 I'm pleased to be joined by K.J. Noh, a journalist, researcher, and peace activist who has really covered stories from around the world, but especially in East Asia, and is here with us to break down the recent elections in Taiwan and talk about what those elections mean for China-US relations, for peace in the Pacific, and really the, you know, the future of so many people. And so, I think it's K.J. for joining us today. Pleasure to be with you. Yeah, I want to first start by asking, you know, the elections came through with William Lai winning 40% roughly of the vote. You know, a combined 60% voted for different candidates in the election. So, break down, what does it mean? I understand the nationalist KMT still control the legislative UN, but which is like the parliament or legislature in Taiwan, but what does it mean that there was this disconnect between what the majority really wanted and what the outcomes were? Well, I think it's a very telling result, because remember, there is the DPP, which is the incumbent party. This is the US-aligned, US-supported party. So, in a sense, it's not a surprise that the US candidate from the US-supported party wins in a US-influenced election in a US neocolony. I mean, it's that simple, but even so, in the previous election, the DPP had won 57% of the vote. This time round, they won 40% of the vote's cast, which is to say that two-thirds of the people did not vote for them. And if we look at the actual numbers of, if we compare that to the actual number of the electorate, it's only 28% of the electorate that voted for them. And therefore, we have to understand this as really a rejection of their platform than an acceptance of their platform of secession. Now, people will tell you, well, Taiwan is a model democracy, and this shows that people chose democracy, nothing of the sort. The first thing to understand is that this is a first past the post election, which is a very, very unusual system for most political electoral systems. There are only about 20 countries that use this system to elect their executive or their head of state, and almost all of them are characterized by the United States as dictatorships or authoritarian or at best hybrid, but they're all incredibly maligned countries from the standpoint of the United States. So Taiwan fits into this category. Essentially, they won the presidency with 28% of the vote. There was no runoff. Most countries would have a runoff or a rank choice, or if it's a parliamentary system, there would be a cohabitation, nothing of the sort. And so they don't have a mandate, but the U.S. press is claiming it as some kind of mandate. And of course, as you point out, the DPP also lost the legislative yuan, the legislative chambers. And so right now, they have been outmatched by the opposition KMT, and then there is the TPP, which is a third party, which will determine a lot of the legislative votes depending on how they decide to go. Yeah, that's really, I think, astute reading. And I actually want to kind of dig a little deeper about the underlying issues. This was billed both by Western media and by Chinese media as kind of an election about war and peace, and also to an extent about people's livelihoods, especially when it comes to a lot of the rural working class in Taiwan, a lot of the fisher folk, and people who were concerned with rising cost of rent, the housing crisis is the global crisis. But can you speak to what, based on your understanding, most folks in Taiwan were really voting for if it was really a war and peace election? And also, I just want to say the one China policy, which is kind of a condition for having relations with the people's republic of China, holds countries to affirm that there is only one China on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. So with that in mind, how is this election about war and peace? So in order to understand that you have to understand a little bit of the role that Taiwan serves in the geopolitical arena. Just a brief historical note. For millennia, Neolithic farmers would be traveling to Taiwan Island from China, from the Yangtze River Basin. They settled, some of them moved further Pacific, but essentially it was settled by waves and waves of Neolithic farmers from the Chinese continent. In the 17th century, it was briefly colonized by the Dutch. And then it was taken back by a Ming dynasty loyalist. And then it became administered as a province of the Qing dynasty. And so it became an administrative region of the Qing dynasty. In 1895, China and Japan went to war. This is the Sino-Japanese War. And as a result of that, the Japanese took or stole Taiwan Island and the Liaodong Peninsula as war booty. Essentially, they were on a colonial rampage. The Sino-Japanese War was fought because the Japanese wanted to colonize Korea. The Chinese were trying to prevent that. The Chinese lost because the Qing dynasty was weakened. And as a result, the Japanese colonized Korea. But also they claimed or they took as war booty the Liaodong Peninsula just to the northeast, northwest of the Korean