Taiwan’s new president calls on China to end threats and intimidation

Taiwan’s new president, Lai Ching-te, has called on Beijing to work with him to achieve peace and common prosperity rather than menace his country as he was sworn into office amid high tensions across the Taiwan Strait.

China should “stop its verbal attacks and military intimidation . . . shoulder global responsibilities together with Taiwan, commit to maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the region and ensure that the world is free from the fear of war”, Lai said in his inaugural address on Monday.

Lai appealed to Beijing to engage with Taiwan’s democratically elected government, calling for the resumption of mutual tourism exchanges and programmes bringing Chinese students to Taiwan.

Senior officials in Lai’s incoming government said the pledge to resume exchanges was a concrete gesture of goodwill. The Chinese government has blamed Taiwan for an almost complete breakdown in cross-Strait interaction, though Taipei insists that Beijing has hindered a resumption of programmes.

The Chinese Communist party claims that Taiwan is part of China and threatens to use force to bring it under its control if Taipei resists unification indefinitely. It has denounced Lai as a “dangerous separatist”, rhetoric even more hostile than its rejection of his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen.

As he sought to reassure the US, Lai invoked much of the language that Tsai — whose prudent China policy drew plaudits abroad — used to describe Taiwan’s status and its relationship with Beijing.

Lai pledged that his government would “neither yield nor provoke, and maintain the status quo” across the Taiwan Strait and “uphold the four commitments” made by Tsai, including sticking to the country’s free and democratic constitutional system.

Other commitments are that the Republic of China — Taiwan’s official name — and the People’s Republic of China should not be subordinate to each other; to resist annexation or encroachment upon Taiwan’s sovereignty; and to ensure that the country’s future must be decided in accordance with the will of the Taiwanese people.

“Since the future of the two sides of the Strait has a decisive impact on the global situation, we . . . will be the helmsmen of peace,” Lai said.

Lai also called on Beijing to acknowledge the existence of the ROC, another phrase borrowed from Tsai. Founded on the mainland, the ROC has persisted in Taiwan after it was defeated in China’s 1949 Communist revolution.

But he added his own note on national identity, saying: “No matter if [it is] the Republic of China, Republic of China Taiwan or Taiwan, these names [that] we ourselves or our international friends call our country all resonate and shine the same.”

Although the CCP refuses to recognise the ROC, Chinese leaders are even more alarmed by references to “Taiwan”, which are often interpreted as a signal of support for Taiwanese independence.

“Lai’s statement that prosperous coexistence should be a common goal for the two sides echoes Beijing’s recent call for him to choose between peaceful development or confrontation,” said Danny Russel, vice-president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

But his pledge to neither yield nor provoke while maintaining the status quo is “certain to fall flat with Beijing”, added Russel, who was an assistant secretary of state under US president Barack Obama. “There is virtually nothing that Lai could have said, short of ‘unconditional surrender’, that would satisfy Beijing.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Chen Binhua on Monday accused Lai, whom he referred to as “leader of the Taiwan region”, of “flagrantly promoting separatist fallacies and inciting cross-strait confrontation”.

“‘Taiwan independence’ and peace in the Taiwan Strait are as incompatible as fire and water,” Chen added. “No matter how the situation on the island changes or who comes to power, the fact that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China cannot be altered.”

Lai also faces attempts by opposition parties to expand the powers of the legislature — in which he lacks a majority — and weaken security legislation. On Monday he urged his domestic rivals to avoid political gain at the cost of national interests.

He pledged to expand Taiwan’s global role by leveraging its strength in the semiconductor industry and committed to making the country’s economic growth more inclusive and strengthening social security.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that Washington looked forward to “working with President Lai and across Taiwan’s political spectrum to advance our shared interests and values, deepen our long-standing unofficial relationship and maintain peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.

Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi called Taiwan an “extremely crucial partner and important friend” in congratulatory remarks that expressed hopes of further deepening their relationship.

Additional reporting by Wenjie Ding in Beijing