From 11m ago
‘China’s threats to annex Taiwan will not simply disappear’, says Lai
“So long as China refuses to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, all of us in Taiwan should accept… China’s threats to annex Taiwan will not simply disappear,” says Lai.
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Meanwhile Chinese social media platform Weibo has blocked a hashtag featuring the name of Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te, a notice on the website showed Monday.
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“According to relevant laws, regulations, and policies, the content of this topic has not been displayed,” a search for the hashtag LaiChing-te on the X-like Weibo showed around 10.40 am.
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It wasn’t immediately clear when the hashtag was blocked, and search results for Lai’s name still yielded results.
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A hashtag bearing the name of outgoing Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen was also blocked.
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And another, “Taiwan 520 new authorities take office”, was removed.
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Weibo often blocks hashtags deemed politically sensitive to prevent them from trending on the platform, used by hundreds of millions in China.
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During Taiwan’s presidential election in January, the platform blocked a hashtag on the poll after it became one of the site’s top-trending topics.
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But there has been scant mention of Lai’s inauguration in China’s state-run media, with neither state broadcaster CCTV nor ruling party organ People’s Daily featuring coverage on their home pages as of 11 am Monday.
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“So long as China refuses to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, all of us in Taiwan should accept… China’s threats to annex Taiwan will not simply disappear,” says Lai.
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Lai calls for China to cease its actions in the Taiwan strait and help Taiwan to maintain peace in the strait.
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“Mutual benefits and prosperous coexistence would be common goals,” he says. “I hope that China will face the reality of the ROC’s existence,” he says, and pauses for cheers.
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“There is already a strong international consensus that peace and security on the Taiwan strait are indispensable to global security and prosperity,” says Lai.
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“Peace is the only option,” he says, “And prosperity gained through lasting peace is our motivation,” he says.
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His government are “pilots for peace”. They will “maintain the status quo”.
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“Democracy, peace and prosperity form Taiwan’s national roadmap, and they are also our link to the rest of the world,” says Lai. “We have grown to become one of th world’s most vibrant democracies,” he says. “Taiwan was the first country in Asia to legalise same sex marriage.”
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“Taiwan is already a global beacon, and this honour belongs to all the people of Taiwan.”
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In a riot of yellow braids, glitter and spandex, garnished with a huge yellow water lily, Taiwan’s latest global celebrity danced her heart out for the island’s diminutive, softly spoken president, whose mild manners belie her outsized legacy.
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Tsai Ing-wen, 67, stepped down as Taiwan’s president on Monday. Before handing over the keys, on Wednesday she welcomed Taiwan’s most famous drag queen, Nymphia Wind, for a live performance in the presidential office. After sashaying to Lady Gaga’s Marry the Night, Nymphia Wind, who recently won the 16th season of the US reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race, thanked Tsai for “all these years of making Taiwan the first in so many things”.
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Tsai took office as the first female president in 2016. Since then, Taiwan has become the first place in Asia to legalise gay marriage. Government statistics suggest that it is doing better than anywhere else in Asia in terms of gender equality. Her first term saw increases in the minimum wage and a boost in funding for childcare.
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But Tsai’s biggest legacy will be her cultivation of Taiwan’s rising prominence on the world stage, fostering closer relations with the US, even while losing formal diplomatic allies and navigating a tricky relationship with China.
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former President Tsai Ing-wen waves during the inauguration of new President Lai Ching-te and new Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, outside the Presidential office building in Taipei, Taiwan on 20 May 2024.","caption":"Taiwan’s former President Tsai Ing-wen waves during the inauguration of new President Lai Ching-te and new Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, outside the Presidential office building in Taipei, Taiwan on 20 May 2024. 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In a social media post on Sunday evening, her final night as president, Tsai thanked Taiwan’s people for giving her eight years in office.
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“I walked into the Presidential Office with the belief of reform,” she said.
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“Although there were many challenges and tests in the process, we have all witnessed Taiwan’s progress and changes under the belief of making the country better. Thank you all for working with me to create many firsts for Taiwan, allowing freedom, democracy, fairness, justice, respect and tolerance to take root in this land, writing history for Taiwan, and promoting the country’s overall development.
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“I have said that my term will end on [20 May], but our country will continue to move forward. If I had to leave a message to Taiwan, I would say that I hope Taiwan is a united Taiwan.”
