Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I did not expect to get in, I am delighted to be able to contribute. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Brophy, to the House. He is doing a great job in the Department of Foreign Affairs. While I was in a committee meeting from 1.30 p.m. until just recently, I was paying attention to this debate and I heard quite a few of the contributions. I welcome the motion and thank Senators McDowell, Craughwell and Boyhan and their group for putting it down. It is a useful motion for us to debate. When I became a Senator for the first time in 2016, the Taipei Representative Office, as it is known in Ireland, reached out to me, as I am sure it does to all new Members. I met officials of the office and had various engagements with them and discovered that I did not know an awful lot about Taiwan. I believe many people here will not have known an awful lot about Taiwan before becoming Members of Parliament. I always understood it to be an independent country. Those of us of a certain vintage all probably grew up with toys that were made in Taiwan back in the day. Taiwan has an enormous economy and a population of some 23 million people. It is far bigger than most countries in the European Union. It has a great cultural base and is also amazingly good at manufacturing and technology.

As Senator McDowell has outlined, it is a country - or a jurisdiction if we want to use that term for political reasons - that operates free and fair elections. As Senator Wilson has outlined, it has been having free and fair elections since 1996. Along with others, I was lucky enough to observe those elections. Taiwanese people value their votes so much that people fly back from all over the world specially to vote in those free and fair elections. I knew that Ireland adheres to the One China policy, as do all EU countries, but I note that in the Minister of State's speech, he said that:

This means that we do not recognise Taiwan as a state nor maintain diplomatic relations. This policy is a prerequisite for our diplomatic relations with China, a country of 1.4 billion people.

Certainly, 23 million people seems like a tiny population in the context of that 1.4 billion people but an awful lot of things seem tiny in that context. I do not see this Parliament or this motion as being anti-China or as saying that China is terrible, in calling out mainland China, or the People's Republic of China. Rather, it alerts the Chinese Government and the Chinese authorities that things are happening in their jurisdiction which we, as a parliament, are not comfortable or happy with and that we do not want to see these things happen. We would not want to see them happen in any jurisdiction and we do not want to see them happen in this jurisdiction. While it is not necessarily the case that President Xi Jinping is listening to this debate, I hope that, in light of our own history of conflict with our near neighbours, this Parliament would seek the cooling of tensions and the moderation of China's behaviour, including its incursions into the Taiwanese air zone, the pressure it constantly brings to bear and the way it has effectively frozen out countries such as Lithuania for allowing offices to be called Taiwanese representative offices, rather than Taipei representative offices. Many of us admire China as a country for what it is has achieved but, as others have rightly asked, at what cost did it achieve these things? It is fair for this Parliament to call out bad behaviour wherever it happens. We are actually very quick to do so in respect of certain jurisdictions but we are much more reluctant to do it in respect of others. In his speech the Minister of State also said:

The policy does not however preclude us from developing economic and cultural relations with Taiwan at official level. We value co-operation with Taiwan. We have a working holiday authorisation programme with Taiwan, and in 2020 estimates of bilateral trade were around €1 billion annually.

It is my understanding that the balance of this trade is very much in our favour. I want to put on record that it is not being anti-China or the People's Republic of China to call out bad behaviour. We hope that its Government will reflect on things that are happening. If the motion goes through, as I hope it will, we will also be supporting the parliament of Taiwan and saying that Taiwan is entitled to self-governance and self-determination. Any attempted interference from outside the island of Taiwan would be most unwelcome and very unhelpful. The mainland Chinese authorities need to reflect on that.

In my last minute or 30 seconds, I will pay tribute to the Taipei Representative Office, as it is known in Ireland, and its representatives. The office is currently headed up by Dr. Pierre Yang and was headed up by Mr. Simon S.K. Tu before him. The office is promoting Irish-Taiwanese relationships all of the time in a very peaceful and friendly way. It lets us know about Taiwan's culture, helps Irish people to go to Taiwan and makes introductions. There are now Irish people running Chinese language schools in Taiwan and opening Irish pubs there. The office has been very helpful with that. I thank Senator McDowell for tabling this motion, which I wish well. I believe it will be passed. I am not saying that everything about China is bad but it is sometimes your friends who need to tell you when you are doing things wrong. In this motion, we have called China out.