Island In The Steam

Submitted by ub on

G7 leaders have told China not to escalate tensions with Taiwan after a spike in military maneuvers around the self-governed island. Leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US issued a joint statement supporting peace between China and Taiwan and wish to see The Republic of China participate in World Health Organization forums and the World Health Assembly.

Mainland China has blocked Taiwan's participation in the WHO. As well as at The UN. The ministers issued tough words about China's alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang and growing challenges to democracy in Hong Kong.

Mainland China’s strategic and business interests have the anti-PRC sentiments prevailing among the military brass and civilians alike could spell trouble for Beijing.

Taiwan is a country facing an uncertain future. The island nation East Asia. Neighboring countries include the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Japan to the northeast, and the Philippines to the south.

It is a USA strategic friend with benefits supplying computer chips and others. Taiwan's industrial economy keeps heating up and is now the 21st-largest in the world, with steel, machinery, electronics, and chemical manufacturing.

Taiwan is steaming with an uncertain future for The ROC.

The Republic of China is a developed country, ranking 15th in GDP per capita. Her relation with the USA, well think of it as the all-time love affair between Dolly Parton off and on with Kenny Rogers. Taiwan is a sovereign nation but China sees it as theirs, just like Hong Kong, Macau...etc.

An economy that's healthy, democratic, and strategically located off the coast of mainland China.

This is not about rising sea levels or a vanishing coastline.

Empires have been friendly to Taiwan for centuries, with occupations by the Spanish, Dutch, and China’s Qing Dynasty. The Qing’s loss of Taiwan to the Japanese after a humiliating military defeat in 1895 made reunification a rallying cry for generations of Chinese.

To the U.S. and Japan, Taiwan is a friend with benefits and the main squeeze to contain China and maintain trade routes. Taiwan has thrived under American protection to become a critical supplier of semiconductors and other high-tech goods. The ROC is an island of 23.5 million people is also among Asia’s most vibrant democracies, a rejoinder to Communist Party arguments that Western political structures are incompatible with Chinese culture.

White House officials in the Biden administration say "We continue in the footsteps of bipartisan consensus in US-China policy going back decades, Democratic administrations, Republican administrations, and we oppose unilateral changes to the status quo," Sullivan said last week during a conference organized by the Aspen Institute think tank. "We have communicated that to China. We have affirmed that with Taiwan."

Image The Economist economist.com