‘We won’t bow to China’, says Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen

President Tsai warns Taiwan’s situation is more ‘tense and complex by the day’ after Tony Abbott said the island needs to become an ‘eastern Israel..’.

Taiwanese soldiers raise flags on military vehicles during a National Day parade in front of the Presidential Palace during in Taipei on Sunday. Picture: AFP

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has noted Australia’s rising concern for the fellow island democracy in a major speech given after Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to bring Taiwan’s 23 million people under his control.

In an address on Sunday to mark Taiwan’s National Day, Ms Tsai declared her fellow citizens would not “bow to pressure” and would “bolster national defence … to ensure that nobody can force Taiwan to take the path China has laid out for us”. She said Taiwan’s situation was “more complex and fluid” than at any time in the past 72 years and was becoming more “tense and complex by the day”.

But she noted the increasing international support for Taiwan as it confronts Beijing’s aggression.

“In Washington, Tokyo, Canberra and Brussels, Taiwan is no longer on the margins,” Ms Tsai said.

The speech was delivered in Taipei before a military parade and flyovers by fighter jets. It came after a warning by visiting former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott that “ready or not, China is coming for Taiwan’s freedom”.  To an audience in Taipei including Taiwan’s Foreign Minister, ­Joseph Wu, and senior diplomats from the US, Japan, Australia and Europe, Mr Abbott said Taiwan must accelerate its preparations to ward off the “horrible prospect” of an invasion.

“This is where Taiwan perhaps needs to be an ‘eastern Israel’, ­capable of inflicting massive asymmetric damage on any challenger,” Mr Abbott said in an speech on Friday night. He also said Australia should help Taiwan in the event of an invasion or blockade launched by Beijing.

“I can’t think of a harder decision for an Australian government to make than the call to defend freedom far from home – except the call to defend freedom closer to home, with weakened friends and stronger foes,” he said.

Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong, assertive claims in the East and South China seas, and rising tempo of military activity in Taiwan’s southwest air identification zone has alarmed many across the Indo-Pacific.

Mark Harrison, a senior lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Tasmania, said Ms Tsai’s address acknowledged Taiwan’s growing international support.

“It also shows the expanding strategic horizons of Taipei, with the Tsai government looking ­beyond Washington in its strategic and security policies,” Professor Harrison told The Australian.

He said Ms Tsai’s speech “struck the confident tone of a very experienced and skilled politician in one of the most difficult leadership positions in the world”.

Mr Xi delivered a speech in ­Beijing on Saturday asserting that Taiwan be brought under Chinese Communist Party rule.

“It has never ended well for those who forget their ancestors, betray the motherland, or split the country,” Mr Xi said at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Speaking days after the ­People’s Liberation Army sent ­record numbers of fighter jets near Taiwan, Mr Xi called for “peaceful reunification” while attacking “Taiwan independence separatism”.

Mr Xi said “the Taiwan question is purely China’s internal ­affair, which tolerates no external interference” and warned “no one should underestimate the Chinese people’s strong determination, will and capability to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity”.

Mr Abbott, at the end of a high-profile visit to the island, said Beijing had already begun “mixing intimidation with misinformation in the grey zone between peace and war”.

China’s foreign ministry on Saturday said Mr Abbott’s comments in Taiwan would “only further discredit him”. “His recent despicable and ­insane performance in Taiwan fully exposed his hideous anti-China features,” said a spokesperson in China’s Canberra embassy.

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