MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on the situation in the Strait of Taiwan
12.9.2022 - (2022/2822(RSP))
pursuant to Rule 132(2) of the Rules of Procedure
Michael Gahler, Rasa Juknevičienė, Andrius Kubilius, Daniel Caspary, Lukas Mandl
on behalf of the PPE Group
See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B9-0389/2022
B9‑0396/2022
European Parliament resolution on the situation in the Strait of Taiwan
The European Parliament,
– having regard to its recommendation of 21 October 2021 to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) on EU-Taiwan political relations and cooperation[1],
– having regard to its resolution of 7 June 2022 on the EU and the security challenges in the Indo-Pacific[2],
– having regard to the joint communication of 16 September 2021 from the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific (JOIN(2021)0024),
– having regard to the Strategic Compass for Security and Defence, adopted by the Council on 21 March 2022,
– having regard to the statement by G7 foreign ministers of 3 August 2022 on preserving peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,
– having regard to the speech given by VP/HR Josep Borrell at the 29th ASEAN Regional Forum on 5 August 2022,
– having regard to the US-Australia-Japan Trilateral Strategic Dialogue of 5 August 2022,
– having regard to the EU’s One China policy,
– having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas from 4 to 10 August 2022, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) held large-scale live-fire military exercises in seven designated areas surrounding Taiwan; whereas the exercises included the use of up to 11 ballistic missiles of which at least five flew over Taiwan;
B. whereas five of the PRC’s ballistic missiles landed in the Japanese exclusive economic zone (EEZ);
C. whereas on 2 and 3 August, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, led a delegation of five US Members of Congress to Taiwan; whereas the PRC claims that its military exercises and other measures are a response to this visit;
D. whereas the full-scale military exercises were coupled with intense cyber-attacks against the Taiwanese authorities and private sector;
E. whereas since early August, military and civilian drones originating from the PRC have increasingly been intruding into the Taiwanese air defence identification zone (ADIZ), with some drones overflying the outlying islets of Taiwan, such as Kinmen;
F. whereas since the exercises, the PRC has continued to conduct further ‘training and war preparations’; whereas since 4 August 2022, there have been more than 500 incursions by PRC war planes into Taiwan’s ADIZ, of which more than 300 crossed the median line;
G. whereas tensions remain high and since early August, PRC fighters have flown over the median line of the Taiwan Strait on a regular basis, undermining the long-standing status quo across the Strait;
H. whereas the PRC appears to be seeking to perpetuate its overly aggressive actions, which would further erode the status quo in the Taiwan Strait;
I. whereas in response to the renewed provocations by the PRC, Taiwan has announced that it will increase its military budget by 13.9 % year-on-year, to a record TWD 586.3 billion (EUR 19.5 billion);
J. whereas Australia and Japan, together with the United States, in a joint statement expressed ‘concern about [the PRC’s] recent actions that gravely affect international peace and stability’ and urged the PRC ‘to immediately cease the military exercises’;
K. whereas the PRC has refrained from violating the Taiwanese territorial sea limit of 12 nautical miles, despite a campaign of misinformation to make it appear otherwise;
L. whereas after the visit of the US Congressional delegation led by Speaker Pelosi, the PRC suspended talks and cooperation with the United States in eight different areas, including dialogues on military matters and climate change;
M. whereas the PRC imposed economic sanctions on numerous types of agricultural produce from Taiwan following the visit of Speaker Pelosi;
N. whereas since 2019 the PRC has violated the Taiwanese ADIZ with increasing regularity; whereas the PRC has a long track record of using grey zone activities, which include economic coercion, cyber-attacks, disinformation and influence operations and an increase in military threats, especially in relation to Taiwan;
O. whereas over the past decades the PRC has subsequently increased its military spending and modernised its army; whereas the PRC has the second-highest military budget on the planet;
P. whereas the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, has repeatedly stated his intention to incorporate Taiwan into the People’s Republic of China, by force if necessary;
Q. whereas in 2005, the PRC passed a so-called ‘Anti-Secession Law’ aimed in large part at intimidating Taiwan;
R. whereas the PRC’s recently published white paper entitled ‘The Taiwan Question and China’s Reunification in the New Era’ removed previous reassurances offered to Taiwan about its future status after ‘reunification’, such as not stationing PRC troops on the island or sending in workers from the Chinese administration;
S. whereas the Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan;
T. whereas over recent years, parliamentary delegations from around the world have frequently visited Taiwan and whereas such visits in the framework of parliamentary diplomacy are common practice in democracies;
U. whereas a conflict in the Taiwan Strait would have catastrophic impacts on the global economy, given Taiwan’s pivotal role in global supply chains;
