 Welcome back to Fake Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Global Connections. We're going to talk today about the implications of the elections in Taiwan. Wow, important. Okay. And for this discussion, we have Carl Baker, the senior advisor to Pacific Forum. Welcome to the show, Carl. Ah, good to be back, Jay. It's always good to talk to you about current events. And certainly Taiwan is a big topic these days. The big topic, and relatively speaking, is a little island, a little diplomatic object in the global environment. But let's talk about this election. It was not a perfect victory, was it? No, it wasn't. I mean, perfect in the sense that it certainly wasn't a resounding majority, one 40% of the vote in the way the elections work in Taiwan. That's good enough when you have two other candidates that get less than 40%. Yeah. They actually are talking about trying to change that. It's the first past the post system. The first past a certain post, I guess that's plurality, and then you win. Yeah. And so this has been an issue in Taiwan in the past, is that you have three candidates and then you get somebody with less than 50% of the country, representing the country. But yeah, I mean, it's the other, I think probably the most significant that I think regarding the election is that this is the first time a president has won for the third time around. It's always been ever since they started the elections, the president has always served for two terms. This time, the DPP served for two terms and it won again. So now because it's term limits of two terms, this is the first time that the incumbent party has been able to maintain power for the third time. That's what's significant about it. And how long is the term? Four years. Yeah, four years. So eight years. So this will be 12 years under a president from the DPP. Okay. And what's his name? Li Jingte. I guess one interesting point about this is the run up, because although the United States warned China not to interfere in the election, China made a lot of comments about Li Jingte and in order to undermine it, do you recall what was happening there? Well, yeah, I mean, Li Jingte has got a history of calling for Taiwan independence. Actually, he's moderated his view quite significantly from the beginning of the Tsai administration where he was the vice president. And so in the early days, he was very much a strident proponent of independent Taiwan. And he's actually backed away from that. And so that's what made him more palatable to I think the common people in Taiwan. But it also made him a lightning rod for Chinese hatred because of the statements he had made earlier in his life about Taiwan independence. Yeah, she called him a person who would undermine the peaceful situation and lead Taiwan into violence this time. And I think that was not only because he believes it if he does, but because he wanted the people in Taiwan to vote against him. And voting against him would be voting against war and nobody likes war. Yeah, I mean, that certainly is the way the Chinese, whatever you want to call it, propaganda, disinformation, misinformation operation tried to portray him as the problem maker and not the problem solver because they really wanted to see a KMT-Gormand-Dau candidate, when because they see the KMT as the legitimate counterpart to the Communist Party in terms of a dialogue between parties rather than the country of China and the country of Taiwan. And if you remember, this goes way back to 1996 when Li Deng Wei originally said it has to be a state-to-state discussion, not a party-to-party discussion. So KMT didn't do badly in this election, they came out with what 52 as against the 51 votes for the KPP? Right, for the DPP, right. Yeah, I mean, they have 52 seats in the legislature, that's right, to the 51 for DPP. So they have basically a hung parliament in the sense that the Womendong has the majority, but they're going to have to play with the TPP, the Taiwan People's Party, because they have 12 seats and then there's two independent seats. So there has to be some coalition to be able to move something through the legislature at this point. But certainly the DPP is at a disadvantage because it is one seat short of what the KMT want. Yeah, it would take 57 votes to command the majority out of 113, I think. In any event, how likely is it that they're going to be able to build a consensus among the two parties? Because in the past, they've been relatively successful in domestic issues, but who knows now? Well, I think, yeah, I mean, it's going to be a problem. And I think the fact that the KMT did as well as it did in the legislative elections, I think says something about the concern in Taiwan about going too far, being too assertive, because the majority of the people in Taiwan want to maintain status quo. And what that really means is different things for different people. But essentially, they recognize the values and the benefits of what they have now, versus being a part of one country, two systems that they saw in Hong Kong. And yet they don't want to be so independent that they end up in a war with China over the concept of independence. Well, this is all about