Peninsula. And then they also claimed Taiwan Island. So they essentially created the colony of Korea and then two colonial outposts of China. When Japan lost World War II, the Cairo Declaration stated that Japan had to return all of its colonies to their former leaders or former countries. The Liaodong Peninsula was returned to China quite rapidly. But the U.S. became involved in a civil war between the KMT and the CPC, the Communist Party. The KMT retreated to Taiwan. And then the U.S. in the Seventh Fleet became involved and essentially backstopped or supported the KMT to occupy Taiwan Island. It's a little bit like if there were a civil war. During the U.S. civil war, the Confederate army retreated to Galveston, Texas, and they camped out there. And it's as if China had intervene on the part of the Confederacy on Galveston Island and prevented the Union army from taking back all of Texas. It's a little bit like that. And from Taiwan Island, the KMT, the losing fascist party, claimed all of China for itself. In 1971, the United Nations passed Resolution 2758, which essentially said there is only one China. The legitimate government of China is the PRC. And this was agreed to by the vast majority of the countries of the United Nations. Essentially, the world voted the PRC is the legitimate government of China. And Taiwan is part of China. Taiwan is simply a province of China. In 1979, the United States normalized relationships with the PRC. And so essentially, Taiwan went from being a Japanese colony to, for about three decades, a U.S. outpost, a U.S. military outpost from where the United States threatened China. They had a military base on Taiwan Island. They placed Matador missiles. They placed nuclear missiles pointed at China on Taiwan Island. And then from 1979 onwards, after normalizing relations with China, Taiwan Island went from being a U.S. base, U.S. neocolony, to becoming a U.S. hedge. So for the next few decades, the United States had relations with China. It was engaging with China. But it always continued to use Taiwan Island as a hedge. And it also used it as a base for continued subversion against global liberation movement. So Taiwan, although it didn't have official relations with the U.S. after 1979, it was a kind of subcontractor for U.S. dirty wars, U.S. subterfuge, U.S. subversion. So the things that were so dirty and so illegal that the United States could not have the CIA do it outright, they subcontracted to Taiwan Island through what was called the World Anti-Communist League. And on Taiwan, they had this training school, a little bit like the School of the Americas, but on steroids called the pay to political warfare cadres academy. And there they taught death squads and death squad leaders how to engage in anti-communist counterinsurgency, essentially how to brutalize the people. And this happened all over the global south, which is why after 1979, if you look at the countries that Taiwan had continued to have relations with, most of them were Latin American dictatorships. Yes. Sorry. Yeah, I want to actually ask about how that fits into the current situation as well because William Lai, who won the election, he is an interesting figure because he has ties to the national endowment to democracy. And in July 17th, 2023, it was announced that Lai would be Taiwan's adversary to Santiago Pena's inauguration in Paraguay. Paraguay, of course, is a country where the indigenous folks are fighting a lot of battles, just basic rights over water and facing a lot of repression. Paraguay is also very interlinked with Israel. So talk about that kind of current contemporary trend of where leaders from Taiwan and Israel and South America stand. Yeah. So once again, Taiwan Island, after it broke official relations, it continued as a hedge for US subversion around the world. And it was a kind of a subcontractor to US geopolitical design, in particular in dirty wars, anti-communist dirty wars. And so it has this continued relationship through the World Anti-Communist League. It created kind of a global clearinghouse for fascists around the world. So we're talking about Eastern European Nazis, Ukrainian Nazis, Croatian Nazis, all the Eastern European Nazis, along with the South Korean dictatorships, the Latin American dictatorships, and the Taiwanese KMT itself was a militia dictatorship until the 80s. It still had martial law. All of these came together, and as I said, they were creating relations with Latin American dictatorships. They were one of the firmest supporters of apartheid South Africa. So if you look at the medals that Taiwan has given out, it's most important civilian medal that is given out, historically, the medal of propitious clouds. They gave this to Kishi Nobusuki, Japanese war criminal. They gave this to PW Bota, the apartheid leader of South Africa. They gave it to Pak Changi, the military genocidal dictator of South Korea. They gave it to Jesse Helms. Again, I think that speaks for itself. And then most recently, when Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan Island, they gave it to Taiwan