UK-Taiwan Friendship and Co-operation

Robert Neill Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Neill (Bromley and Chislehurst) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) and my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) on securing this important debate, and thank everyone who has spoken in it. Taiwan, though it may not be large, is very important economically—a point that has been made—morally and politically, because it developed into a flourishing, genuine, established democracy at a time when many countries in the region went in the opposite direction. It is a peaceful democracy that makes no aggressive territorial claims on its neighbours and poses no threat to any of them. That, of course, is in great contrast to those who make aggressive territorial claims on Taiwan. That is why we should stand foursquare in support of Taiwan. We ought to be supportive of those who embrace values of democracy and freedom, and who wish to co-exist peacefully with others, secure prosperity for themselves, and contribute to the greater global good, which is what Taiwan has always sought to do.

I declare my interest as a member of the British-Taiwanese all-party parliamentary group. I, too, have had the pleasure of visiting it, and have met many Taiwanese representatives when they have come here, and I, too, salute the work of Ambassador Kelly and the Taipei representative office in the UK. He and his predecessors—we have had a number of representatives over the years—have done great work for their country, and to improve our relations.

I appreciate that the exclusion of Taiwan from many international organisations is unjust, unfair and unhelpful to the greater good. Changing that is not unilaterally in this country’s gift, but I hope that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will continue to make the case for that, and to seek to build a coalition with our democratic allies and partners in order to achieve that objective. We have to be persistent on that. As was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, we must never give up hope that decency and freedom will ultimately prevail against the forces of darkness, which are unfortunately in coalition against us.

I want to talk about the importance of Taiwan’s evolution; under Chiang Kai-shek, in the early days of the Kuomintang, it was a frankly autocratic society that did not always respect the rule of law, though there was nothing like the appalling behaviour on mainland China after the civil war. Taiwan was able to move away from that without disruption or violence. It became a functioning democracy that respects the rule of law and has established a vibrant, independent judiciary and legal framework. When I had the pleasure of visiting Taiwan, I had the honour of meeting President Tsai, whom I greeted as a fellow alumnus of the London School of Economics, where she did a doctorate of philosophy in law; she trained as a lawyer.

Taiwan has developed a vigorous and robust legal system. Since the 1990s, it has increasingly asserted the independence of the judiciary from the other arms of the state. In fact, the independent justice movement of the 1990s was one of the beacons that led to the democratisation of Taiwan’s society. Many of its leading lights were lawyers and jurists. That demonstrates the importance internationally of commitment to independent judges, courts and lawyers, and the rule of law. Taiwan has moved in exactly the direction that we should encourage others to take.

It is interesting that, since 2002, Taiwan has moved from having an inquisitorial system in criminal cases to something much closer to the adversarial system with which we in common-law countries are familiar—a system in which both sides have the right to be represented by counsel. I hope that we will continue to use the fact that we are the birthplace of common law and of that adversarial criminal justice system to try to assist Taiwan and build bridges. I hope that we can encourage British lawyers to develop partnerships with Taiwanese lawyers, and can build on the work of our further education contacts. The President is a great example of that, and of soft power. I hope, too, that we can encourage the work of the British Council, whose representatives I had the pleasure of meeting in Taipei, because it is an important means of developing those contacts, which we do not always make enough of.

Taiwan has undertaken further reforms in this field. In 2006, it abolished the regrettable mandatory death penalty for certain classes of offence, which it inherited in the days immediately after the war. In fact, there has been an almost complete cessation in the use of the death penalty in recent years, with one unfortunate exception, and there is still a vigorous and active campaign to support that change.

In 2009, Taiwan ratified the international covenant on civil and political rights and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights, which sets it apart from those who aggressively assert claims against it. A threshold for joining those covenants was an acceptance that Taiwan was on an

“irrevocable path towards complete eradication of the death penalty.”

Moving forward, we see a progressive and, in the proper sense, small-l liberal polity and system, which we ought to be supporting.

It is important to recognise, as has already been observed, the progress that Taiwan has made in relation to same-sex marriages and equal rights for LGBT communities. Generally, it has a good position, compared with many of its neighbours, on the index of commitment to the rule of law. That is something we should continue to sustain. As we go forward, I hope we can build upon those links.

Contrast has been made frequently to what has sadly happened in Hong Kong. I have had the pleasure of visiting that jurisdiction too, and it is a sadness to me, as when I read law at the London School of Economics a number of my colleagues went on to qualify as barristers in the United Kingdom, before returning to practice at the Hong Kong Bar. Some went on to hold distinguished office in the Hong Kong judiciary. They did so at a time when they still had the protection of the agreements we had entered into to ensure Hong Kong’s independent legal system. Sadly, those have been unliterally abrogated by the Government of the People’s Republic of China. I never want to see that happen to the legal system in Taiwan. I privately weep, almost, for some of my friends who stayed in their country, but who now see their freedom of action and manoeuvre as lawyers increasingly constrained, and a stranglehold put on what was once the most vibrant and successful legal and judicial system to be found in that part of south-east Asia. We must not let that happen to Taiwan.

That is why not only shall we stand four-square with the Taiwanese in political and moral terms, but, where necessary, without seeking to start aggression, we will ensure that military and naval force is available to deter aggression by others, and we will work closely with our allies, including Australia and others in that area. If we believe in democracy, the importance of the rule of law, human rights and personal freedoms, Taiwan is a beacon that we shall support.

It is important that we have this debate and we place this motion on the record. As a country, we have always sought to assert these things, sometimes with more success than at other times, but they are basically in our DNA. With the dispensation we have now in Taiwan, that is something we share with the Taiwanese people, who have worked hard to achieve that, at real sacrifice to themselves, over the years. It is important that we reassert our commitment to stand by them, against those who seek to snuff out the lights of freedom and justice. We must never allow that to happen.