I have never lived in Taiwan, but I flew to Taiwan three times in the past five months and spent fifty days traveling non-stop, exploring as much of the country as I possibly could.
I looped around the main island four times. I visited all of the cities, most of the national parks, theme parks, and museums, the summit of Mount Jade, and all of the outer islands, including Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Green Island, Orchid Island, and Lambai Island.
I posted daily updates of my travels on social media, eventually uploading more than 5,000 photos and videos.
A Taiwanese friend told me that I have now seen more of Taiwan than 99% of Taiwanese. If that is true, then I have likely seen more of Taiwan than 99.99% of foreigners.
Having this unique experience is a privilege, and it makes me feel somewhat obligated to share what I learned and to explain why I decided to explore Taiwan so thoroughly.
Motivation
I previously lived in Hong Kong. Many people no longer feel safe traveling there, and that includes myself.
In 2020, the Chinese government imposed a national security law on Hong Kong, which was used to justify shutting down newspapers and arresting people for expressing opinions that the Chinese government disagrees with. As Hong Kong's freedoms and civil society were systematically being destroyed, China's belligerence towards Taiwan escalated.
In 2021, the Economist magazine described Taiwan as "the most dangerous place on Earth" due to the Chinese government's threats to "use force" to seize control of the country and its people. Using force means that the Chinese government would launch a military invasion and then kill, imprison, persecute, and/or brainwash any Taiwanese who do not willingly surrender their civil liberties and feign loyalty to Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Chinese diplomats have recently been contributing to such fears by openly intimidating any nation that dares stand between China and its ambition to take over Taiwan. For example, China’s ambassador to Japan warned that Japan would be “dragged into a pit of fire,” while China’s ambassador to the Philippines threatened the lives of 150,000 Filipino migrant workers. The former editor of China’s Global Times advocated for shooting down the airplane of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on her trip to Taiwan last year.
In my view, the Chinese government’s behavior has been barbaric and shameful. The CCP is not fit to lead China, much less the world, and certainly not Taiwan.
The main reason I decided to invest so much time familiarizing myself with Taiwan is because I am appalled by the CCP, and I admire the courage, resilience, and integrity of the Taiwanese, who every day have to live under the cloud of fear stoked by the CCP's belligerence. Visiting Taiwan, again and again, was my way of expressing support for the Taiwanese and hopefully setting an example for others to do the same.
The view from Mount Jade summit is breathtaking. (Lindell Lucy photo)
Takeaways
In spite of the CCP’s invasion threats, Numbeo currently ranks Taiwan as the third safest country in the world, a ranking I believe to be fairly accurate. During my fifty days in Taiwan, I visited nearly every part of the country and always felt safe and welcomed.
I arrived in Penghu hours after China sent a record number of military aircraft into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). I would not have known about the incursion if I had not read the news, as I did not hear or see any Chinese military activity.
Like the Taiwanese around me, I had no impulse to react. Working one's self into a panic over yet another news report about a Chinese provocation seemed pointless and would only grant the CCP a victory in its ongoing psychological warfare, the purpose of which is to isolate Taiwan internationally and to scare the Taiwanese into capitulation.
Although Taiwan is a relatively small country, it is not nearly as small as I previously thought it was. Half a year ago, I could not have imagined that it was possible to spend fifty days traveling continuously around the country without running out of new and interesting things to do. I am considering going back this summer, as so many items still remain on my Taiwan bucket list.
As I traveled through Taiwan’s mountainous center and eastern coast, Indigenous artwork covering entire walls was a common sight. Orchid Island was especially unique, as the majority of the population there is still Indigenous.
As I was renting a motorbike from a local woman, I asked her if she could speak Mandarin. She admitted that her Mandarin was poor and that she had invested more time learning English, believing it to be more useful.
The CCP claims that Taiwan has been a part of China since ancient times, but after traveling around Taiwan, it becomes obvious that this claim is a blatant self-serving lie, intended to rationalize annexation. It would be more accurate to say that Taiwan and the Philippines have a connection, at least from a linguistic and cultural point of view, as Taiwan’s native people are Austronesian, like Filipinos, while Han settlers did not start arriving in large numbers until the last few hundred years.
Kinmen Bridge, which connects Kinmen to Lieyu, opened late last year and is twice as long as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. (Lindell Lucy photo)
Today, the majority of people in Taiwan self-identify as Taiwanese. However, on Kinmen and Matsu, small islands hugging the Chinese coast, most people still identify as Chinese. The reason is because they are in fact Chinese.
Unlike the islands of Taiwan and Penghu, which were part of the Japanese empire when the Republic of China (ROC) was founded, Kinmen and Matsu have been ROC territory from the beginning.
I was somewhat shocked when I met a local man who admitted that he would prefer Kinmen to become a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (PRC), like Hong Kong and Macau, rather than be politically affiliated with an ROC that had been rebranded as the Republic of Taiwan.
Multiple people in Kinmen told me that the majority of Kinmenese support the construction of a bridge to Xiamen, a large Chinese city which is so close that I could literally see Chinese people walking around on the other side of the water when looking through binoculars. Despite hesitancy about political integration, the Kinmenese are apparently eager to benefit from economic integration with China, due to its size and proximity.
This made me wonder whether a grand bargain could someday be struck between the Taiwanese and Chinese governments. Would a future China, one that is less fanatically nationalistic, be willing to recognize Taiwan’s independence in exchange for Taiwan ceding Kinmen and Matsu? If the islands were allowed a certain degree of political autonomy, the proposal might have majority support from Kinmen and Matsu’s citizens.
The National Human Rights Museum on Orchid Island. (Lindell Lucy photo)
Another thing that left a deep impression on me as I traveled around the main island of Taiwan was the ubiquitousness of memorials and museums that serve as reminders of the White Terror, Taiwan’s 40-year period of one-party tyranny, when tens of thousands of Taiwanese were executed or imprisoned due to real or imagined opposition to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
I saw democracy exhibits in the Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen Memorial Halls, as well as in various history and art museums. I visited both branches of the National Human Rights Museum. I strolled through 228 memorial parks in multiple cities, and I once got confused when I arrived at the wrong 228 museum in Taipei, as I did not realize that there were two.
It became obvious to me that Taiwanese do not take freedom for granted. They have experienced both autocracy and democracy, and they are emphatic about which form of government they prefer.
After spending decades breaking free from the shackles of a KMT military dictatorship, Taiwanese have forged the will to resist CCP subjugation. I now understand why Taiwan consistently ranks as the top democracy in Asia.
Let us all do everything we can to ensure that Taiwan stays free and remains at the top of those democracy rankings.