Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Feiza/WikiCommons/CC BY 4.0
A TAIWANESE RESCUE team dispatched to Myanmar in the wake of the 7.7 earthquake that struck the country earlier this week has been dissolved after more than 48 hours on standby. Reportedly, neither the Thai authorities nor the Myanmar authorities responded to Taiwan’s offer of assistance after both countries were impacted by the earthquake, collapsing buildings, and killing thousands.
The Taiwanese rescue team consisted of 126 individuals, who were mostly rescuers from southern Pingtung and northern Taoyuan. The team also included two engineers, seven nurses, six doctors, six search-and-rescue dogs, and had 15 tons of equipment that it would have brought over.
In disbanding the group, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang cited the continued military conflict in Myanmar as possibly endangering the rescue team. Military airstrikes by the junta on civilian populations have continued in spite of the earthquake.
Myanmar is currently ruled by a military junta that overthrew the democratically elected government of the country in 2021. The military junta has close relations with the Chinese government, which is thought to be one reason why the government did not respond to Taiwan’s offers of assistance.
Apart from that China is increasingly a stakeholder in the region, the Chinese government is sometimes perceived as lending the military junta political legitimacy and backing. China, along with Russia, is one of the major military suppliers to Myanmar.
Yet this association has led to negative views of the military in Myanmar. Even if not a member of ASEAN, Taiwan has, on the other hand, often come to be viewed positively as a regional democracy that also contends with authoritarianism.
The military junta currently controls less territory in Myanmar than resistance forces. Since Operation 1031, which began last year, the military junta is on the retreat. Though there may still be many years of fighting ahead, including the possibility that ethnic resistance organizations currently aligned with each other in the fight against the junta may eventually turn against each other, the junta’s days are probably numbered.
It is Taiwan’s interest to strengthen ties with Myanmar’s future government, then. Apart from that the National Unity Government has sought to shore up its credentials as a government-in-exile, there is much talk of a shift toward federalism.
Even if the war is far from over, there is precedent for Taiwan cementing diplomatic ties with unrecognized territories. This is what occurred with Taiwan and Somaliland exchanging representative offices in 2021.
Taiwan likely does not want to anger the military junta, knowing that there are still Taiwanese in Myanmar today. In particular, Taiwanese have become increasingly aware of the scam centers that exist on the Thai-Myanmar border. Among the workers there, who are usually young people tricked into traveling to Myanmar on the promise of high-paying, lucrative jobs, are a number of Taiwanese. Taiwanese are among the targets of such scam centers. Indeed, much coverage of the earthquake in Taiwan disproportionately focused on the impact on scam centers, rather than that of regular people affected by the earthquake.
China has itself taken an interest in cracking down on such scam centers in recent times, even if it was state-backed Chinese gangster entrepreneurs who were responsible for them to begin with. Taiwan also may not wish to lose this point of leverage regarding scam centers.
For its part, as with Ukraine, resistance forces in Myanmar also realize that China is a stakeholder that would need to be pacified for any peace agreement to be lasting, particularly with the US cutting funding and expressing a decided lack of interest in Myanmar.
But Taiwan often talks of being a responsible stakeholder in the region and wishes for stronger ties with like-minded democratic countries. There may still be chances for Taiwan to seek out ties and, in this way, contribute toward the development of a lasting peace when it comes to Myanmar’s conflict.