ANALYSIS: Taiwan Welcomes Its Allies While Beijing Reserves Its Airspace for War

Peace through strength, not through submission

William Lai’s response to Banks can be summed up in a single phrase that analysts of the Taiwan Strait will dissect for months: “Taiwan loves peace, but only force can guarantee it.”

Then this even sharper statement: “Taiwan is open to dialogue, but no compromise can be made at the expense of democracy, freedom, and national interests.” ” It is a response to Banks. It is also a response to Beijing. And perhaps, above all, it is a response to those in his own parliament who would like to trade Taiwan’s sovereignty for a promise of peace.

The word that changes everything

Lai did not say “compromise.” He said “sacrifice.” The difference is vast. A compromise implies two parties acting in good faith. A sacrifice implies a victim and a predator. By choosing this word, the Taiwanese president delivered an unequivocal assessment of the nature of China’s intentions.

Housakos and the Information War

The Canadian visit is of a different nature, but no less important. Leo Housakos, leader of the Conservative opposition in the Canadian Senate, met with Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Chen Ming-chi, Legislative Yuan Vice President Johnny Chiang, and—significantly—Secretary-General of the National Security Council Joseph Wu.

You don’t meet with the head of national security to discuss trade. The official agenda mentions cooperation on “foreign information manipulation and interference.” Translated from diplomatic language: how to counter Beijing’s influence operations.

A Signal from Ottawa Despite Ottawa

Housakos is in the opposition. The Canadian government did not endorse this visit. And yet, a delegation of nine Canadian senators in Taipei for six days is a political reality that Beijing cannot ignore. Canada, which has long avoided upsetting China—from the Meng Wanzhou case to the “two Michaels”—is showing, through its parliamentarians if not its government, that part of its political establishment refuses to look the other way.

Housakos stated that Taiwan and Canada “uphold human rights and democracy, and are important partners in many areas.” These are words that the Trudeau administration, and later the Carney administration, carefully avoided uttering with such clarity.

The Context No One Can Ignore

These diplomatic visits are not taking place in a vacuum. Since March 27, China has reserved a massive airspace over the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea—and will continue to do so until May 6. Forty days. Without any announcement of military exercises. Without any official explanation. The Wall Street Journal called this decision an “unusual step.”

NOTAMs—Notices to Airmen—are normally used to announce military exercises lasting a few days. Not forty. When a country reserves its airspace for military operations for more than a month without saying why, it’s no longer an exercise. It’s a message.

The Coincidence That Isn’t One

Western senators in Taipei. Chinese airspace locked down. A frozen Taiwanese defense budget. Three simultaneous events that paint a picture that official statements refuse to name: the Taiwan Strait has entered a phase of structural tension where every diplomatic move is also a military move, and every silence is a calculated move.

A Divided Parliament Faces an Emergency

Banks put it bluntly: the special defense budget must pass the Legislative Yuan. This is not a matter of parliamentary protocol. It is a test of credibility. If Taiwan asks for support from Washington and Ottawa while being unable to pass its own defense budget, the message sent to the world is devastating.

The Kuomintang, which controls part of the legislature, finds itself in a position that history will judge. Blocking the defense budget while China reserves its airspace for forty days is playing a game whose rules were written in Beijing.

The question Banks is really asking

Behind the Republican senator’s polite statement lies a brutal question: Is Taiwan ready to defend itself, or is it waiting for others to do so on its behalf? That is the question every potential ally is silently asking itself. And the answer will not come from a presidential speech. It will come from a vote.

What Canada Is Learning

The Housakos delegation didn’t come just for the official photos. Cooperation on “foreign information manipulation” is at the heart of the agenda. Taiwan is the country most targeted by Chinese influence operations worldwide. For years, Taipei has been developing tools for detection, fact-checking, and information resilience that the rest of the democratic world is only just beginning to understand.

Canada, which was stunned to discover the extent of Chinese interference in its own elections—as revealed by the Hogue Commission—has very concrete reasons to come to Taipei to learn. This isn’t abstract solidarity. It’s a well-understood matter of national interest.

Indigenous Affairs and Health: Unexpected Perspectives

The Canadian delegation’s agenda also includes discussions on healthcare and Indigenous affairs—areas where Taiwan and Canada face similar challenges, such as recognizing the rights of First Nations peoples and ensuring access to care in remote communities. These topics, despite their technical nature, forge institutional ties far more difficult to break than any diplomatic communiqué.

The Taiwanese Opposition Faces Its Own Contradictions

The Canadian delegation met with Johnny Chiang, vice president of the Legislative Yuan and a leading figure in the Kuomintang. The same KMT that is blocking the special defense budget. The same party whose members advocate for closer ties with Beijing.

That Chiang agreed to meet with a foreign delegation that came to discuss Chinese information interference is either a sign of openness or a political balancing act. And yet, in the current context, every handshake with a Western lawmaker is a photo that Beijing does not like to see.

Joseph Wu, the man who knows

Housakos also met with Joseph Wu, secretary-general of the National Security Council. A former foreign minister, Wu is one of the architects of Taiwan’s policy of resilience in the face of Chinese pressure. His inclusion in the Canadian delegation’s itinerary signals that this visit goes far beyond the commercial or cultural framework typically reserved for foreign parliamentary delegations.