trying to hold onto the status quo. About Taiwan holding onto the status quo. Yeah, I mean, China wants to change the status quo, of course, because they find the status quo increasingly unacceptable, because for the DPP, the way they characterize the status quo is we are independent by virtue of the fact that we have our own government and we don't need to just declare independence. So the way they see it is we are independent. We just aren't going to say it. You know, before the show, I asked Alexa whether, she's bling off again, I asked Alexa whether Taiwan had the ability to hold off the Chinese, and she refused to answer me. So let me ask you, does Taiwan have the ability to hold off the Chinese? Well, I mean, that's an ambiguous, I mean, I would give you the same answer as Alexa saying it's a really ambiguous question, because I don't know, I mean, what do you mean by hold off the Chinese? Well, you know, deter an attack, beat back an attack. Well, I mean, I mean, in absolute terms, no, I mean, China has nuclear weapons, it could, it could, you know, explode a nuclear weapon and destroy Taiwan. I mean, as a simple answer. Now, can it, can it withstand a full on conventional attack from China? Yes, I think it can. But I mean, again, these are sort of absolute terms when you start talking about military capabilities. I mean, the fact is, is that I think China and China recognizes this, that even if you have a military victory, it could very well be a very pirate victory, because you destroy all the infrastructure that Taiwan represents. So you can have, you can have a burned out Taiwan. And you can call it your territory, because the people are all dead, or the people are, you know, have no, have no economy. There's no, there's no infrastructure left for people to drive. You know, what do you mean by by success in that, in that kind of a war? I guess is what I'm saying is, is, yes, I think China has the capacity just given the size of the Chinese military and the, and the potency of Chinese weapons, they can destroy Taiwan. But again, it becomes a very pirate victory. And if it's not a pirate victory, if you're, if you manage to take control of the government, you have 23 million people who are not going to be very happy living under a government that they don't recognize as being legitimate. Now, let's talk about those people. 23 million people, they have culture of democracy. They have been wedded and ensuciastic about democracy for a long time. Is that built in, or does that change, you know? The third part of you mentioned TTP, was it? That's very young, and they may have a different view of things. And maybe they don't care so much. So was it 60 minutes production on this issue last year, I think it was? Well, everything was last year. Yeah. And they reported that there was a fair amount of complacency in Taiwan. In other words, people were doing well. They want to, you know, continue to do well, but they weren't going to get too excited about China. What do people think in Taiwan? Well, I don't care to be the spokesperson for people in Taiwan, because I think there's obviously a wide variety of views. There are some, mind Joe certainly believes that we should move toward a better relationship with mainland China. I mean, he's made that very clear, and he was, you know, just in recent weeks, he was making that case for the K&T to move more toward his view of establishing economic relations and all that. So there's a wide variety of views. But I think in general, the statement you're making is correct that there's very much a satisfaction with the status quo, with not trying to go too far one way or the other. And so I think that that is the general view. Now, I would challenge a little bit the solidity of the democracy. You know, everybody is quick to say, oh, it's a culture of democracy. But, you know, as we've seen in other democracies, sometimes that democracy is a bit more elusive than what we thought it was. Yeah, you mean like in the United States? Yeah, that would be an example. Yeah, so, you know, and certainly there are accusations of voter fraud in Taiwan that I mean, the government's doing a pretty good job of keeping that quiet. But if you if you get into the social media accounts in Taiwan, there's people who are showing that there may have been some irregularities in the voting and all this kind of stuff. And certainly there's a dislike for the DPP. And that's part of the reason why they explained that the KMT was as successful as it was in legislative elections because there is a dissatisfaction with the current government, with the government as itself. So I think, you know, to say that there's a strong culture of democracy, there certainly is an appreciation for democracy, but there's also a lot of challenges to the institutions associated with democratic governance in Taiwan. You know, we know that China is into hacking, and for that matter, into hacking social media in this country. And we know that Joe Biden said China don't interfere with Taiwan election. But I have a little trouble accepting that China did not interfere, did not involve itself in social media. I have not seen any reports. Do you have any thoughts