong to one China and will work together to seek national unification.”

Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan’s incumbent president, responded that the only “consensus” is a “Taiwan Consensus,” one where “The vast majority of Taiwanese … resolutely opposes ‘one country, two systems.’” In her 2020 New Year speech, she reiterated this point by arguing that since Taiwan has refused to submit, “We have clearly told the world that Taiwan will not accept ‘one country, two systems.’”

Xi Jinping, on the other hand, said nothing of Taiwan in his 2020 address. Yet, in spite of this, China persists in pressing its diplomatic offensive. Beijing also continues to use military coercion and is unabated in its infiltration of Taiwan’s media and society and its interference in Taiwanese domestic affairs.    [FULL  STORY]