V. whereas the PRC has violated its promises to respect democratic freedoms in Hong Kong and has broken its own self-proclaimed idea of ‘one country, two systems’; whereas the negative developments in Hong Kong have also affected the domestic debate in Taiwan;
W. whereas the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy states that the ‘display of force and increasing tensions in regional hotspots such as in the South and East China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait may have a direct impact on European security and prosperity’;
X. whereas the PRC imposed massive economic sanctions and pressure on Lithuania after it agreed to the opening of a Taiwanese representative office in Lithuania, as well as plans to open a Lithuanian trade representative office in Taipei;
Y. whereas the sense of a Taiwanese identity has been strengthening among the population of Taiwan over recent years, in the context of the increasingly aggressive posture of the PRC vis-à-vis Taiwan;
Z. whereas Taiwan has aligned itself with EU sanctions against Russia and whereas both the Taiwanese Government and its people have made significant donations to Ukrainian refugees;
AA. whereas Taiwan is a global leader in the key economic area of the production of semiconductors; whereas the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy highlights that ‘the EU will also pursue its deep trade and investment relationships with partners with whom it does not have trade and investment agreements, such as Taiwan’;
AB. whereas Taiwan is a vibrant democracy and home to 23 million people; whereas the EU and Taiwan are like-minded partners that share the common values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law;
1. Strongly condemns the unprecedented level of intensity in the PRC’s military exercises in the Taiwan Strait since 2 August 2022 and calls on the Government of the PRC to refrain from any measures which could destabilise the Taiwan Strait and regional security;
2. Underlines that the status quo in the Taiwan Strait must not be unilaterally changed by force;
3. Reiterates that stability in the Taiwan Strait is directly linked to Europe’s key interests of maintaining security, prosperity and freedom in the region;
4. Expresses its firm solidarity with the people of Taiwan; applauds the Taiwanese Government and political leaders for their measured and responsible reaction to the PRC’s provocations;
5. Refuses to be intimidated or blackmailed by the PRC’s provocations in the Taiwan Strait or elsewhere;
6. Calls on the Government of the PRC to respect international law, including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea;
7. Sees the PRC’s military exercises as a provocation to test the unity and resolve of democracies in the Indo-Pacific region and across the West; welcomes the clear condemnation of the PRC’s military exercises by EU Member States as well as key partners such as the United States, Canada, Australia and Japan, and underlines that our unity is key in order to deter any aggression by the PRC and maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait;
8. Strongly condemns the targeting of Japanese territorial waters by PRC ballistic missiles and sees this as an unprecedented escalation which must be properly acknowledged and addressed by the international community; expresses its sympathy for and offers its full support to Japan, and stresses in this regard the need for democracies in the region to continue supporting Taiwan in the face of the PRC’s sabre-rattling, as peace and stability in the region are in everyone’s interest;
9. Strongly rejects the efforts by the PRC’s leadership to redefine the status quo in its own favour through its military exercises and repeated provocations; demands that the PRC respect the long-established median line and refrain from interfering in Taiwan’s ADIZ as well as its EEZ;
10. Calls on the PRC urgently to cease its grey zone military tactics, including cyber and disinformation campaigns as well as usage of military and civilian drones, and stresses that these activities all contribute to a dangerous situation of uncertainty and instability;
11. Condemns the PRC’s decision to suspend various political dialogues with the United States, including on climate and security matters, and urges the PRC’s leadership to return to diplomatic standards in order to avoid the risk of miscalculations and mistakes which could have catastrophic consequences;
12. Expresses its concern that an unwanted error or accident could set off a series of escalatory moves; points to the need to seek new ways of launching confidence-building measures across the Taiwan Strait in order to avoid scenarios such as those we witnessed this summer;
13. Firmly rejects the PRC’s economic coercion against Taiwan and other democracies in its region, as well as against EU Member States, and underlines that such practices are not only illegal under World Trade Organization rules, but that they also have a devastating effect on the PRC’s reputation around the world and will lead to a further loss of trust in the PRC as a partner;
14. Underlines that on the democratic island of Taiwan, it is up to the people to decide on how they want to live and how they want to pursue their relations with Beijing;
