We have a moral duty to stand with Taiwan - Alex Cole-Hamilton
Shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, The Economist ran with a frontpage feature on ‘The most dangerous place on Earth’.
It carried a picture of the island nation of Taiwan superimposed under a radar image picking up a fleet of heavy cruisers inbound from the People’s Republic of China ‘PRC’.
In the time since then, the world has understandably been focused on other things - Iran, Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but the threat to Taiwan has far from dissipated. In fact, cyber attacks and PRC incursions into Taiwanese waters have only intensified.
So, over the October Scottish Parliament recess, I jumped at the opportunity to join a cross-party parliamentary delegation to visit Taiwan, funded by the Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Over the course of last week, I joined six other MSPs from different parties and one member of the Northern Ireland Assembly in back-to-back meetings with ministers, defence and security analysts and cyber specialists. We learned in great detail that this is a country living at the sharpest edges of technology, climate change and geopolitics.
Scotland has so much to learn from the Taiwanese. Aside from their global dominance of semiconductor production, they’ve been effective at using AI to make services more efficient and leaned heavily into automation. Yet unemployment is the lowest it’s been in 26 years.
They’ve also learned how to withstand the extremes of climate change. We saw this first hand as we sheltered in a tsunami and earthquake proof hotel from Typhoon Champi, one of the most violent storms to make landfall in Taiwan this century.
It’s a stunningly beautiful part of the world and its people are humble, joyful and yet quietly preparing for a crisis that may come to define our century.
Such a crisis may be just months away and could come in the form of a full-scale invasion or a blockade of the Taiwan Strait by the People’s Republic of China. Chinese President Xi Jinping is thought to hold Chinese reunification with Taiwan as being essential to his legacy in office and for China’s ‘century of renewal’.
If such an invasion were to occur, western nations would struggle to level at China the kind of draconian sanctions we are currently imposing on Russia, considering our reliance on Chinese tech, academic funding and university students. This exposure is an issue I have raised several times in the Scottish Parliament and represents a massive strategic problem.
Added to this, with the depletion of American ammunition in Iran and their apparent disregard for previous alliances and treaties, the Taiwanese are preparing for both war and siege with a quiet understanding that when that hour comes, they may have to face it alone.
Such a shock would have massive ramifications for the global economy. You are probably carrying at least 20 Taiwanese semi-conductors on you right now. But the reason I think we should have solidarity with Taiwan is far more human. This is a young democracy that has turned its back on dictatorship and embraced freedom, human rights and diversity.
The people of Taiwan don’t wish to provoke the PRC, they just want to be left in peace, to create, to innovate in the freedom that democracy offers them. We have a moral duty to stand with Taiwan, whatever the future brings.