Lawmakers from Taiwan, Japan and the United States held the inaugural meeting of the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue on Thursday last week. Meant to encourage security cooperation between the three countries, it expressed particular concern about the threat posed to Taiwan by China.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who serves as an adviser to the group, warned that Taiwan should not be allowed to go the route of Hong Kong.
In addition to the assault on democracy and civil liberties in the city, Abe pointed to China’s maritime brinkmanship.
‘I find the unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the South China Sea and the East China Sea concerning,’ he said.
Abe added that Taiwan needed to be integrated into cooperative structures more intimately. Both the US and Taiwan should join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement bringing together various states in Asia, Oceania and the Americas. He said that Taiwan should be supported in gaining observer status in the World Health Organization.
You Si-kun, president of Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (equivalent to a Parliament), said that the island nation needed the support and friendship of fellow democracies: ‘Taiwan needs to gain friends from democratic nations such as the U.S. and Japan.’
Taiwan has faced growing isolation as fewer and fewer countries maintain diplomatic relations with it. However, Chinese bellicosity in recent years has seen a recognition emerge in some quarters (particularly in countries like Japan, which have deep if unofficial links to Taiwan), that regional security cannot be delinked from that of Taiwan. It appears ever more likely that Japan would be willing to commit to Taiwan’s defence in the event of a conflict.