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken congratulated Taiwan’s newly inaugurated President Lai Ching-te, saying he looked forward to Washington and Taipei deepening ties and maintaining “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
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“We also congratulate the Taiwan people for once again demonstrating the strength of their robust and resilient democratic system,” Blinken said in a statement.
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The Guardian’s Helen Davidson and Chi Hui Lin report that China’s ministry of commerce has just announced three US weapons manufacturers have been added to its list of “unreliable entities”, over their supply of arms to Taiwan.
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The companies, Boeing Defense Space and Security, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and General Dynamics Land Systems, are banned from importing or exporting with China, holding investments inside China and senior executives are banned from entering China or applying for entry or resident permits.
Such an announcement is not overly surprising – it’s expected that Beijing would have some sort of reactions to today’s inauguration, which it strongly objects to. It had also criticised foreign governments like the UK and Australia for sending delegations to the event. No country except those which are formally allied with Taiwan have sent heads of state or ministers to the event. The guests are mostly made up of parliamentary delegations, or groups of people adjacent to government.
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Speaking of baseball, what are US-Taiwan relations like at the moment.
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In 2022, the then US house speaker and Democratic party member Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in a trip the Council on Foreign Relations described as heightening tensions between China and the US.
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Nancy Pelosi even met with the then president Tsai Ing-wen, with Foreign Policy saying Beijing strongly condemned the visit, reacting by planning military exercises and banning some food imports.
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Less than a year later – the then US house speaker Kevin McCarthy met with Tsai Ing-wen in the US, in a visit that also angered China.
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This is what the US state department says:
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\n
Though the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, we have a robust unofficial relationship. The United States and Taiwan share similar values, deep commercial and economic links, and strong people-to-people ties, which form the bedrock of our friendship and serve as the impetus for expanding US engagement with Taiwan.
\n
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The state department goes on to say that the US has a “longstanding one China policy”, and that it “opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side”.
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\n
… We do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.
\n
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Thinktank the Council on Foreign Relations says that Beijing has repeatedly urged Washington to stop selling defence equipment to Taiwan and to cease its contact with Taipei.
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Outside the president’s office, where the crowd is watching this part of the ceremony on a large screen, there is a standing ovation and cheers from the crowd as Lai is formally declared president of the Republic of China.
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Lai has been sworn in, and his vice-president, Hsiao Bi-khim, is being sworn in now.
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She describes herself as a “cat-warrior”: A political veteran, Hsiao, 52, came up with her own nickname when she was sent to Washington – with her four cats – in 2020.
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The moniker was her response to Beijing’s aggressive “wolf warrior” style diplomacy, which was becoming increasingly combative at that time. Like a cat, Taiwan’s diplomacy would be agile, flexible and comfortable in narrow spaces, she said. The animals are lovable but also independent.
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Taiwan’s president-elect Lai Ching-te motorcade has just arrived at the presidential office.
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Lai will be sworn into office on Monday, putting him at the helm of the self-ruled island as China ramps up military and political pressure on Taipei.
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Lai will officially take over from Tsai Ing-wen, whose eight years in power saw a sharp deterioration in relations with Beijing over its claim to the self-governed island.
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When Lai takes office he is expected to express goodwill towards Beijing in his inauguration speech, and call for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to pursue peace, a senior official briefed on the matter told Reuters.
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China claims democratic Taiwan as part of its territory and has called Lai, 64, a “dangerous separatist” who will bring “war and decline” to the island.
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Like Tsai, Lai is a staunch defender of the island’s democracy and in the past has described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”.
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Ahead of Lai’s inauguration, Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office, which handles cross-strait issues, called “Taiwan independence and peace in the strait … like water and fire”.
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motorcade transporting Taiwan’s President-elect Lai Ching-te travels to the Taiwan Presidential Office for the inauguration ceremony in Taipei on 20 May 2024.","caption":"The motorcade transporting Taiwan’s President-elect Lai Ching-te travels to the Taiwan Presidential Office for the inauguration ceremony in Taipei on 20 May 2024. 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In the lead up to the inauguration, China ramped up its activity designed to pressure Taiwan, but analysts have generally not been more worried than usual about the level of tensions.
