On January 13, Taiwan will elect a new government and parliament. This democratic nation of 23 million people is at the center of the contest of the century, which will determine whether the established international order and the norms that support it will endure or be replaced by authoritarian revisionism, greater repression and territorial expansionism.

Despite efforts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to present the conflict as an “internal matter” and Taiwan’s desire for freedom as “separatism”,

This decades-long conflict is actually a matter of two incompatible political systems and the colonial plans of an authoritarian regime over a territory over which it has never had power.

Although Taiwan shares cultural and linguistic features with China, polls show that only 1.6% of Taiwanese agree with immediate unification with China (and 5.8% believe it could happen later). The vast majority want their country to remain free and democratic by accepting the status quo, or de facto independence.

Therefore, the only way to achieve unification would be the use of force. By staking its reputation on “reunification,” the CCP has put itself in a position it cannot back down from. No Chinese leader today would dare to oppose Beijing’s demands for Taiwan.

The CCP sees Taiwan’s democracy as a dangerous precedent for the Chinese people, which is why it is trying to isolate Taiwan internationally. Thus, a country that is among the 25 largest economies, a key driver of the technology that powers our world and a beacon of liberalism in Asia, is forced to live in semi-existence.

To counter this, Taiwan has allies, including the United States, its guarantor of security since 1979. With its “strategic ambiguity”, Washington maintains uncertainty in order to react if China decides to attack. This was crucial in preventing war for decades. Nothing could have invited war more than Beijing’s conclusion that the United States would not help its ally defend itself.

A far more powerful China uses military aircraft and ships almost daily to intimidate Taiwan, and the threat of major war, once thought unthinkable, looms larger than ever after Putin showed that tyrants don’t always rationally weigh the pros and cons of their disastrous decisions .

Understanding the dynamics of the conflict should dispel the idea that the Taiwanese people are to blame for the continuing tensions and risks of war. No people should be given the untenable choice between subjugation and destruction, and if we force such choices on free peoples, we not only lose our humanity, but, more problematically, we increase the likelihood that other tyrannical regimes will come to the conclusion that it is possible to force , to terrorize and subjugate their neighbors. (OR)