Taiwan’s 18 million voters have thrown down the gauntlet to the world’s democracies.

The question posed by last weekend’s election in the island nation — still claimed by mainland China — couldn’t be more clear: Does the “free world” believe in representative government, the rule of law and the self-determination of peoples — or is it so besotted with the fantasy of making money from China’s oppressed labouring classes that its professed values count for nothing?

Last weekend, Taiwan rounded a major bend along its tortuous 36-year journey from a one-party military regime to becoming one of the most vibrant and vigorous democracies in Asia.

The myth trumpeted by the regime in Beijing for over 40 years — that Taiwan is not a real country but only a renegade China province — is not longer sustainable. For all those decades, Beijing bullied would-be business partners into cutting off diplomatic relations with Taiwan as the price of access to the Chinese market. Countries like Canada, the United States and the democracies of the European Union have gone along with this nonsense. And while the island has been in the throes of its transition to democracy, they’ve been able to sate their lust for business with China while ignoring the Taiwan question.

But with democracy, the rule of law and an independent judiciary now firmly embedded in Taiwan’s civic culture, the question of the right to self-determination of the island’s 23 million people can no longer be ducked.

Canadian politicians, officials and businesspeople — most of them Liberal party stalwarts now associated with the administration of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — have a laudable record of developing Ottawa’s diplomatic relations with the Communist Party regime in Beijing, starting in 1970. Unlike most other western governments, they did it — at the insistence of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and much to Beijing’s annoyance — without appearing to accept China’s claim to ‘own’ Taiwan.

This puts Canada in a sound position to now re-establish formal diplomatic relations with Taipei in place of the current subterfuge of an unofficial “trade office” — an embassy in all but name. At the same time, Ottawa should affirm that, as citizens of a free democracy, Taiwan’s 23 million people have the right to determine their own nationhood and see that decision internationally accepted.

Beijing would be apoplectic, of course — but this has nothing to do with Beijing. Taiwan’s status as an internationally acknowledged independent nation state has irrefutable merit, irrespective of China’s wishes.

Tsai keeps a cool head and consistently has shown the will to staunchly defend Taiwan’s de facto independence in the face of Beijing’s spurious claims to own the island. Tsai keeps a cool head and consistently has shown the will to staunchly defend Taiwan’s de facto independence in the face of Beijing’s spurious claims to own the island.

And Ottawa shouldn’t worry too much that overtures to Taiwan might derail free trade talks with China. Beijing is most interested in getting freer access to Canada’s natural and agricultural resources, while giving Canada as little access as possible to its own market. Anyway, the worth of such a trade agreement right now is questionable; the Chinese economy is in turmoil and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The Communist Party cannot permit the real reforms needed to make the economy sustainable without seeing its own power erode — something it’s not prepared to allow.

On Saturday, Taiwanese voters gave a clear victory in the presidential election to Tsai Ing-wen, 59, a highly experienced diplomat representing the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). She won 56 per cent of the vote against two challengers: Eric Chu of the Kuomintang (KMT) — which has ruled Taiwan since the Second World War, mostly as a military regime — and James Soong, a political gadfly now well past his sell-by date.

But more significant than Tsai winning the presidency was that the DPP won a clear majority of 68 seats in the 113-seat parliament, the Legislative Yuan.

This is a critical turn on Taiwan’s transition to full democracy because it will allow a DPP-led parliament to embark on reform of the country’s archaic, semi-functional political and administrative constitution. The current structure was designed to support KMT power. This was evident between 2000 and 2008, when the DPP’s Chen Shui-bian won the presidency, but was unable to administer the government effectively because of obstructionism from the KMT-controlled Legislative Yuan.

Admittedly, Chen was the kind of rampant populist often thrown up by liberation struggles in their early years. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela comes to mind as another leader who, while able to mesmerize the public with his rhetoric, was largely useless at government.

Tsai is another matter entirely. She is an eminent lawyer by any standard, with a master’s from Cornell and PhD from the London School of Economics. She was a leading negotiator in Taiwan’s entry into the World Trade Organization, was national security advisor to the president in the mid-1990s, led the office dealing with Taiwan’s relations with China during the Chen administration and has been through the political mill as leader of the DPP.

She keeps a cool head and consistently has shown the will to staunchly defend Taiwan’s de facto independence in the face of Beijing’s spurious claims to own the island.

Tsai is adept at avoiding saying anything that would give Beijing a clear target. But she will face pressure from a growing number of Taiwanese to seek international recognition of their country’s nationhood. Up to 90 per cent of Taiwanese want to preserve their country’s independence. When asked to describe their own ethnicity, the vast majority say they’re Taiwanese first and foremost, with only a minority saying they also have Chinese ethnicity. Only a handful of the islanders consider themselves exclusively Chinese.

A central issue in the election was the demands coming from Taiwan’s young and well-educated voters for a government that would disentangle the island’s dependence on trade with China. Better commercial relations with China were pursued by outgoing KMT President Ma Ying-jeou as a way to boost the island’s economy. But the result has been a flight of jobs to China, Beijing reaching for a stranglehold on Taiwan’s economy — and a handful of already-wealthy Taiwanese industrialists getting even richer.

The Tsai administration will be looking to diversify Taiwan’s economic, political, cultural and security relations. Japan and other Asian nations have already welcomed this opportunity. Canada should do the same.

Jonathan Manthorpe is the author of “Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan,” published by Palgrave-Macmillan. He has been a foreign correspondent and international affairs columnist for nearly 40 years. He was European bureau chief for the Toronto Star and then Southam News in the late 1970s and the 1980s. In 1989 he was appointed Africa correspondent by Southam News and in 1993 was posted to Hong Kong to cover Asia. For the last few years he has been based in Vancouver, writing international affairs columns for what is now the Postmedia Group. He left the group last year and now writes for a range of newspapers and websites. [email protected]

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