When governments fail to act, parliaments step in

Neither Canada nor the United States officially recognizes Taiwan. There are no embassies. There are no formal defense treaties. The Canadian Trade Office in Taipei is not a consulate. U.S.-Taiwan relations are based on the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, a deliberately ambiguous piece of legislation.

Within this constrained framework, parliamentary visits have become the primary tool of Taiwanese diplomacy. Every delegation of Western senators or members of parliament that lands in Taipei sends a signal that governments cannot officially convey. It’s proxy geopolitics, and everyone knows it.

Beijing protests, but the calculus has changed

Beijing will protest. That is certain. Every visit by a Western parliamentarian to Taiwan triggers a condemnation from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But since Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August 2022—and the massive military exercises that followed—the calculus has changed. Such visits have become more frequent. The diplomatic cost of each Chinese protest has diminished. And the normalization of these contacts is perhaps the most significant geopolitical development of this decade in the Strait.

A Front That Is Solidifying

From Beijing’s perspective, this week in Taipei paints a troubling picture. Canadians coming to learn how to counter Chinese influence. An American demanding a higher defense budget. A Taiwanese president who speaks of “strength” and refuses any “sacrifice” of sovereignty. And a 40-day airspace restriction that, rather than intimidating, seems to be accelerating the rapprochement between Taipei and its Western allies.

This is the fundamental paradox of China’s pressure strategy: every act of intimidation strengthens the arguments of those in Taipei who are advocating for greater defense capabilities and more alliances.

The Question of Calculated Escalation

Xi Jinping has repeatedly stated that “reunification” with Taiwan is inevitable. The 40-day airspace reservation is part of a strategy of constant tension—what analysts call the “gray zone”: not enough to trigger a military response, but enough to wear down, destabilize, and test. But this strategy assumes that Taiwan’s allies will grow weary. This week suggests the opposite.

Scenario One: A Productive Stalemate

The defense budget is eventually passed. Taiwan increases its military capabilities. Visits by Western parliamentarians become routine. China continues to protest but does not cross the red line. This is the most likely scenario in the short term. It is also, paradoxically, the one that requires the most political courage in Taipei—passing a defense budget is never popular when peace seems to be holding.

Scenario Two: Internal Division

The budget remains stalled. Washington is losing patience. Taiwan’s potential allies are beginning to wonder whether the island is worth the risk of a confrontation with China for a country that won’t even vote on its own defense. This is the scenario Banks came to prevent. It is also the one Beijing secretly hopes for.

Scenario Three: The Accident

A drone. A ship. A pilot who makes a mistake in restricted airspace without explanation. Forty days of an aerial gray zone means forty days of risk of an incident. And in the Taiwan Strait, an incident can become a pretext in a matter of hours.

What Kyiv Has Learned and What Taipei Should Hear

In February 2022, Ukraine discovered that promises of international support have an expiration date. Weapons arrive, but always late. Financial aid comes, but never without conditions. And fatigue among Western public opinion is a strategic factor that dictatorships know how to exploit.

Taiwan has an advantage that Ukraine did not have: time to prepare. A defense budget passed today means operational capabilities in two years. A budget blocked today is a gamble that Beijing will wait patiently.

And yet, the parallel has its limits

Taiwan is not Ukraine. The strait is not the Donbas. An amphibious invasion across 130 kilometers of sea is a military challenge without modern parallel. But the fundamental lesson is the same: democracies that do not defend themselves eventually run out of defenders. That is exactly what Banks came to say, with all the tact of an Indiana senator.

Beijing Is Losing Its Monopoly on Pressure

Every parliamentary visit to Taipei erodes the diplomatic framework that Beijing has patiently built over decades. The “One China” policy, a pillar of the international order since 1979, has never been so openly circumvented—not through formal breaches, but through an accumulation of gestures that, taken individually, are “unofficial” and, taken together, amount to de facto recognition.

Taiwan is buying time, but time is costly

Every week that the defense budget remains unapproved is a week lost. And every visit by a foreign senator who leaves without the legislature having taken action is a promise of support that loses a bit of its credibility. Taipei is accumulating signs of international friendship while simultaneously exposing its internal divisions. It is a paradox that Beijing observes with methodical patience.

The signal has been sent; the response remains to be seen

This week in Taipei will not change the military balance across the strait. It will not result in any treaty, any formal alliance, or any diplomatic recognition. But it adds another layer to an informal support structure that, month after month, makes it a little harder for Beijing to isolate Taiwan.

The real test isn’t the photo of Banks with Lai. It isn’t Housakos’s handshake with Wu. The real test is the vote on the special defense budget in the Legislative Yuan. Everything else is diplomatic theater—necessary, useful, but insufficient.

And yet, the theater matters

In the Taiwan Strait, diplomatic theater is a form of deterrence. Every Western senator who sets foot in Taipei is a reminder that an invasion of Taiwan would not be a regional event but a global earthquake. Beijing knows this. Washington knows this. Ottawa is beginning to realize it. And Taipei, this week, made sure no one could claim to be unaware of it.

The question is no longer whether Taiwan has friends. It is whether those friends will still be there when the sky above the strait ceases to be a “gray zone” and becomes something else. And no senator’s visit can answer that question. Only a vote can.

Signed, Jacques PJ Provost