about that? Well, I mean, what comes to my mind is that, you know, meeting in Taiwan last year, I remember listening to someone talk about the number of attempted intrusions on government computer systems in Taiwan last year, and it's in the thousands per day. I mean, it's a crazy large number. And so I think there's no doubt that China is not only trying to infiltrate the social media, it's also working very hard at cyber intrusions in general. So there's no doubt that they're trying to influence Taiwan. You know, and I mean, originally it was, you know, Taiwan or China recognizes that it has to seek or gain the acceptance from the people of Taiwan. And then it becomes a question of how do you do that? And of course, one of the ways to do that is the way everybody has decided to try to influence people. It's through social media and through disinformation, misinformation. So I think there's no doubt that in many ways, Taiwan has become a poster child for, you know, cyber security. Let's turn to diplomatic relations for a moment. As I was telling you before the show, all the very important topics that my wife and I discuss at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and our own. Naro is not one of them. However, Naro is a part of this little story, isn't it? What happened? Well, yeah. I mean, the day after the election, Naro switched its recognition of Taiwan to China. And by the way, this was, they did this before, and then they switched it back. So, you know, so this is a small Pacific island nation who sees the advantage of appealing to China for infrastructure development, for development assistance, you know, and this is they called it, you know, dollar diplomacy, or, you know, basically buying small countries. And when you look at the lineup of the 12 countries that still recognize Taiwan over China, it's a pretty small number, a couple, a couple small countries in Pacific islands, one country in Africa and that few countries in Latin America. So, you know, so yeah, there isn't really a lot of recognition left. But this is, of course, because of China's hard policy of the one, you can only recognize one China and that China is resides in the government resides in Beijing. So you if you're a small country and you want to you want to get development assistance from China, that's what you have to do. And so there's always this competition. And in the past, you know, Taiwan was able to maintain relations with a large number of Pacific islands. They've lost several of them now, Solomon Islands recently, Vanuatu, you know, so they're moving away from being able to maintain those relationships with the small countries because China has become so big and so pervasive in some of these areas that they've been able to push Taiwan dollar diplomacy. It's a kind of corruption. I did I did see an article which suggested that in that in order to achieve this new liaison with NARU, it paid NARU $100 million and made a promise that it would continue to pay that every year. And pay means perhaps helping them with infrastructure loans or what have you to rebuild NARU from its previous economy, which is all about Guano. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, the 4,000 or 13,000 people in NARU are certainly appreciative of that donation. I'm sure they had a condo here. I think it still is. I think it's still here. Anyway, so what you have is a reduction of the number of countries, both in size and scope, around the world that do recognize and have diplomatic ties with Taiwan. And this is said because it does reflect a certain amount of diplomatic a-pay-as-you-go corruption. But Query, does Taiwan care about any of that? Should it care about any of that? What effect does that have on Taiwan? Of course, Taiwan does care. And if you don't believe it, just watch what happens when the Marshall Islands, the president of the Marshall Islands, comes to town. They put on full regalia and do parades and all that kind of stuff. I don't think they get the same kind of treatment when they go to Washington. I think it does matter. But again, Taiwan has been very practical in the way they approach it. And they certainly have a very aggressive program in Southeast Asia for economic relationships. And they've certainly over the last couple of years done very well with the West appealing to the sense of democracy, of the brotherhood of democracies, if you will, that they've done very well gaining the attention of the Eastern European countries and of the United States. We've changed a lot in the last five years about how we think about Taiwan. So I think the Tsai administration has been very successful in establishing relationships without talking about the formal diplomatic relationship. And so they've done away with some of the parades and the sort of ceremonial aspects of state-to-state relations, but they've done very well with the economic side of the relationships. And they've been able to get parliamentarians from different countries to show up. Obviously, Nancy Pelosi made the big splash when she went to Taiwan. So they've done very well with establishing relationships short of the formal diplomatic relationship. I want to return to one thing