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China’s military has for years been flying large numbers of warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, and since the Pelosi drills they have been regularly crossing the median line – an act that used to be highly provocative but is now quite common as Beijing seeks to normalised it’s escalatory behaviour.
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The number of sorties dropped before the January election, but this week saw those numbers start to climb again. The highest numbers were seen midweek.
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On Tuesday all 10 warplanes that flew into the ADIZ crossed the median line and five Navy vessels were detected.
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On Wednesday 45 planes and six vessels were detected, with 26 of the aircraft crossing the median line.
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On Thursday 27 planes and seven vessels were detected, with 19 planes crossing the line.
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Lai was one of seven children born to a working-class mining family in Wanli, a small hillside village near Taiwan’s north-east coast. His father, Lai Chao-chin, died in a mining accident when Lai was two, leaving his mother to raise them alone in the small house on the mining tenement. In 2023 Lai told Time magazine that the family’s hard life taught him a sense of determination.
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That determination has taken him to the top of Taiwan politics. On Monday, Taiwan will celebrate the inauguration of Lai, its fifth president since free and direct elections began after decades of martial law. He will be taking over from Tsai Ing-wen, at a dangerous time in Taiwan’s history, with China’s threats to annex Taiwan growing in scope and seriousness.
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Lai is preparing to take over as president of the self-governed island at a time of increased geopolitical danger and intense global scrutiny, but analysts and rivals say Lai is not the kind of leader to shy away from a fight.
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They describe the 64-year-old as driven, compassionate and principled, but also stubborn and hot-tempered.
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Lai, who served as Tsai’s vice-president faces a combative first term, operating without a majority in Taiwan’s deeply divided legislature.
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There are splits inside the ruling Democratic Progressive party (DPP) on multiple domestic issues, and a significant divide exists over the issue of Taiwan independence.
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Here is a refresher on some of what is at stake in Taiwan. At the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, the losing Kuomintang government fled to the island of Taiwan.
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Since then, Taiwan has enjoyed de facto independence, growing into a vibrant democracy with free elections and media.
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But the Chinese government claims Taiwan as a province of China and has not ruled out taking it by force, with unification a key goal of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.
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The island’s soon to be former president, Tsai Ing-wen, has said Taiwan is already a sovereign country with no need to declare independence, but Beijing regards Taiwan’s democratically elected government as separatists.
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Under Xi’s rule, aggression towards Taiwan has increased and analysts believe the threat of invasion is at its highest in decades.
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Read more in our 30 second explainer by our correspondent Helen Davidson:
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It’s 8.35am in Taipei and welcome to our live coverage of Taiwan’s inauguration of a new president, Lai Ching-te. I’m Helen Sullivan and I’ll be with you for the next while.
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Lai Ching-te is from the incumbent Democratic Progressive party (DPP) and was elected as the new president in January, ushering in a historic third term in power for the party.
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Lai had served as vice-president to Tsai Ing-wen, the current president, in a government that has promoted the idea of a sovereign Taiwan. His victory is seen as a continuation of that policy. Lai comes from a more radical wing of the DPP but has promised to follow Tsai’s approach to balancing the relationships with the US and China.
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Shortly after winning the election, Lai said it was a “victory for the community of democracies” around the world. Referring to Beijing’s efforts to have the DPP ousted, Lai said voters had successfully resisted efforts by “external forces” to influence the election.
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China had warned before Taiwan’s elections that Lai would bring “war and decline” to the island, making the lead-up to his inauguration a closely watched period, accoding to Agence France-Presse.
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We’ll have more in moment but here’s a summary of what we know about Lai Ching-te – the incoming president of Taiwan:
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Lai Ching-te , 64, was president Tsai Ing-wen’s chosen successor, having served as vice president from 2019
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He is a former public health expert has been in politics since 1996
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Lai has long been popular; in 2014 he was re-elected as mayor of Tainan with a record-breaking 72.9% of the vote
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January’s national election was his second tilt at the presidency, after he lost a challenge for the nomination to the incumbent Tsai in 2019, instead joining her on the ticket as vice-president
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Lai has been described as more “green” (pro-independence) than Tsai, which had prompted some concern about whether a Lai presidency could worsen cross-strait tensions
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In 2017 he described himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan independence”, but has since stepped back from the stance, and is now sticking to Tsai’s more cautious formulation on Taiwan – that it is already a sovereign nation with no need to declare independence. “We have to be unified, continue to strengthen Taiwan, protect the democratic frontline and ensure Taiwan’s security,” he said in April.
