Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the special committee.
It's an honour for me to be here this evening.
What we call Taiwan today is a product of a long history. For centuries the island existed at the edge of successive dynastic empires until it was colonized by the Empire of Japan in the last decade of the 19th century.
After the end of World War II, when the Communists defeated the Nationalists in the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan. In order to maintain its rule as an outsider, the Nationalists began a period of martial law for nearly four decades.
In the late 1980s, due to domestic and international pressures, Taiwan began a series of democratic reforms, and the first direct presidential election took place in 1996. Since then, Taiwan has experienced multiple changes of government and four democratic elections with a high level of public participation. This happens at every level of the government.
In other words, in spite of the four decades of martial law under the Nationalist government until 1987, the Nationalist government, which was once regarded as the foreign occupier, has remade itself and is now considered to be a legitimate Taiwanese political party by the public.
Taiwan's elections have been so lively that until recently presidential elections were a tourist attraction for many mainland Chinese, to the point that there had been a small industry of election tourism. Of course, Taiwan has been also a major destination for Chinese-speaking political activists in exile.
It is perhaps fair to say that the peace and economic prosperity in the past few decades have been grounded on the One China framework, or more precisely, the interpretation of the framework that has been generally agreed upon by the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, along with the international community, including Canada—even though the international community too has their own interpretations of the idea of One China.
In the past few decades, however, mainland China has become a rather different place. Among other things, it has become a new superpower that's integrated in the global economy. It's also important to point out that the Chinese government's foreign policy at least partially is driven by what they have come to call the “century of humiliation”, which refers to the period after the First Opium War, from the middle of the 19th century until the founding of the People's Republic of China under the Communist Party in 1949.
This was a period when the period's dynastic empires, and later the Chinese republic, were subjugated to, and invaded by, foreign powers. In this narrative, the separation of Taiwan from China is seen as a humiliation and a problem that needs to be corrected.
Whether we share this particular unspoken narrative or not, it is vital to recognize the powerful emotion behind China's current claims on Taiwan. Meanwhile, Taiwan too has become a very different place in the past few decades. Democratization has led many Taiwanese to reflect on their own past, including the experience of Japanese colonialism and the military rule under the Nationalists. For many Taiwanese, especially the younger generations, the accumulation of those experiences, however traumatic, has turned them into a different people.
Taiwan today has a vibrant civil society that cherishes progressive values. For instance, LGBTQ rights in Taiwan are often seen as the most progressive in Asia and, as in Canada, same-sex marriage has been legalized. Also, Taiwan embraces ethnic and linguistic diversity and has also began to address or pay attention to the welfare of the indigenous population with its own program of truth and reconciliation.
Similarly, the Taiwanese government and the public generally have a strong ecological awareness, since Taiwan's early democratic movement was linked to its elemental activism.
To make a long story short, the changing political and economic landscape on both sides of the Taiwan Strait in the past few decades has eroded the foundation of the fragile peace and security that we have all benefited from, as the two sides seem to be moving away from one another.
That doesn't mean that war is inevitable. Most people in Taiwan, regardless of the politics, would like to see the continuation of the status quo, and Canada could help the picture of the status quo by strengthening its ties with Taiwan, particularly at the civil society level.
To sum up, whether it is colonialism, empire, typhoons or earthquakes, or the public health crisis, the Taiwanese people are always aware of their own precarity. So far they have not just survived it but have also prospered, and I hope there will be space for them to continue to do so in the future.
Thank you.