Will Communist China invade Taiwan, which it considers a breakaway province? Will the West then experience another war in addition to Ukraine and the Middle East, into which it will be drawn? Reflex directly in Taiwan found out whether the locals were afraid of a similar scenario. And the answer was sometimes surprising – they don’t think much of it.
I don’t really care about that. I have completely different worries, I am interested in something else, says Lee, a handsome 20-year-old university student, when asked if she is afraid that China might invade her country militarily. Lee went on a trip with two friends to the popular Taroko National Park in eastern Taiwan’s Chua-lien District (after a Reflex reporter visited, this part of the country was hit by a strong earthquake and much of the park is currently closed; author’s note). Girls pose, take pictures and smile at the exit of the park. Their fingers are shaped like victory clams, a salute you’ll see almost everywhere on the island. Many other tourists stop at the place because we are on road number 8. And eight is the luckiest number in Chinese culture. In Mandarin, the official language of both Taiwan and China, the word eight is pronounced similarly to the word for wealth and success.
“War is not a big topic at home or at a restaurant. It is talked about in the media or politicians pay attention to it, but ordinary Taiwanese rarely do,” says the Czech IT specialist Pavel, who has been living in the south of the island in the Pingtung district for ten years.
Surveys confirm such attitudes of the country’s inhabitants.
In mid-March, the Public Opinion Foundation released the results of a survey that revealed a gap between public opinion and the publicized concerns presented by Defense Minister Zhu Kuocheng. He warned that Taiwan must be ready for a fight and must strengthen its preparations for war as China holds increasingly frequent military exercises very close to Taiwan’s territorial waters. However, only 37 percent of respondents agreed with the head of the Ministry of Defense, over 50 percent of people rejected his thesis. They do not believe there is any threat of invasion or attack by the Chinese regime. In addition, almost 54 percent of respondents do not believe that the United States would come to Taiwan’s defense directly militarily. That mistrust has increased in the wake of the war in Ukraine, when US President Joe Biden ruled out sending troops to the country, raising questions among Taiwanese about whether Washington would respond in kind if China attacked.
But why don’t the Taiwanese experience the problem so much, when the West, including the Czech Republic, is constantly discussing a possible war in this region?