and explore this thing with you. We talk about diplomatic relations. And China is trying to cut Taiwan off from as many countries as it can to sever diplomatic relations. At the same time, we have Western countries that are friendly with Taiwan. They don't have treaties, mutual defense treaties or anything like that, but they're friendly and they're providing economic benefit. And then the Quad out there, that's a statement that we care about Taiwan and Taiwan knows it and China knows it. So what I'm getting at, Carlos, it's really interesting. You raised it in my mind when you talked about that. Could there be a new kind of diplomacy emerging here? Before it was formal diplomacy, now it's kind of de facto diplomacy. And you want to achieve that just as much? But I couldn't be right about that. Oh, yeah. I think you are. We've created these euphemisms, so we don't have an embassy in Taiwan. We have the American Institute of Taiwan, which has a beautiful campus just close to the downtown airport. It looks an awful lot like an embassy. It acts an awful lot like an embassy, but it's called American Institute in Taiwan. And originally, the former diplomats were posted to that organization. Now they are real normal American diplomats. So there's been a gradual movement toward more formal recognition. But yeah, I mean, it's all informal. And I think you're right. Like I said, there's countries in Europe, United States, even for that matter, Japan, and the Philippines are sending people there, but they're politicians. They're not administrative branch people. They're certainly not senior administrative people, but they tend to send parliamentarians because they are elected officials and they have much more freedom of movement. And they really can't get a complaint from China about that or not as much complaining from China about that. So yeah, it's sort of an informal diplomacy. And that's what I was saying is Taiwan has been very adept at developing those kinds of relationships. And so I think that, yeah, it is a new kind of relationship. And that's sort of the travesty to me of the confusion that we have between one China principle and one China policy. And people tend to use those terms interchangeable. But the fact is, is that if you think about one China principle, there's one China, okay, then what does that mean? There's different arts of China, but there could still be different governments inside of that one China. Is it one China culture? You know, does it include the diaspora? You know, there's a lot of ways to think about that. But what's happened is everybody has sort of accepted China's demand that you accept the one China policy, which then puts that principle into practice, which means you have to recognize the government in Beijing as the sole legitimate source of political control in this greater China. And that's where the constraint comes in. So I think, you know, Taiwan in practical terms has played around in this area of one China principle and sort of ignored the policy side where Beijing has always played very strongly on the policy side. You have to accept Beijing as the sole legitimate government. And that's the end of the story. There is no flexibility there in terms of how the principle gets implemented via policy. Ignored the ruling of the International Court associated with the UN on South China Sea and jurisdiction of the Philippines. Ignored it completely, even though they were a party to the court jurisdiction and agreement. So I wonder where of the United Nations, I mean, I feel the United Nations is a failing organization, that's just my opinion. But where is this whole affair between China and Taiwan? Where does it sit with the United Nations? Well, remember, China took the UN seat from Taiwan in 1971. I think 1973 is when that occurred. So they took the seat. So the UN has consistently refused to hear the appeals from Taiwan based on the fact that there is only one China, that they accept China as a legitimate representative of China at the UN. So the UN is doesn't, I mean, every year it's introduced at the General Assembly by the friends of Taiwan. But it has no standing within the UN. And of course, Taiwan is not part of any UN treaty. Is that the right thing for the UN? I'm sorry, I asked you that question. I know it's a hard question. It's a question that can't really be answered because the UN is what it is. And there is an agreement that China represents, that the mainland China PRC represents China at the UN. And yeah, I mean, Taiwan puts forward the resolution every or someone puts forward the resolution on behalf of Taiwan every year. But again, there's nobody at the UN that's going to say, yes, we agree, we should give Taiwan standing within the UN system because there is no basis for it. It brings us to the United States, which does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan and does not recommend, as Joe Biden said a few days ago, independence for Taiwan. Where do we stand? I am frankly very confused. Well, you get into this litany of the six assurances and the Taiwan Relations Act, where the United States basically says we agree that there is one China, that we do not support Taiwan