Ep 175 | Will China Attack Taiwan? Kuan-Ting Chen Discusses Ramifications of the War in Ukraine on Taiwan

Mar 23, 2022

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A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

Will China attack Taiwan given the current circumstances surrounding the war in Ukraine?

My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Kuan-Ting Chen, the CEO of Taiwan NextGen Foundation, which is an NGO (a non-governmental organization) founded in Taipei that focuses on various issues such as Taiwan’s soft power, promoting democracy, educational policy research, public advocacy and issues related to domestic and foreign policy. He shared his thoughts on Russian’s invasion of Ukraine and the comparisons being made between Ukraine and Taiwan. I asked him how people in Taiwan have been reacting to the situation.

Prior to serving as CEO of Taiwan NextGen Foundation Kuan-Ting served at the Taipei City government as the chief research officer and deputy spokesperson. He was in charge of various issues related to public affairs, international affairs, and student affairs.

Before that Kuan-Ting served on Taiwan’s National Security Council. In that capacity he was responsible for Taiwan-Japan relations.

This episode of Talking Taiwan has been sponsored by the Taiwan Elite Alliance 優社 and the Taiwanese United Fund.

The Taiwan Elite Alliance 優社 was established in 2000 to promote Taiwanese and Taiwanese American arts and literature, and to protect and enhance the human rights, freedom and democracy of the people in Taiwan.

The Taiwanese United Fund is an arts and culture foundation that celebrates the cultural heritages of Taiwanese Americans. Established in 1986, the foundation’s mission is to facilitate cultural exchange between the Taiwanese American community and other American cultural communities, hoping to enrich and expand our cultural experiences. To learn more about TUF visit their website http://www.tufusa.org/

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Some of the history of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia
The famine that Ukraine endured during the early 20thcentury due to the policies of the Soviet Union
The Budapest Memorandum
Why people are drawing comparisons between Ukraine and Taiwan
How the situation in Ukraine and Taiwan are similar and different
How the invasion and conflict in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas has been going on for 7-8 years already
Comparing China with Russia
Kuan-Ting’s thoughts on the relationship between China and Russia
How the international reaction to Russia can send a message to China
The weaknesses of Russia and China militarily and economically
China’s reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
The role that China could play to possibly deter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Why Kuan-Ting doesn’t think that China will try to attack Taiwan at this time
What Taiwan can do as deterrence
What has been the reaction in Taiwan to what’s been happening to Ukraine
Taiwan’s military preparedness
A recent survey of how many Taiwanese would be willing to fight to defend Taiwan
The rallies in support of Ukraine in Taiwan
How the sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine
How thousands have showed up to rallies in support of Ukraine
How the government of Taiwan has shown support for Ukraine
The Taiwan Can Help campaign
How the U.S. has responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what we could infer, if anything about how the U.S. might respond if Taiwan was to be attacked by China
What Taiwan can realistically expect in terms of military assistance from the U.S.
How Taiwan needs to be better prepared in case China attacks
What Taiwan can learn from what’s happening in Ukraine
What Kuan-Ting learned about how Ukrainians are reacting to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine when he interviewed a Ukrainian minority