Indians unperturbed in Taiwan amidst Xi’s “reunification” call

When an Indian actor, playing the mythical character of Lord Rama, crossed the bridge to rescue her mythological consort Sita, enacted by a Taiwanese actor, in a well-choreographed Ram Leela at a recent Diwali event at Taipei’s American Club, the much-applauded scene aptly symbolized the gradually consolidating bridge between India and Taiwan. Moreover, the enactment of a segment from the Indian epic of Ramayana at the gala event Taipei’s American sponsored by Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) highlighted the growing proximity between the two countries at a time when the Galwan incident, even after two years, casting a shadow over India-China relations while China’s “invasion threat” over Taiwan getting intensified by the day after Chinese President Xi Jinping insisted on “striving for the prospect of peaceful reunification” and “not committed to abandoning the use of force.”

 

 

Top Taiwanese officials light up Diwali

 

 

The strictly “by invitation” only gala to celebrate the Indian festival of light was quite conspicuously attended by Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, who, in his impeccable English, reminded the predominantly Indian audience about how his “Get lost” Twitter jibe at China in 2020 went viral on Indian social media before repeatedly reiterating “I love India.”

 

Incidentally, the high-profile event, attended by Taiwan’s mostly reclusive National Security Council Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Szu-Chien, also saw large participation from the Indian expatriate community in Taiwan and officials from the India Taipei Association (ITA), the de facto Indian Embassy in the island nation unrecognized by the United Nations under the controversial “One China policy,” but also a slew of Taiwanese officials and artists attended the spectacular soiree organized at the tony establishment that calls itself a ‘haven of safe refuge’ for the international community in Taipei.

 

 

 

Life under fire-breathing Dragon’s nose

 

 

“I got a bit nervous when an overenthusiastic journalist in India shared the invitation e-card on his social media platform. With China upping the ante almost every day, I was a bit nervous about publicly giving away the exact location of our event and asked the man to delete the tweet,” mentioned Dr Priya Lee Lalwani, who played a stellar role in putting together cultural evening, under the aegis of the Taipei India Music and Culture Center, and the Indian expat community group, Indians in Taiwan (IiT). A native-level Mandarin-speaking Dr Lalwani, who has been tirelessly promoting India-Taiwan cultural camaraderie for the past several decades, agreed that the threat of a “possible Chinese annexation of Taiwan is greater than ever before, but that can’t stop me from promoting a stronger tie between my country of birth and the land where I almost lived my entire life.”

 

 

Strengthening business bridges

 

 

Caught between Chinese coercion and the American aggrandizing assurance, Taiwan has been resiliently registering economic growth for decades, thanks to its high-tech exports, including its showpiece semiconductor. The East Asian nation’s GDP has seen a remarkable growth of 4.1 per cent in its third quarter – from July to September – beating expectations. A number of Indians are employed in various mid-level and senior-level positions in Taiwan’s high-tech and semiconductor hubs of Hsinchu, Taipei and Tainan. With the Galwan incident and the post-Galwan pandemic-related visa and travel restrictions for Indians creating a diplomatic dilemma and some wrinkles in the bilateral relations between India and China, there has been an increasing trade as well as cultural bonhomie between India and Taiwan. There was almost a 64 per cent increase in the bilateral trade between India and Taiwan in 2021 as the consolidated cumulative trade figure soared to a record high of $7.7 billion last year. This came close on the heels of India’s trade deficit, with China touching almost $70 billion even though the annual two-way trade between the two neighbouring countries crossed $100 billion for the first time in 2021 after reaching $125.6 billion, with India’s imports rising to $97.5 billion. Umesh Parmar, a popular Taipei-based Indian businessman and trader, who spent about four decades in Taiwan, and was present at the MOFA-sponsored Diwali celebrations, cautioned, “We have lived peacefully in Taiwan for decades, and there was never any problem running our business here all these years, but now there is an imminent fear of annexation. China may try to take it over; who knows, maybe in 5 years.”In fact, Parmar echoed the concern that was categorically raised by Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Wu in an interview with Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin for a recently published article. He stated that “a Chinese invasion, which has become more likely following Chinese President Xi Jinping becoming the country’s ‘Emperor.’” 

 

 

Students find Taiwan safe haven for studies

 

 

Incidentally, Indians form the 9th largest country-specific expatriate group in Taiwan after overseas citizens from Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, the USA and South Korea, with a population of around 5000. Nonetheless, the Indian expat community in Taiwan has predominantly remained undaunted, imbibing the island nation’s signature spirit of resilience. Moreover, half of the Indian expat population in Taiwan comprises more than 2800 students, primarily pursuing master’s, PhD and Post-Doctorate in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) at some of the top-notch universities across the island. Shubhayan Mukherjee, a PhD student of material science at Tainan’s National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), mentioned, “Taiwan’s universities provide good infrastructure for science and technology students and the universities here are perfectly conducive to top-notch global scientific research. Moreover, these days Taiwan has been offering a significant number of scholarships and fellowships to woo Indian students. Thus, an increasing number of Indian students are pursuing higher studies here. But most of us are undaunted by the ongoing cross-strait tensions and geopolitical wranglings over this island nation.” 

 

 

Present tense, future tense

 

 

Significantly, there have been a series of Indian communities-organized events across the island, including the MOFA-sponsored Diwali, Durga Puja, Onam, and Gurpurab, to name a few, over the past few weeks. “There may be an undercurrent of scaremongering among a few over China taking an increasingly aggressive posture and a bellicose jingoism since Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit in August. But you can’t really spot any difference in our daily lives on the island. To be honest, life is going on as usual and uninterrupted as ever,” Nandana Biswas, a native-level Mandarin speaker currently working in Taipei to promote higher education cooperation between Taiwan and India and teaching the Chinese language in India, assured. 

 

Meanwhile, a long-time Taiwan resident and senior legal consultant, Arpita Dutta, cautioned, “Today, we may not have much of a difference in our daily lives in Taiwan, but an unprecedented situation erupted in Ukraine. Is it the third world war? We have already seen huge losses for both sides in the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. And history repeated itself time and again that war will not spare anyone, irrespective of whether a country is big or small. It applies to this part of the world as well. There will be an irreversible impact on tomorrow’s world.”

 

(The author is an independent journalist and MOE Huayu Chinese Language Enrichment

Scholar in Taiwan)