TAIPEI: Taiwan marked the 80th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day on Thursday by making broad comparisons between threats to European peace and aggression from China, whose leader Xi Jinping was in Russia for commemorations as Moscow continues its invasion of Ukraine.
“Peace is priceless, and war has no winners. History has taught us that no matter the driving reason or ideology, military aggression against another country is an unjust crime that is bound to fail,” Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te told diplomats in Taipei.
“Authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy, and greater inequality,” he added.
Turning more directly to China’s threats, Lai said that both Taiwan and Europe were “now facing the threat of a new authoritarian bloc.”
“We are seeing our decades-old undersea cables, crucial for communications and cybersecurity, being sabotaged. We are seeing external interference in our elections, crucial for healthy democratic development, through the spread of misinformation and disinformation, sowing intentional division in society,” Lai said.
He added that democratic, rules-based markets are threatened by “all manner of gray-zone activities, dumping, pressures and intrusions.”
Lai’s remarks came during Taiwan’s first-ever official commemoration of VE Day and at a time when Taiwan is making a diplomatic push for closer ties with fellow democracies that nevertheless have no formal ties with the island in deference to Beijing. Former President Tsai Ing-wen is visiting Lithuania and Denmark from Friday, while Foreign Affairs Minister Lin Chia-lung is visiting the U.S. state of Texas.
China, under the Nationalist regime of former strongman Chiang Kai-shek, fought alongside the Allies in Asia during World War II and received some military assistance from the then-USSR.
China claims Taiwan as part of its territory to be annexed by force if necessary and says it has no right to international recognition. Just 12 countries, mostly small island nations in the South Pacific and Caribbean, have official diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Lai said that those who cherish peace “cannot sit idly by and allow aggression.”
“The outbreak of the war in Europe certainly had much to do with an authoritarian regime seeking to satisfy its expansionary ambitions, but its wider spread throughout Europe had much more to do with a lack of vigilance toward acts of aggression,” he said.
