Taiwan ambassador: China a threat, but island still open for business

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Taiwan’s democracy is confronting both military and “gray zone” information warfare threats from China and is adopting asymmetric weapons to defend itself, the country’s unofficial ambassador to the United States said in an interview.

Hsiao Bi-khim, Taipei’s official representative in Washington, also took issue with claims by U.S. investor Warren Buffett that China’s threats to the island democracy mean Taiwan is becoming an increasingly risky location to do business.

“Taiwan will continue to be one of the safest and most reliable places for business in the world,” Ms. Hsiao said in an interview Tuesday with The Washington Times at the 18-acre Twin Oaks estate in Northwest Washington, which once was used as an official Taiwanese residence.

“We have developed our technology, our prosperity in a way that we will remain an indispensable and irreplaceable component of global prosperity,” she said. “We are committed to maintaining the status quo, we are committed to prevent any disruptions of peace and stability in the region.”

Mr. Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, told company shareholders recently that geopolitical tensions over Taiwan were a factor in his company’s divestment from 86% of its more than $4 billion investment in the Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC, an acknowledged world leader in one of the technology economy’s most critical fields.

TSMC “is a marvelous company,” Mr. Buffett said during Berkshire’s annual meeting, but “I would feel better about capital that we’ve got deployed in Japan than in Taiwan. … That’s the reality.”

Intel CEO Patrick Gelsinger voiced similar concerns several months ago. He said critical components made by TSMC should have more diversified sources of supply. TSMC makes more than 60% of the world’s advanced microchips used in myriad high-tech applications.

“Taiwan plays such a critical role for the technology supply chains, but it’s precarious,” Mr. Gelsinger said.

In Taipei, Economic Affairs Vice Minister Lin Chuan-neng told a legislative hearing on Monday, “The government will do its utmost to let the world know that Taiwan is stable and safe,” according to local news reports.

Taiwanese-Chinese tensions increased sharply over the past several years as Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to take control of the island democracy, using military force if necessary, in the coming years. The Biden administration has sought to play down fears of a conflict. Top officials insist that war is neither imminent nor inevitable.

Two commanders of U.S. Indo-Pacific forces — current leader Adm. John Aquilino and his predecessor, Adm. Philip S. Davidson — warned in congressional testimony that China’s military is preparing for an operation against Taiwan by 2027.

Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, echoed the war fears during a Senate hearing last week. The DNI office said she is “absolutely worried” about an “unnecessary war” between China and the United States.

Chinese intentions

Ms. Hsiao, a U.S.-educated diplomat and a member of the ruling, pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, declined to comment about various timelines for Chinese military action.

“We don’t want to get involved in a discussion of a timeline because everything we are doing is to build our strength to the extent that we can prevent and deter a conflict from ever happening, regardless of timeline,” she said.

Beijing is not hiding its long-term intentions, the Taiwanese envoy added.

“I think the Chinese Communist Party has been pretty clear about that,” she said. “In terms of capabilities, there are all kinds of assessments out there.”

Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently questioned the Chinese military’s ability to carry out an amphibious invasion of Taiwan by sending troops and forces across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait. Taiwan’s mountainous terrain also would pose challenges for the Chinese military once in the country, Gen. Milley told the journal Foreign Affairs in a recent interview.

Heading off a war

Ms. Hsiao said Taiwan is working with the United States and regional partners to head off a war.

“I think the atrocities of Ukraine are a reminder that that cannot be repeated in our part of the world,” she said.

Taiwan, she said, has remained open to dialogue with China, but Beijing has not reciprocated. As a result, Taiwan is continuing to invest in fortifying its defenses.

Asked about the delays in receiving some $19 billion worth of promised U.S. weapons to Taiwan, Ms. Hsiao said problems with the U.S. defense production and supply chains have limited deliveries of needed defensive arms. Congressional supporters of Taiwan from both parties are pressing the Biden administration to do more. The White House reportedly plans to invoke executive powers to speed up arms deliveries.

“We are starting to see some progress” on the matter, Ms. Hsiao said.

A major issue for Taiwan has been expanded military conscription that requires all young men to devote one year to military training service, up from four months previously.

“When you require every single young man in your society to serve a year of their youth in the military, that’s a big deal,” she said, adding that the new requirement was a difficult political decision.