independence, that we will support Taiwan with military equipment. Based on its needs to defend itself against outside invasion, what else are we missing here? I'm trying to think of the other aspects of the six assurances. They won't exert pressure on, they won't involve themselves in the negotiation between the PRC and Taiwan. They won't promote Taiwan independence. So all those things sort of lead up to the idea that the United States supports Taiwan in the sense that it wants to have Taiwan make its own decision on how to reconcile with the PRC. But ultimately, it's locked into the idea that there is one China, that it has to consider how Taiwan and China interact in terms of military and in terms of finding a peaceful solution. But ultimately, it's about the United States promotes peace and stability and it will not involve itself in issues of sovereignty regarding the island of Taiwan with China. Will we defend Taiwan? Well, that of course is the difficult issue. They've widened on several occasions has said we will defend Taiwan and that's sort of a bold statement because we say that we will help Taiwan resist an invasion, a military invasion. So will we defend Taiwan? Back in the old days, it used to be we would, but only if it's an unprovoked attack. And then it becomes a question of what is an unprovoked attack? Is Taiwan declaring independence an unprovoked attack or is that a provocation? It gets into the very, very murky area of what is the cause? What is a provocation? What isn't a provocation? What is an unprovoked attack? What isn't an unprovoked attack? So it's a very murky area that we're in when we ask that seemingly straightforward question. How does this election affect relations between the United States and Taiwan? Well, I don't think it affects it very much because the United States has become closer to the DPP in some ways than it was to the KMT because the KMT has always been more aligned with China and more willing to work with China on issues not related to politics and diplomatic relations, where the DPP has always looked to the United States. And in fact, there's kind of an interesting survey that was done where it shows that the people in the DPP tend to believe the United States will come to the defense of Taiwan rather than the KMT, which is more skeptical about the U.S. coming to the defense of Taiwan in the event of a military confrontation. So I think in some ways, and it isn't if it's a conscious or if it's an unconscious sort of drift, but I think the United States has become more comfortable with the DPP as its political partner than it was with, say, mine, Joe and the KMT back before 2016 and signed the win selection. You mentioned earlier that there was a turn-limits issue and this was the last four years that the DPP could run things. What happens during that four years and after that four years? What's the likely evolution politically and diplomatically with China? Well, I mean, let's clarify. The DPP has been in power for the last eight years. And so this was in the past, it's always been the KMT had power for eight years with mine, Joe, and then and then Tsai Ing-wen came along and was in power for eight years. Prior to mine, Joe, it was Chesway Vent, a DPP party who was in power for eight years. So when I'm talking about eight years, that's been the cycle. And then every eight years, there was a shift to the other party. This time around is the first time that the DPP has won a third iteration, a third time. So that's what I mean when I say turn-limits. Tsai Ing-wen can only be president for eight years. So we had to find someone new to run. So why represents the first time the DPP has won in a year where there was not an incumbent available to lead the party? What we see now is that there is very clearly a move in Taiwan to the middle where there's no longer the belief that they need to continue to talk about reunification, that there's this development of a Taiwan identity that is not part of the mainland China. This is just simply because the Chinese that came after the war in 1948, 1949 are now becoming Taiwan citizens. Their kids don't recognize themselves as being mainland Chinese. And so they are developing very much a Taiwan identity. And it's this sort of weird identity that says, well, we really like the status quo. We recognize that China feels that it has sovereignty over Taiwan, but we really see ourselves as Taiwanese and would like to keep the status quo. And so I think with the DPP winning yet again, but with KMT being in power in the legislature, we'll continue this sort of murky gray area where everybody wants to maintain the status quo. And basically what that means is economic well-being, freedom of expression, and sort of placating the Chinese to the extent that they have to. But also, don't forget that the economies of Taiwan and China are very important, that the idea of Taiwan severing itself from mainland China is not on the list. There's a huge amount of trade that goes on between these two countries. I'm sorry, between these two entities, she said, I better be careful. Oh, watch out there, watch that. You know, so I mean, Taiwan recognizes that there's any number of Taiwan