Originally published by the Taipei Times on 16/02/2022.
Many European nations have been flexing their pro-Taiwan credentials over the past few years. In return, among other gestures of gratitude, the sky over Kaohsiung was adorned with the flags of the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia. This year’s Lantern Festival light show is the city’s way of thanking those countries for their donations of COVID-19 vaccines.
Most of these countries had much more to be thanked for. Prague made headlines when it signed a sister-city agreement with Taipei, while Czech politicians have been at the forefront of parliamentary visits to the country. In 2020, Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil proclaimed to the Legislative Yuan and the international media: “I am Taiwanese.” In a similar vein, Lithuania defied precedent when it opted to call Taiwan’s new de facto embassy in Vilnius the Taiwanese Representative Office. Now, after government and business visits, Taiwan and Slovakia are also looking to set up new trade offices in each other’s countries. Whether “Taiwanese” is used again or the more Beijing-friendly “Taipei,” this is a positive move for Taiwan. Aside from the economic wins, such interactions have significant symbolic value, as each one of these actions help ease the country’s diplomatic isolation.
It is a shame that there are not more European countries that can be congratulated for taking head-on Beijing’s campaign to marginalize Asia’s finest democracy. Why should the rest of Europe, full of far more powerful liberal democracies, leave this responsibility to a few east European countries? Why was the Union Jack not sparkling across the Kaohsiung skyline?
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