Taiwan Determined to Defend Itself Against China, President Says

Taiwan's president struck a defiant tone on Tuesday as she stressed her country's resolve to defend itself by invoking Taiwan's last armed hostilities against China more than six decades ago.

At the top of a meeting with visiting former U.S. officials and foreign policy experts from Stanford's Hoover Institution, Tsai Ing-wen also praised Ukrainians for "standing up to fight for and defend their homeland."

August 23 marked 64 years since the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis when China shelled Taiwanese-held islands near the mainland before attempting an amphibious landing on one of the territories, an attack that was ultimately repelled with the help of American naval and air support. Intermittent shelling between the opposing forces continued for two decades until 1979, the year Washington switched official diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing.

The clashes in 1958, the likes of which haven't been experienced in the strait since "showed the world that no threat of any kind can shake the Taiwanese people's resolve to defend their nation," Tsai said. "Not then, not now and not in the future."

"We also will show the world that the people of Taiwan have both the resolve and the confidence to safeguard peace, security, freedom and prosperity," she said.

Chinese forces are conducting their fourth week of intense military patrols around Taiwan in what Beijing says is a response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's recent visit to the democratically governed island, which China claims as its own. Taipei says it's detected hostile naval vessels and at least a dozen Chinese warplanes operating around Taiwan since August 4, the day Beijing's military exercises began.

Subject-matter experts in the West describe the ongoing show of force as the start of the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis, a development that could change the cross-strait status quo in China's favor, thanks to the numerical advantage it holds over Taiwan's defenders.

Tsai said her administration would continue to work with the United States to bolster Taiwan's self-defense. Despite the informal bilateral relationship, Washington has been Taipei's strongest international backer for decades and its main arms supplier.

"As autocracy continues to make inroads around the world, Taiwan and the U.S. should be working together to build more secure and more resilient supply chains. This is one of our key priorities," she said.

Taiwan's response to China's unprecedented military exercises, which began with the firing of ballistic missiles into the waters near the island, has been considerably measured, likely a result of careful discussions with the U.S., which has reacted in a similar fashion.

The Biden administration said U.S. military aircraft and naval vessels would continue lawful air and maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait in the coming weeks, although it remains to be seen whether the American presence can return China's own military posture to pre-August levels.

James Ellis, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who is leading the Hoover researchers in Taipei, said the group had "deep concern about the escalating threats to peace and stability for the people of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region."

"Now, more than ever, we believe it is important for individuals and institutions in the United States and other countries to demonstrate support for Taiwan's right to exist as a self-governing democracy," said Ellis, whose delegation includes veteran Hoover scholar Larry Diamond, former U.S. envoy to Moscow Michael McFaul, former deputy national security adviser Matthew Pottinger, and others.

"But our presence here also reaffirms the ongoing commitment of the American people to deepening cooperation between the United States and Taiwan," he said. "Consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, part of this cooperation involves strengthening Taiwan's capacities for self-defense as well as the ability of the United States to deter and resist any resort to force across the Taiwan Strait."