JOIN USGovt mum, but India’s Twitterati greet Taiwan on its National Day; China fumes
Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Government maintained silence, the posters greeting Taiwan on the occasion of its National Day near the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in New Delhi irked Beijing.
Twitterati in India too on Saturday greeted Taiwan on its National Day. The hashtag #TaiwanNationalDay went trending. The Global Times, a news-portal run by the Communist Party of China (CPC), reacted by publishing a commentary, quoting an analyst stating that India was “playing with fire” by challenging the “One China policy”.
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen on Saturday referred to the five-month-long military stand-off along India-China disputed boundary in eastern Ladakh in her National Day address in Taipei. She said that China’s belligerence in the Taiwan Strait, in the disputed waters of South China Sea as well as along its boundary with India posed a serious threat to peace and democracy in the region.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Joseph Wu especially thanked “friends” from India. “Hats off to friends from around the world this year, #IndiaFlag of India in particular, for celebrating #TaiwanNationalDay. With your support, #TaiwanFlag of Taiwan will definitely be more resilient in meeting challenges, especially those “Get Lost” types,” he posted on Twitter.
Joseph had sent out a “get lost” message to China on Wednesday when the communist country, which has all its media outlets controlled by the party or the state, had written to the journalists in New Delhi asking them to go by the “One China policy” of the Government of India while reporting on the National Day of Taiwan.
A number of posters wishing a “Happy National Day” to Taiwan were put up near the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China on Shantipath in Chanakyapuri on Friday-Saturday night. The posters also had the map of Taiwan and “issued by Tejinder Pal Singh Bagga” written on them.
Bagga is a local leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi. That a leader of the BJP, which runs the Union Government of India, put up the posters apparently did not go unnoticed in Beijing.
“One-#China policy is long-standing position of #Indian government. China firmly opposes any individual or any move trying to create "two Chinas" or "One-China, one Taiwan", which violates this position,” Ji Rong, a spokesperson of the communist country’s embassy in New Delhi, posted on Twitter on Saturday.
The Global Times of China published an article on its website, quoting analysts stating that India's “provocation” on the issue of Taiwan would cause an “irreversible impact” on bilateral relations between Beijing and New Delhi. “India is playing with fire by challenging the One China policy,” the news-portal quoted Zhao Gancheng, the director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, saying.
The “One China” policy recognises only the People's Republic of China, which came into existence in 1949 after the communists defeated the nationalists in the civil war of China. It does not recognise the existence of Taiwan (or the Republic of China), where the nationalists retreated to and based the seat of their government after losing to the communists. India, like most of the other nations, has been adhering to One China policy since 1949, recognising only the People's Republic of China.
China’s recent moves to unilaterally change the status quo along its disputed boundary with India and the five-month-long military stand-off between the two sides, however, triggered calls to New Delhi to review its policy on Taiwan to send out a message to the communist country. The Modi government, however, has not yet initiated any such move.
No official statement greeting Taiwan on its National Day was issued by the government in New Delhi on Saturday. Neither Modi, nor President Ram Nath Kovind posted any message on social media platforms to publicly greet counterparts in Taiwan. Though External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar tweeted on Saturday to greet the people and the government of Fiji on the 50th anniversary of the Pacific Ocean island nation, he did not post any such message on social media on the occasion of the National Day of Taiwan.
Taiwan celebrates its National Day on October 10 every year, commemorating the start of the Wuchang Uprising on this day in 1911. The uprising had led to the end of the Qing Dynasty in China and establishment of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912.
New Delhi had earlier reaffirmed its One China policy in all its joint statements with Beijing. But it had not done so for eight years since 2010 — in response to the communist country's policy of issuing “stapled visas to the residents of Jammu and Kashmir, instead of normal visas pasted on passports issued by the Government of India.
The Modi Government, however, had in July 2018 virtually re-asserted its adherence to “One China policy” and made Air India to change “Taiwan” with “Chinese Taipei” in the list of destinations on its website. Taiwan had strongly reacted, stating that the move by Air India could be seen as a “gesture” by India “of succumbing to the unreasonable and absurd pressure from China”.