Island. So that is the company with which she keeps. But once again, Taiwan was very, very important in maintaining Israel as a Zionist state. It was very, very important in upholding South African apartheid. And it was very, very instrumental in ensuring this kind of counterinsurgency, a subterfuge, dirty war all over Latin America. And the example that came to light in the media was when John K. Singlaub, who was working out of the Taiwan-based World Anti-Communist League, was running Iran contra. And so this was the weapons for drugs deal that they were using to fund the contras in El Salvador. And this was supported by Oliver North inside the administration. But the World Anti-Communist League was the way they did it under the table. And all of this is to say that Taiwan has this terrible, terrible history of collaborating with the worst imperialists on this planet. And it functions. Its political class, certainly the TPP, has functioned as butlers or enablers of US imperialism around the world for US corporations, including in Paraguay, including in Costa Rica, all over Latin America. And the NED connection is very, very important because the NED, the National Endowment for Democracy, along with the National Democratic Institute, these are proxies or cutouts for US imperialist design. And most recently, William Lai met with the head of the National Endowment for Democracy last year in July. He also, his president, Lai is currently the VP. He's the president-elect, but he's currently the VP. The president, Tsai Ing-wen of the DPP received the NED's highest award. So she won an award from the NED. And then, you know, the American Institute of Taiwan, the AIT, which is the kind of de facto American embassy. It's just amazing. It's 10 acres large. I mean, it's Taiwan is a small country. And to think that you have, quote, an unofficial embassy, which is 10 acres large with a $250 million building is just mind-boggling. But that gives you a sense of the American presence there. They already have US troops on the ground, training and training other troops. They also have Taiwanese troops in the United States training. And all of this is a kind of continued escalation and preparation for war, which has been mapped out in what is called TERRA, the Taiwan Enhanced Resilience Act, which has worked into the NDAA and is essentially law. It's a plan to micromanage Taiwan's military as well as to micromanage its civilian government and to ensure that Taiwan functions like Ukraine, like a trigger for war against China, certainly as a US outpost. The TERRA legislation has specifically written into it provisions for an enduring rotational presence. Enduring rotational presence is just jargon for military base. Yeah, I mean, these escalations we've seen in recent years are just rationing up tensions to a very dangerous place. I mean, really for decades, the US has been interfering in Taiwan. There's been armed interference. And a lot of it goes back to the US Taiwan Business Council, which people like Paul Wolfowitz and Katharine Weinberger, people who were defense secretaries for neoconservative administrations were chairman of that council. And it was those figures who also pressured leaders in Taiwan to chip away at the status quo. A lot of people in Taiwan actually favor the status quo, which is they don't really want to shake up relations with the Chinese mainland as they stand. They do not seek Taiwan independence. And also the draft or military conscription is very unpopular in Taiwan. But there's this disconnect between what US politicians and media say and the public opinion in Taiwan. So what is the context that Americans aren't getting about what people in Taiwan are saying? I think there are a whole bunch of things. And one of the things is that, as you pointed out, the vast majority of people on Taiwan province want to maintain the status quo. The DPP has a secessionist agenda. And when you have a secessionist agenda, that is essentially a trigger for war. There's no country that I know of that will allow a secession, a unilateral secession, without it leading to some kind of serious conflict. It's true for even the United States. The bloodiest war that the United States fought was a war against secession. And this is true for China as well. Not only that, but Taiwan also serves as a geopolitical linchpin. It's the kind of keystone of an arch of encirclement around China. The starting, what we call the first island chain, starts in the Kurils, goes down through the Japanese islands, Jeju Island, Korea, and then Taiwan is the dead center, and then up to the Philippine archipelago and then the Indonesian archipelago. We call this the first island chain. The United States in 2011 declared the pivot to Asia, and then it essentially started to militarize this entire first island chain, filling it with missiles and bases and ships and preparing it for war. Taiwan Island is the closest point of this first island chain to China. It's 80 miles away. And it also guards the entry and exit points along the coast or the literal coast of China, which