TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Speaking at a seminar sponsored by the Brookings Institute and National Chengchi University on Monday (June 17), Foreign Minister Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) emphasized that Taiwan’s armed forces must be prepared at all times for an attack from China.
The foreign minister was speaking at an event entitled “The Risk to the Asian Peace: Avoiding Paths to Great Power War.” During his remarks Wu declared that Taiwan’s democratic system, simply by its existence, poses a threat to the legitimacy of the communist government in Beijing.
Pointing out Beijing’s malign influence in Hong Kong as an example, and the massive public opposition there to the erosion of freedom and human rights, Wu stressed that Taiwan, as well as other nations of the world, remain under constant threat from China’s expansionist policies and totalitarian impulses.
Wu also noted that the threat from China is not only a military one, but that China is targeting Taiwanese society in a number of unconventional ways, with the aim of undermining the nation’s democratic society.
It is the military’s duty to remain ever vigilant as Taiwan faces the greatest risk of military conflict of any nation in East Asia, said Wu. He also pledged that the current government of Taiwan will never allow Taiwan’s democracy to be destroyed by China, reports CNA.
In his keynote address, the minister also expounded on how Taiwan has been a force for good across the globe. Wu lamented that “when Taiwan is recognized as an asset, rather than a problem, then we will no longer suffer from isolation,” as the country currently does due to China’s global campaign to diplomatically suppress Taiwan’s international space.
Wu closed his address with a call for democracies, which value liberty and human rights, to unite in the struggle to defeat the global spread of authoritarianism and dictatorships, which is perhaps most clearly exemplified by the powerful despotic communist regime in Beijing.