The one-year military training is a sign of how seriously Taiwan is focused on homeland defense, she said. A recent poll found that 85% of the population supports the training mandate.

Ms. Hsiao said China has used two meetings between American political leaders and Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to step up provocative military activities around Taiwan. Beijing reacted furiously to an August 2022 visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei and protested again last month when Ms. Tsai met with current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California.

Defense officials said the large-scale Chinese military exercises after the visits appeared to be rehearsals for military operations against Taiwan.

In consultations with U.S. officials, Taipei also is reconsidering purchases of expensive military items in favor of special weapons and capabilities as part of an asymmetric warfare strategy against its much larger and better-armed adversary, Ms. Hsiao said. Taiwan is buying additional F-16 jets and building submarines to bolster its defenses.

Asymmetric weaponry may include drone strike aircraft, sea mines, anti-ship missiles, cyberwarfare capabilities and space weapons. These weapons could allow a militarily weaker state to defend against a stronger enemy.

“We have very much converged in agreements that we are focusing on in terms of future acquisition priorities on asymmetric systems,” Ms. Hsiao said. “Some of them have proven quite effective in the Ukraine theater, and we are actively a part pursuing this at the same time.”

Taiwan needs to be creative in any conflict with China, the ambassador said.

“We have no intention to engage in an arms race with China, and we are not going to have a one-on-one in terms of having a naval presence,” Ms. Hsiao said. China’s navy is now the world’s largest in terms of the number of ships.

Ms. Hsiao said more liberal U.S. technology controls have allowed the Taiwanese military to better maintain its fleet of aging F-16 jets so that parts can be made in Taiwan.

Stepped-up Chinese military activities around Taiwan have been met with increased international support and “freedom of navigation operations” that ensure the Taiwan Strait remains international waters, she said. Beijing recently declared that the strait is part of its maritime territory despite frequent U.S. and allied warship passages through the waterway.

Threats in the ‘gray zone’

Taiwan also is facing “gray zone” threats. China is using disinformation and other influence operations to achieve the Communist Party’s strategic aims, Ms. Hsiao said. China is widely expected to attempt to meddle in the presidential election in January.

Former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, with the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, visited China in March, signaling that the KMT favors more conciliatory policies toward Beijing than the current DPP government.

Asked about Mr. Ma’s visit, Ms. Hsiao said: “I’m not going to pretend to be a spokesperson for our former president, but I can speak on the broader aspirations of the Taiwanese people. And that is we want to have elections in an environment free of coercion, where the people of Taiwan can freely choose their best leader. I think that is our ultimate goal.”

Ms. Hsiao said concerns about Chinese meddling have penetrated domestic politics through “rampant” disinformation and the promotion of “fake news” supporting Beijing’s positions.

Cyberattacks from China also are threats. After Mrs. Pelosi visited Taiwan, Chinese hackers were suspected of attacking Taiwan’s digital billboards to spread disinformation.

“Their goal is to weaken our democracy, to sow divisions and discontent in our society,” the ambassador said.

Economic warfare  

China also is using economic tools to coerce Taiwanese businesses and increase pressure, including with economic sanctions, she said.

“But I think the irony is that ultimately if they are trying to win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese people, the best way to do that is to stop threatening us,” Ms. Hsiao said.

China’s ruling party should “demonstrate some respect for our choice and our way of life and, and for our embrace of the political system that the people have chosen. … That would be the best way,” she said. “But everything they are doing goes counter to that kind of respect or embrace of the wishes of the Taiwanese people.”

Ms. Hsiao said the best way to confront and counter China’s communist ideology at home and abroad is to bolster democracy inside Taiwan.

“For us, every day is a challenge: how to make our democracy much more resilient to these attacks and to create space in which our people can make their own decisions free of coercion,” she said. “But I think, in the long run, the preservation and defense of freedom in Taiwan is the best chance [to ensure] people in China will also have some taste of freedom.”

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said it is impossible to imagine a war between Taiwan and China that doesn’t expand into many other nations, making the need to deter China all the more urgent.

“The time to work in defending Taiwanese sovereignty is now, not once the [Chinese] rockets are in the air,” Mr. Pompeo said.

• Washington Times correspondent Andrew Salmon contributed to this report from Seoul, South Korea.