8/24/2021 Taiwanese shrug off China threat and place their trust in ‘Daddy America’ | Financial Times

Taiwanese shrug off China threat and place their trust in ‘Daddy America’
Anti-Beijing sentiment is growing but the government has done little to prepare the public for war

Soldiers take part in a military exercise in northern Taiwan. The majority of Taiwanese do not believe there will be conflict with
China © Chiang Ying-ying/AP

Kathrin Hille in Taipei AUGUST 22 2021

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Tsai Hui-chun has lived under the roar of fighter jets her whole life. In her
hometown Hualien, on Taiwan’s east coast, they can be seen and heard
everywhere, taking off from the local air base.

But over the past year, the patrols and exercises have grown almost constant.
“They used to do a couple of sorties in the morning,” said the retired teacher. “Now
they are active in the afternoons, too, and even take off at night more and more
often.”

The jets were being scrambled in response to growing harassment from China,

which claims Taiwan as its territory and threatens to invade if Taipei refuses to
submit indefinitely. Last week, the Chinese military said it held live-fire drills in
the waters and airspace south-west and south-east of Taiwan.

Beijing’s more belligerent stance has alarmed the US, Taiwan’s unofficial
protector. In March, Admiral Philip Davidson, then-commander of US forces in
the Pacific, said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could be launched within six
years.

But on the ground in Taiwan, there is no sign of panic.

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“We are used to it,” Tsai said about the air activity. Instead of the threat from
China, she would rather talk about pension reforms that have cut into her
retirement income.

Taiwan is avoiding ‘the underlying reality’ when it comes to China, analysts have warned © Chiang Ying-
ying/AP
“What you see is not the fear you would expect,” said Richard Bush, a Taiwan
expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank.

According to a poll published in April, only 39.6 per cent of respondents believed

that China and Taiwan were headed for military conflict. Although that figure was
a rise from 35 per cent last year and just 25 per cent in 2004, well over half of
Taiwan’s population still believed that war could be avoided altogether. 

While President Tsai Ing-wen and her government frequently highlight Taiwan’s
plight as a target of Chinese aggression to the international community, they have
done little to harden the country against an attack from Beijing, or even prepare
society for the possibility of war.

Pointing to Afghanistan’s government and army being overrun by the Taliban the

moment the US withdrew from the country, Tsai told her compatriots that they
would have to stand together to avoid a similar fate at the hands of China.

“Taiwan’s only choice is to make ourselves even stronger, even more united and
even more determined to protect ourselves,” she wrote on Facebook on
Wednesday.

But for most ordinary Taiwanese, there is barely a flicker of concern.

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8/24/2021 Taiwanese shrug off China threat and place their trust in ‘Daddy America’ | Financial Times

“There is a lack of discussion, and of a clear sense of what the threat is,” said Bush,
who argued in a recent book that Taiwan’s democracy has failed to address how
the country can survive and preserve its “good life”.

“What we have seen is avoidance of the underlying reality, of real choices.”

Taiwan is scrambling jets more often in response to growing Chinese aggression © Reuters

Public opinion, never in favour of unification, has grown more hostile towards
Beijing. Since early 2019, when Xi Jinping, China’s president, rejected flexibility in
offering Taiwan a political deal, and during Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong’s
autonomy, pro-independence sentiment has climbed to historical highs.

The youth are even more anti-China than society at large, as reflected in the 2014
Sunflower student protest movement against the previous administration’s
engagement with China.

“Since 2014, people just have this natural aversion to anything to do with China,”
says Liu Kuan-yin, editor of the English web edition of CommonWealth, a
Taiwanese news magazine.

The government argues that the Taiwanese want peace but know the risk of
conflict is always present.
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8/24/2021 Taiwanese shrug off China threat and place their trust in ‘Daddy America’ | Financial Times

Liu, however, blames Tsai’s Democratic Progressive party for channelling the
sentiment of patriotism and rejection of China in the wrong way.

“The government should be raising people’s awareness of the military threat. But
instead of doing real things, they just talk, telling people to hate China and love the
US and Japan,” she said.

As Taiwan’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign gained traction this summer

following donations from the US and Japan, many Taiwanese posted pictures of
their inoculation records on Facebook with the words, “Thank you, Daddy
America!”

Critics said Tsai’s administration had fed complacency by highlighting Taiwan’s

ever-stronger relations with Washington. “The public will think that we are so safe,
America loves us and will come to our rescue when push comes to shove — it takes
away the urge to be self-reliant,” said Liu.

But the root of Taiwan’s failure to tackle the military threat is not a lack of
government leadership. The Kuomintang, China’s former ruling party that fled to
Taiwan after its defeat in the Chinese civil war in 1949, ruled with martial law for
38 years.

Cherishing its hard-won democracy, which created a social welfare system and
Asia’s most socially progressive society, the Taiwanese public has no appetite for
militarising society or even discussing defence.

But there are some attempts to change that mindset.

Enoch Wu, a former special forces officer who chairs the DPP’s Taipei chapter, has
teamed up with Admiral Lee Hsi-ming, former chief of the general staff of
Taiwan’s military, to educate the public about how Taiwan can better resist a
Chinese invasion. He also organises safety and first aid seminars for young people.

“We are getting thousands of sign-ups for these events. That tells me folks are
aware we face serious security challenges and believe in the idea that everyone can
do more,” Wu said.

But his audience remains limited and for some Taiwanese, there is a sense of
futility. Tsai Hui-chun, the retired teacher, believes that although she has no desire
for Taiwan to become part of China, it will eventually happen.

She said: “When they come one day, what could we do about it anyway?”

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