Taiwan leader: Protect regional stability amid China tension

Tsai Ing-wen, the 14th President of the Republic of China (Photo by Office of the President, Republic of China (Taiwan) – http://www.president.gov.tw/Default.aspx?tabid=1580, Attribution)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Tuesday said her government will defend the self-governing island’s freedoms and democratic system amid heightened tensions with rival China, and renewed calls for dialogue that Beijing suspended more than a year ago.

China dismissed the appeal, saying talks could only resume after Tsai endorses Beijing’s position that Taiwan is Chinese territory.

In an annual National Day address, Tsai also repeated her position that Taiwan will continue to extend “goodwill” to China, but would neither buckle under Beijing’s pressure nor pursue confrontation.

China cut off contact with Tsai’s government shortly after her inauguration last year after she declined to back the “one-China principle.” Beijing threatens to use force to seize control of the island and has steadily increased diplomatic and economic pressure on Taipei in an attempt to compel Tsai to change her stance.

“We remain committed to maintaining peace and stability both in the Taiwan Strait and across the region,” Tsai said, according to an official English translation released by her office.

“Meanwhile, we will continue to safeguard Taiwan’s freedom, democracy and way of life, as well as ensure the Taiwanese people’s right to decide our own future,” she told a crowd of citizens and foreign dignitaries gathered outside the Presidential Office Building in central Taipei.

“And the right of the people of Taiwan to choose their own future will not be affected,” she said.

Oct. 10 marks the 1911 founding of the Republic of China, which once ruled on the mainland but was forced to retreat to Taiwan in 1949 after Mao Zedong’s Communists swept to power amid civil war against Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists.

Under Tsai’s Nationalist predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, the sides signed a series of agreements promoting trade and tourism, while sidestepping tricky political issues. China insists that was only possible because Ma endorsed Beijing’s “one-China principle,” which it says underpins all dealings with Taiwanese government bodies.

Tsai, leader of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, has called for a continuation of contacts and talks between the two sides while setting aside their political differences.

“As I have stated on many occasions, our goodwill will not change, our commitments will not change, we will not revert to the old path of confrontation, and we will not bow to pressure,” Tsai said in her speech. “This has been my consistent position on cross-strait relations.”

In Beijing, the spokesman for the Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Ma Xiaoguang, said the principle that Taiwan and the Chinese mainland form a single Chinese nation remains the “core understanding.”

“Only by adhering to the one-China principle and opposing Taiwan independence can relations between the sides develop with peace and stability,” Ma said.

Tsai, who has sought to bolster Taiwan’s domestic arms industry, devoted much of her speech to the importance of military preparedness, along with moves to raise government efficiency and stimulate the island’s high-tech economy.

“We must strengthen our military capabilities,” she said. “Faced with the growing demands of modern warfare, we must ensure that our new-generation military focuses not on quantity, but quality.”

In 2015, Tsai’s party said its defence policies would generate revenues of up to $13.2 billion and create 8,000 jobs.

Tsai, who won election by a landslide in January last year, also pledged efforts to “find Taiwan’s place in the new international order,” including renewed outreach to countries in Southeast Asia that have drawn increasingly close to Beijing.

Following Panama’s decision in June to break diplomatic relations in favour of China, Taiwan has just 20 remaining official allies, and there are constant fears that more could switch recognition to Beijing.

Tsai said Taiwan would step up economic relations with the 10 Southeast Asian countries and another eight Asian-Pacific nations that her government considers prime economic development partners. Taiwan calls that mission its “New Southbound Policy.”

To increase its influence around Asia, Taiwan is promoting Taiping Island, a disputed South China Sea islet, as a base for regional humanitarian aid, Tsai said. China and Vietnam also claim the tiny islet under Taiwan’s control. Rescue crews on the island have previously helped Vietnamese sailors caught in storms.

Tsai said Taiwan plans to open a greenhouse gas monitoring station in the Pratas Islands, another South China Sea chain. She also said Taiwan has started helping Southeast Asian countries fight dengue fever.