Analysis: President Lai Marks End of World War Two in Europe

TaiwanPlus News

Taiwan's president has, for the first time, commemorated VE Day in Taiwan at an event attended by foreign dignitaries and diplomats. At a time of renewed geopolitical instability, what was President Lai's key message? Our reporter Rik Glauert spoke to political scientist Wen-Ti Sung, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub.

Transcript

00:00Why do you think President Lai Ching-de chose to mark VE Day this year and what was he trying to

00:06convey with the event and with his speech? I think the broader context here is really about China

00:12and Ukraine and at the moment when Lai began his speech about VE Day to commemorate World War II

00:18in Europe, it's also the precise moment when Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting Russia

00:25as well and so this goes to the continued emphasis that Lai makes including his speech

00:32about the importance of Taiwan continuing to stand with fellow democracies and that sentiment about

00:39continued partnership with like-minded democracies is particularly valuable at the time when they

00:45may be concerned about geopolitical uncertainty as was perhaps global democratic recession or at least

00:53risk of it. What sort of relationship does Taiwan have with World War II? Well during World War II

00:58Taiwan was a colony of Japan which by extension meant that Taiwan fought alongside Japan and so in that

01:06particular sense I think Taiwan by talking about history of Taiwan in relation to World War II you

01:12can argue that Taiwan is a story that shows how states evolve and that they learn from experience so

01:21rather than framing World War II as necessarily a battle between good guys and bad guys oftentimes more

01:27about framing the possibility of struggle between the good forces and less than good forces of our nature and

01:36how Taiwan itself has gone through that path of evolving from fraternalism into a liberal democracy and that

01:44shows how other states may also consider falling suit as well. It's in that particular sense that actually you see

01:52Taiwan's President Lai talking about in his speech that some formerly accessed countries during World War II

02:00have by now all become 100% democratic states and enjoy lasting peace and prosperity.

02:07It's obviously a very difficult time geopolitically how is Lai trying to position Taiwan?

02:13I think what it shows is that Taiwan still values the logic of value-based diplomacy and that is a democratic

02:20values shared commitment to liberal democracy remain cornerstones of Taiwan's international outreach

02:27and that is why on the important day of World War II's anniversary for Europe Theatre it invites both the

02:34the representative to Taiwan from the UK as well as from the European Union and many others to show up at this

02:42particular speech and to give them the floor as well again to show how Taiwan with its many Western and

02:50European friends and partners they are willing to share the same floor and speak with one voice.

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