Taiwan: International Status

Luke Taylor Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

It is always a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker, particularly given your considerable contribution on this issue throughout your parliamentary career, as other Members have said.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor), whose passionate love for her community and her family reflects well on her and gives her constituents faith that she will act on their best behalf in this House. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), whose contribution to this debate has already been warmly noted.

Experts often talk about the pressure points of geopolitics, the places where the strategic aims of different countries coincide, clash and create tension. What is far too often left out of these conversations is the reality for the millions of people who live in those pressure points. The Taiwanese people are living in real fear at one of these pressure points.

It should be telling for all of us that, despite being an advanced economy and a thriving democracy with high living standards and strong manufacturing, and with cultural links to the rest of the world, Taiwan feels increasingly isolated and vulnerable in the face of the Chinese Government. That is testament to the fact that, no matter how hard people have worked to build a robust democracy on that island, that does not, in and of itself, protect the liberty and security that we all deserve. Taiwan deserves our support as we enter the second half of this decade, and this motion can help us to continue doing that.

The Liberal Democrats stand with the people of Taiwan. Any Chinese aggression or threat to their free speech and human rights is unacceptable. The Liberal Democrats will continue to support our friends in the Democratic Progressive party, which is the governing party of Taiwan, a long-standing member of Liberal International, and a founding member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.

In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats called for the building of new diplomatic, economic and security partnerships with democracies threatened by China, including Taiwan, and it is something that we will gladly work with the Government to deliver because an issue of this importance should transcend party politics. I am reassured by the voices and the statements we have heard from Members on both sides of the House in this debate.

Fundamentally, what is at stake in Taiwan is a question of moral obligation, one that we have always had to confront and that liberals have always been clear in answering: can we stand up for people living outside recognised sovereign states, who cherish the same freedoms we do and have the same inviolable right to self-determination that we do, against neighbours with increasingly imperial objectives? Or are we forced to live in a world where, as was said in antiquity, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must? Put simply, does might make right?

The people of Taiwan deserve us to answer that question with our clear and resounding support as they go about trying to integrate into the system of international governance. The Government should therefore listen to the story being told in this House today and make it clear that, in their dealings with the Chinese Government, they will establish clear red lines that call out violations of Taiwan’s territory at land and sea as unacceptable.

The Government should work with their international partners to remove the obstacles to Taiwan joining various international bodies. As other Members have said, Taiwan’s exclusion from the World Health Organisation serves to prove this point. Despite a successful approach to the covid-19 pandemic, Taiwan was again rebuffed in its attempts to join the WHO, with China vetoing its accession until such time as Taiwan gives in to China’s territorial claim on the island. This compromised our ability, and the ability of countries around the world, to learn from the lessons of Taiwan’s successful response to covid-19, and it will have cost many, many lives.

Taiwan finds itself unable to properly access and work alongside Interpol, leaving it excluded from the international crime-fighting network that it needs, not least because international criminals are known to operate in the South China sea. This should concern all of us.

Taiwan’s exclusion from these bodies makes international co-operation harder. It weakens a strategic ally in the region, and it emboldens states such as China and Russia to feel that their attempts to undermine the liberal world order will succeed. Indeed, how can we justify the liberal and democratic world order without ensuring that it offers protection to those who subscribe to it and who wish to join and collaborate with the institutions that are so key to maintaining that very world order?

We have already left so many countries around the world vulnerable to the influence of states such as China. The last Government made short-sighted and naive decisions to continually cut the UK’s foreign aid budget, to slash our international development credentials, to shrink our world-renowned diplomatic service, to force cuts to our BBC World Service output and to undermine our standing as a major power on the world stage. Those steps have left a vacuum in Africa, in Asia, and in parts of Europe, too. We should not be remotely surprised that China has increasingly sought to fill that gap with debt traps and political influence through its belt and road initiative. It is up to this Government to do something about it, to show that the One China policy is not the policy of this Government and that Taiwan will be supported in acceding to various international bodies. That would be a key step in the right direction. They must be willing to discuss Taiwan with the Chinese Government as they embark on a new era of bilateralism with President Xi.

I note that in its manifesto earlier this year, the Labour party committed to a new approach to China, as part of a wider audit of its China strategy. The manifesto said:

“We will co-operate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must.”

Those were welcome words, so it is disappointing to read coverage this week of the leaked news that the Foreign Office intervened to cancel a visit last month that Taiwan’s former President Tsai Ing-wen had been due to make to the UK, when he would have spoken to MPs. Will the Government respond to that claim and explain to the House exactly why former President Tsai, as it seems, was denied a visit?

We all recognise that diplomacy is difficult, and I sincerely hope the Government will put my mind and those of other hon. Members at rest by confirming that this was an oversight. However, if it was not an oversight and that decision was taken out of deference to the Chinese Government ahead of the Prime Minister’s recent meeting with President Xi, the Government will not be surprised to hear me say that that is unacceptable.

The Government’s new approach to China should be characterised by a defence of our values and the robust support of Taiwan. That is why the Liberal Democrats have called for the Government to issue a comprehensive China strategy that places human rights, effective rules-based multilateralism and working with our European partners centre stage. Without that, we risk further backsliding into a world where China feels able to act with impunity and Taiwan will continue to suffer. Will the Minister provide an update on when the Government will provide the House with an update on its China strategy audit, so that we can scrutinise it and ensure it lives up to those values?

Just last month, China simulated a full-scale invasion of the island through war games in the South China sea. As the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) said, in late 2021 and early 2022, we watched Russian forces massing on the Ukrainian border and attempted to convince ourselves that the inevitable was not about to occur. I will quote a great man, who hangs heavy over many of us in this place:

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Imagine living with the threat of such a war on the doorstep. We have all been paying close attention to the terrible scenes unfolding in Ukraine and the middle east in recent years. We all know that the horrors of war have not been eased, but rather compounded by modern technology. Imagine people witnessing those scenes on their TV screens, while knowing the very same could happen to their homes and families in the very near future.

The journey to recognition and accession to international bodies for Taiwan is long and will not be solved overnight, but the Government can play a key role in making the journey easier by showing its support for Taiwan as clearly as they can. They can do the right thing on human rights in China more widely too. They can choose to recognise the genocide happening to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang autonomous region. They can stand with Hongkongers who are already living with the experience of creeping authoritarianism from Beijing. And the Government can champion the cause of international laws and norms, in the face of growing disorder and violence around the world. I invite them to do so and to regularly report back to the House on how such a China strategy is developing, because Britain is at its best when it stands with those facing oppression and says clearly, with one voice, that the days of “might makes right” are well and truly consigned to history.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.