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Key events
More of Lai’s comments on China below:
I hope that China will face up to the fact of the existence of the Republic of China, respect the choice of the Taiwanese people, show its sincerity, and cooperate with Taiwan’s democratically elected and legitimate government under the principles of reciprocity and dignity, replacing confrontation with dialogue, and exchanges with encirclement, starting with the resumption of bilateral reciprocal sightseeing and tourism, as well as the entry of students to study in Taiwan, so that we can work together in the pursuit of peace and co-prosperity.
His statements are significant, says Guardian Taiwan correspondent Helen Davidson:
This is a significant statement from Lai and something that Beijing and others were looking for. He’s calling for bilateral cooperations to restart, including tourism. It gets a big cheer. May people in Taiwan have social and business ties with China and would like a return to friendly interactions, even though they do not want unification.
There are still restrictions on Chinese tourists coming to Taiwan (and vice versa), but Lai appears to be saying it has to happen under certain conditions of “dignity and equivalence”. He doesn’t define what that means.
If he’s suggesting that the PRC needs to recognise the sovereignty of the ROC before he will lift the tourism restriction, that’s unlikely to happen.
Lai’s government will concentrate on five key industries, he says: semiconductors; AI; the military; security and surveillance; and next generation communications.
Weibo blocks Lai hashtag
Meanwhile Chinese social media platform Weibo has blocked a hashtag featuring the name of Taiwan’s new President Lai Ching-te, a notice on the website showed Monday.
“According to relevant laws, regulations, and policies, the content of this topic has not been displayed,” a search for the hashtag LaiChing-te on the X-like Weibo showed around 10.40 am.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the hashtag was blocked, and search results for Lai’s name still yielded results.
A hashtag bearing the name of outgoing Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen was also blocked.
And another, “Taiwan 520 new authorities take office”, was removed.
Weibo often blocks hashtags deemed politically sensitive to prevent them from trending on the platform, used by hundreds of millions in China.
During Taiwan’s presidential election in January, the platform blocked a hashtag on the poll after it became one of the site’s top-trending topics.
But there has been scant mention of Lai’s inauguration in China’s state-run media, with neither state broadcaster CCTV nor ruling party organ People’s Daily featuring coverage on their home pages as of 11 am Monday.
“The future we decide is not just the future of our nation, but the future of the world,” says Lai. He is referring not just to Taiwan’s democracy, but its exports and the global economy.
“Taiwan needs the world, just as the world needs Taiwan,” says Lai. He is now talking about semiconductors, and AI.
Among the small crowd of witnesses at Lai’s swearing-in were Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC, the leading semiconductor manufacturer which is makes most of the world’s highest grade chips and is responsible for a significant portion of Taiwan’s GDP.
‘China’s threats to annex Taiwan will not simply disappear’, says Lai
“So long as China refuses to renounce the use of force against Taiwan, all of us in Taiwan should accept… China’s threats to annex Taiwan will not simply disappear,” says Lai.
Lai calls on China to help maintain peace in Taiwan strait
Lai calls for China to cease its actions in the Taiwan strait and help Taiwan to maintain peace in the strait.
“Mutual benefits and prosperous coexistence would be common goals,” he says. “I hope that China will face the reality of the ROC’s existence,” he says, and pauses for cheers.
‘Peace and security on the Taiwan strait are indispensable’, says Lai
“There is already a strong international consensus that peace and security on the Taiwan strait are indispensable to global security and prosperity,” says Lai.
“Peace is the only option,” he says, “And prosperity gained through lasting peace is our motivation,” he says.
His government are “pilots for peace”. They will “maintain the status quo”.
Lai wants to allow Taiwan to become the, “MVP of the democratic world”, referring to the slang “Most Valuable Player”.
“War has no winners,” he says.
Lai hails Taiwan’s democracy as its link to the rest of the world
“Democracy, peace and prosperity form Taiwan’s national roadmap, and they are also our link to the rest of the world,” says Lai. “We have grown to become one of th world’s most vibrant democracies,” he says. “Taiwan was the first country in Asia to legalise same sex marriage.”
“Taiwan is already a global beacon, and this honour belongs to all the people of Taiwan.”
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