15. Calls for the EU to pursue its ambitions of becoming a true geopolitical player and therefore to assume a stronger role when it comes to the situation in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific as a whole, in line with its own Indo-Pacific strategy; calls for the further deepening of our strategic relations with like-minded partners in the region, in particular Japan and Australia;
16. Reiterates its condemnation of and disappointment with the PRC’s termination of its own self-proclaimed ‘one country, two systems’ principle by effectively terminating democracy and the independent rule of law in Hong Kong; recognises that the PRC has thus revealed its true intentions about its future path, which is at odds with the global desire for freedom, human and civil rights, accountability of public administrations, good governance, democracy and public participation;
17. Calls on EU Member States to increase their economic and diplomatic presence throughout the Indo-Pacific region, including in Taiwan, and recalls that the world’s strategic and economic centre of gravity is shifting to this region, and that the EU therefore has a clear interest in forging a clear and credible EU-level approach to the Indo-Pacific;
18. Recalls in this regard that the EU is an important stakeholder in the Indo-Pacific region, with over one third of all European exports going to the region, which is home to several of its top trading partners; stresses, therefore, that the EU is dependent on unimpeded maritime highways or sea lines of communication that pass through the Indo-Pacific, and stresses that a crisis in the Taiwan Strait would therefore have serious consequences for Europe’s trade and economic prosperity;
19. Recalls that the EU is the largest investor in Taiwan and already has a solid cooperative framework in place with it, which has further strengthened in spite of rising global tensions; stresses therefore that the EU as a whole and individual Member States have their own interests to protect in Taiwan; further underlines that Member States have an obligation to protect their citizens living in Taiwan and the region as a whole;
20. Recalls that Taiwan is a like-minded partner with which the EU shares common values in terms of democracy, the rule of law and human rights, and from which it has much to learn, in particular in its fight against disinformation and concerning Taiwan’s successful management of the pandemic by relying on technology;
21. Recalls the importance of strengthening EU-Taiwan dialogue by deepening relations with local actors, including civil society, and stresses that such strengthened exchange will help to improve the EU’s profile and visibility inside Taiwan and contribute to joint efforts to address the threat of disinformation that both sides are increasingly confronted with;
22. Welcomes the recently announced plans by Lithuania to open a trade representative office in Taipei in the autumn of 2022; calls on other Member States who do not yet operate a trade office in Taiwan to follow this example and strengthen their political relations with Taiwan;
23. Believes that the PRC’s recent military provocations since 2 August 2022 have reconfirmed the need for the EU and for individual Member States to hold a constructive debate on ways to strengthen cooperation with Taiwan by building on existing cooperation and further identifying new areas for cooperation with a view to improving bilateral EU-Taiwan cooperation and ties on all levels;
24. Has reason to believe that the PRC’s recent escalation was planned long in advance and that the country’s leadership was simply waiting for a suitable pretext to launch its operations and to test both Taiwan’s capacity to respond and the West’s willingness to react;
25. Recognises that gestures of support, such as parliamentary visits, are valuable and believes that they can contribute to deterrence if paired with substantive cooperation in other fields; underlines that parliamentary visits are normal practice and contribute to strengthening awareness between the two sides, help to increase mutual understanding and strengthen people-to-people contacts; underlines its intention to send future official parliamentary delegations to Taiwan;
26. Extends an invitation to the Taiwanese parliament to send a delegation to the European Parliament in order to expand parliamentary cooperation between the EU and Taiwan;
27. Call on EU leaders to put the situation in the Taiwan Strait on the agenda at upcoming meetings of the European Council and Foreign Affairs Council and also to confront the PRC’s leadership concerning its aggression in the region during the upcoming G20 meeting in Indonesia in November;
28. Points to Taiwan’s crucial role in the global economy, in particular given its leading role in the field of semiconductors, and therefore stresses Taiwan’s relevance, as a technologically advanced economy, to the EU’s own prosperity and economic security; reiterates Taiwan’s strategic importance as not only a reliable partner but a vital one in the Indo-Pacific;
29. Recalls in this regard that in its Indo-Pacific strategy, the EU identified Taiwan as a partner to work with in its efforts to increase its resilience and thus address its own vulnerabilities;
30. Reiterates its previous call on the Commission to launch, without delay, an impact assessment, public consultation and scoping exercise on a Bilateral Investment Agreement with the Taiwanese authorities in preparation for negotiations to deepen bilateral economic ties;
31. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and the authorities of Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China.
- [1] OJ C 184, 5.5.2022, p. 170.
- [2] Texts adopted, P9_TA(2022)0224