is saved. There is the Miyako Strait with Japan and then the Bashi Channel with the Philippines. And these are the two entry and exit points along that coast. And the United States plan is to bottle China in along that coast and then to start a war along the South China Sea, perhaps on Taiwan in the East China Sea and then in Korea. It's very, very mapped out in detail. And this kind of choke point that they want to, this kind of perfect news, the Americans refer to it as a perfect news. The breakout point has to do with Taiwan. And so the US does not want Taiwan to be reunified with China. They see it in their interest to constantly escalate against China using Taiwan as the spear tip or the center of this encirclement. And so that's why there's so much contestation around Taiwan Island. The vast majority of people don't want to be pulled into a US war. They don't want to be turned into a second Ukraine. They don't want every last, you know, mail to be turned into cannon fodder for the United States. But the US is in the process of doing this. And once again, if you look at the legislation of terror, there are all kinds of provisions to audit the army, to audit morale, to make sure that the Taiwanese people are willing to fight, you know, to make sure that, you know, there's enough military force to wage war, very, very similar to what we are seeing in Ukraine. And of course, as you point out very recently, the DPP increased the draft from four months to one year. They increased the draft length three times. And, you know, I assure you that the draft is not popular anywhere in the world, certainly not on Taiwan Island. And the fact that they increased the draft, I think shows how foundationally they are at odds, you know, with the desires of the people. And then I think it points further to how illegitimate, you know, this election is just a few more points around, you know, the US influence. William Lai, of course, studied in the United States. That's why he goes by the name of William. He, as I said, you know, they did not win a majority of the vote. The majority voted against them. But his vice presidential candidate, the VP-elect, Louise Schau, was a US citizen. And she was a US citizen until she entered politics. And then it, you know, they needed to, you know, kind of erase that US background. But she was raised by an American mother. Her mother is American. She was raised in the US. She went to school in New Jersey and New York. She was responsible for bringing Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan. And she was instrumental in getting the terror act asked in Congress. Once again, this is the plan to Ukrainianize Taiwan to turn it into weaponized provocation against China. So she is one of the key drivers of this escalation. And she's doing essentially the plan that the United States has, which is to use Taiwan as a trigger for war against China. Now, this trigger will not be pulled immediately because right now the US has its hands full in the Middle East and in the Ukraine. But certainly, certainly slowly but surely, this escalation is happening. Just recently, Japan has made plans to buy 400 medium-range missiles. I think Tomahawks from the United States. These are all nuclear-capable missiles. They are all subsonic missiles, which is to say that they're not rapid enough to be used as counter strike. They are offensive weapons. And of course, very recently, I think today, the British defense secretary said that the UK has to prepare for war with Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. And you can see all of this is being built up. We're continually escalating to war. And the plan of war is when war happens is to escalate it horizontally all along the first island chain and all around China, so that China is overwhelmed. There's some very, very nefarious thinking going on. Andrew Kropinovich, who was the architect of the war against China. It's a battle doctrine called Air Sea Battle, which he started in 2009, 2010, 2011. He just recently wrote a new article in Foreign Affairs Magazine, the Journal of the Council of Foreign Relations. And he essentially sent the message to the ruling class, we need to prepare for long, painful, protracted war against China. The article is called The Big One, and he said, prepare for war. This is what we need to do. This is why it's really important for us to have these conversations and disarm the discourse, set the record straight, let people know that the war against China is a war against humanity. It's unthinkable. And it's an escalation that does not need to happen. And understanding the importance of how Taiwan fits into that, I feel is so critical, especially with all the fear mongering we hear from politicians and different voices in the mainstream media. So KJ, I really appreciate you bringing your perspective. And it's such an honor to have you be a member of our China, it's our enemy team. So once again, thank you so much. And as always, it's so important to keep working for peace and disarm the discourse. Thank you, Kail. Pleasure to be with you.