President Tsai Ing-wen says if Taiwan falls, the consequences for regional peace and democracy will be "catastrophic." Those remarks were from her editorial for the American magazine Foreign Affairs, published on Tuesday.
President Tsai says Taiwan does not want a military confrontation, but seeks peaceful, stable, reliable, and mutually-beneficial coexistence with its neighbors. She says that even as Taiwan continues to gain support, it will not turn "adventurist," but it will also not bend to pressure. However, she says that if "its democracy and way of life are threatened, Taiwan will do whatever it takes to defend itself." She says democracy is nonnegotiable to the Taiwanese, and that they will "rise up should the very existence of Taiwan be under threat."
President Tsai says that as more and more countries recognize the threat from the Chinese Communist Party, they should "understand the value of working with Taiwan." The fall of Taiwan would signal the victory of authoritarianism over democracy in the global contest of values.
President Tsai's words come at a time of rising threat from the Chinese Communist Party. In the first four days of October, a total of 149 Chinese military aircraft have breached Taiwan's southern Air Defence Identification Zone.