factories that are still on the mainland making a lot of money. And so they're not going to, just like the United States and China, are going to have a very difficult time trying to sever all economic ties, Taiwan even more so. So I think the way Taiwan sees it is we can continue to do this and China is going to have to figure out how to get the people of Taiwan to accept it as the ultimate sovereign power over the land territory we call Taiwan. And they're not in a bakery to have that resolved. And China, on the other hand, has kind of taken the approach of, well, we can bully our way into it. But they recognize that that really doesn't serve their long-term purposes of a peaceful takeover of Taiwan. So I think China is as conflicted about this as Taiwan is. It's just that you don't see it in China because of the suppression of media and the controlled information. But, you know, a peaceful takeover wouldn't be the same as it was in Hong Kong. Clearly, the PRC is taking control of Hong Kong. And, you know, they really dictate lots of human life in Hong Kong. But they wouldn't be able to do that so easily in Taiwan, right? There is a straight and there is a difference. And they can't just walk across a bridge. They can't control it the same way. Am I right? No, I think you're absolutely right. And, you know, and Taiwan learned a lesson from Hong Kong. And that's why, you know, China can no longer talk about one country, two systems in Taiwan. It simply is a complete non-starter. And China, I think China recognizes this, that they were aggressive in Hong Kong because they were worried about the signals that they were sending to Taiwan. But they were willing to go into Hong Kong and take over. And basically, you know, there's a Chinese saying, you know, kill the chicken, scare the monkey, you know. And I think that in some ways they saw the option of show them that they can be very, very assertive in Hong Kong in the hopes of scaring Taiwan. You know, and I think that, you know, that that that is their hope of what they tried to do in Hong Kong. But they recognize that that by doing that, they sort of have foreclosed the idea of a one country, two systems approach to Taiwan. Yeah, one last thing before we break. And that is the economy. You know, Taiwan has the chip companies, Taiwan chip company, very, very profitable, unique even. And a desire by China, nobody has a chip company like that. And they have their prosperous. They've thrived over the past few years. How did that affect the election? How does it affect things going forward? Well, yeah, I mean, that's sort of the essence of Taiwan is it's been very successful economically. And so the people are very satisfied with what they have. And that's why they all say, well, we really want the status quo. But by status quo, what they're really saying is they want economic prosperity in a system that doesn't suppress their freedoms and doesn't doesn't force them into into into state owned enterprises and all that. I mean, China or Taiwan is a very entrepreneurial country or very entrepreneurial place. And so, you know, so they like that. And they and they see that as as very the very essence of Taiwan. And so, you know, again, to to to reiterate, you know, they, they, they recognize that they need Taiwan or they need China economically, but they also recognize that they need to expand out, they need to diversify just like all the rest of us do with China, but their their their their their essential capacity is in their economic strength. And, you know, and that's and that's why, you know, to get to the TPP, we haven't really talked about who they really represent. But, you know, coin jet, the leader of this TPP party is is really a sort of a pocketist. And one of the one of the things that that he has complained about, of course, is is the government and that and the corruption that is in the government. I mean, that surprise surprise, there is corruption in Taiwan, you know, and and so there is this concern that the the economic growth has to be systematized, it has to be integrated into a social system that allows people to prosper. And, you know, and so they, you know, Taiwan faces all the same problems all the rest of us do with with an aging population, you know, with with an infrastructure that needs to be kept up with with social programs that support the the elderly, all those things, you know, so they have all those social problems and and and the economic dynamism that promoted Taiwan to where it is now in terms of a, you know, what the 10th largest economy in the world is is something that that they need to maintain to make sure that they don't lose that dynamism. And Lai Ching Tei has to maintain it too, because he'll be measured by the quality of, you know, the economy going forward as as he was measured in his statements about economy in this election. Yeah, increasingly, you know, as as most democracies, they they become, you know, entangled in this in this domestic policy that actually drives the elections in the wind. Yeah. Interesting, we have to keep watching. Carl Baker, senior advisor of Pacific Forum, thank you so much for helping us understand what's going on there. Thank you.