The sky is blue over Taipei, there are no helicopters flying, and the air raid sirens are silent – even though Chinese missiles are falling just a few kilometers off the Taiwanese coast. Anna Marti, who works for the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in Taiwan, seems very relaxed on the phone. “I don’t get any panic here,” she says. With Lin Fei-Fan, on the other hand, it’s loud in the background. It’s Chinese Valentine’s Day right now, says the deputy general secretary of Taiwan’s ruling party, the DDP. “People go to the restaurants and celebrate with their partners.” He is also in a restaurant – but with colleagues.
For the islanders, the constant threat from China is part of everyday life. The people of Taipei practice emergency situations every year, just last week they held the so-called Wan-An drills. “This year was probably particularly intense because of the Ukraine war,” says Marti. The sirens wailed, people had to go to the air raid shelters, the fire brigade practiced putting out fires after rocket hits. There is enough bunker capacity, says Marti. The nearest air raid shelter from her office is on the fourth floor of a parking garage. A government app shows the way, but according to her it is not correctly signposted.
Although Beijing’s reaction to the visit of US leader Nancy Pelosi was predictable, President Tsai Ing-wen rolled out the red carpet for the number three in American politics. Messages of greeting ran over the famous Taipei 101 skyscraper for the 82-year-old, who received the highest civil medal. However, according to Marti, the government “did not burst into howls of triumph”. Tsai does not want to further provoke Beijing, which sees the democratically governed island as a renegade province.
“The more aggressive China is, the less Taiwanese trust Beijing.”
“The Chinese reaction to Pelosi’s visit has shown why Pelosi’s visit was right,” says Tsai ally Lin. “She is in solidarity with us. More politicians should come.” Chinese threats, such as the military maneuvers that have just begun, the largest in decades, are primarily intended to intimidate the Taiwanese into not daring to demand formal independence. But Lin is unimpressed. “You can’t harm us that we can’t handle,” he says.
Although in a perpetual clinch, economic and social ties between Taiwan and the autocratically ruled mainland have grown closer in recent decades. Taiwanese companies invested heavily in factories on the mainland, and Chinese tourists came to the island. However, relations have deteriorated significantly since the election of Tsai Ing-wen, a pro-self-reliance advocate, in 2016. According to Marti, the most recent Chinese economic sanctions against Taiwan are primarily aimed at companies in the south of the island. That’s where Tsai’s DDP has its electoral strongholds. According to Lin, however, the president’s retaliatory measures benefit: “The more aggressive China is, the more they push Taiwan away, and the less Taiwanese trust Beijing.”