Thread by @AzeemIbrahim

Taiwan is one of the world's wealthiest democracies. With as assertive Beijing crushing dissent in #HongKong, it is now time for the US to unilaterally recognise #Taiwan as an independent country.

My piece in the @TheNatlInterest

nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/unit…

Short thread 1/7

When #Covid19 first emerged Beijing treated it as a public relations issue. The first country to actually face the facts and implement the most effective response to the virus was Taiwan. With 24 million people, Taiwan registered only 440 infections and 6 deaths!!!
2/7

How did they achieve such astonishing success? Two key reasons:
1) Experience of SARS meant they had know-how & built infrastructure to cope with next pandemic.
2) Taiwan faces constant pressure from CCP and knows to instinctively distrust narratives coming out of Beijing. 3/7

With million of citizens working in mainland, Taiwan knew the realities about human-to-human transfer. But because #CCPChina pressure ensures Taiwan is not recognized by the #UN & #WHO, all its warnings were ignored. And the world is now paying the price for this absurdity. 4/7

If Taiwan was accepted as a normal independent member of the #UN & #WHO, their warnings would have been heard, and the course of this pandemic could have been very different indeed. The ONLY reason it is not is because countries fear the ire of Beijing. 5/7

Taiwan is one of the wealthiest democracies in the world. Over decades, relations with Beijing were warming until hardline nationalist administration of Xi Jinping came to power flexing its muscles against neighbors, crushing dissent in #HongKong and incarcerating #Uighurs. 6/7

Beijing will lash out against anyone recognising Taiwanese independence. But the US is not (yet) constrained by any threat of Chinese backlash. The US should now, at long last, formally acknowledge Taiwanese reality and unilaterally recognise Taiwan as an independent country. 7/7

See the full article here: @TheNatlInterest

nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/unit…