Press Release 

Legislative Yuan

June 10, 2022

President You met French Senate Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces Committee Vice President Joël Guerriau

President You Si-kun: I hope China will enjoy the values of freedom and democracy

The Legislative Yuan President You Si-kun met and hosted a luncheon in honor of the six-member delegation led by French Senate Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces Committee Vice President Joël Guerriau accompaied by Legislator Tsai Shi-in, Chairman of Taiwan-Frence Inter-parliamentary Amity Assoication, New Power Party Caucus Convener Chiu Hsien-chih, Deputy Secretary General Kao Ming-chiu and Secretariat Director Kung Ping-chieh. French Office In Taipei Director Jean-François Casabonne-Masonnave, Head of the Political Affairs, Press, and Communication Section of the French Office in Taipei, Deputy Foreign Minister Harry Ho-jen Tseng and Taiwan’s Representative to France Francois Chih-chung Wu.

In his remarks, President You first welcomed delegation for making a long journey to Taiwan. He praised France a heavyweight country in the world, making tremendous contributions to the development of freedom and democratic development history. For example, Charles de Secondat Montesquieu’s separation of powers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s popular sovereignty in Social Contract and the spirits of liberty, equality and fraternity are the shared ideals of global democracies.

President You expressed his gratitude to Vice Chairman Joël Guerriau and French Senate Taiwan Friendship Group for their long-term support of Taiwan. It has profound significance for the Senate to pass pro-Taiwan resolutions last year. He also thanked the French government for following closely on the security of the Taiwan Strait, for unswerving support of Taiwan at the World Health Assembly in May this year and for including Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific strategy. All of these moves demonstrate its stance of supporting Taiwan.

President followed by stressing the importance of deterring China’s threat. He pointed out that China’s traditional political stance can be summarized as “there cannot be two suns in the sky nor two emperors on the Earth” and “all lands under heaven belong to the emperor; the people of those lands are subject to the emperor.” The Chinese Communist Party therefore becomes an authoritarian hegemony and adopts wolf-warrior diplomacy. He continued to point out that China recently cited the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Declaration to claim Taiwan’s sovereignty, but he emphasized that the purpose of those two declarations was merely for the Allies of World War II to express their resolve and objectives. After the war, the Treaty of Peace with Japan, which was jointly signed by 49 countries and entered into force on April 28, 1952. The treaty makes no mention of Taiwan’s sovereignty, and so naturally cannot be used to claim that Taiwan is subordinate to China. Since the signing of the treaty, Taiwan has become a sovereign and independent country in accordance with the principle of national sovereignty and the principle of national self-determination outlined in the United Nations Charter. Taiwan held its first full election of the Legislative Yuan was held in 1992, the first direct presidential election in 1996 and has experienced three alternations of political parties in power. Taiwan has never been ruled by the People’s Republic of China. Neither Taiwan nor China is subordinate to the other.

President You concluded his remarks by stating that France is a great country. He admired Montesquieu born in France in 1689 and Rousseau born in 1712 in Geneva. He noted that Taiwan has been promoting and implementing Montesquieu’s separation of powers and Rousseau’s popular sovereignty in the Social Contract. On the contrast, China does not have these concepts. Therefore, in China’s traditional political philosophy of the “there cannot be two suns in the sky nor two emperors on the Earth” and “all lands under heaven belong to the emperor; the people of those lands are subject to the emperor.” The “emperor” is Xi Jin-ping. He continued to state that one of the main incentives for Taiwan to continue to promote democratization is originated from these two philosophers’ thinking. Accordingly, Taiwan and France share similar values. On behalf of Taiwan’s legislature, he hoped that the two parliaments will have closer exchanges. He highlighted that both sides should work together to promote China’s democratization to allow more than one plus billion Chinese to enjoy the values of liberty and democracy. He wanted to take that opportunity to urge all parliamentarians around the world to fight against authoritarian regime. He hoped that China will enjoy the values of liberty and democracy in the future.

In his remarks, Vice Chairman Joël Guerriauthe delegation visited Taiawan after President Macron’s releection, demonstraitng the solid realtiosnship between Taiwan and France. He himself travelled around the wolrd becasuse of his career. When he came to Taiwan, he was amazed at the similarities between Taiwan and France. He observed both sides share, suppor and defend the same values. He then echoed President You’s clear message about the difference between Taiwan and China. He suggested that in addition to Montesquieu and Rousseau, President should include Voltaire, becasue he was also an important figure representing French value of democracy. He continued to share that before the French Revolution in 1789, parliamenraeians nationwide rallied to conduct conferencs, inspiring Motesquieu to have seperation of powers. He also shared the process and history of France’s legislative power and became bicameral system. His colleagues and himself are proud to be senators. He continued to note tht he admired very much Taiwan’s efforts and remarkable achivements in every field. Moreover, Taiwan enjoyed freedom of speech, therefore, he very supported Taiwan’s particiaption in various international organizations. He concluded by inviting the entire delegation to stand up to salute to Taiwan for its courage to face the pressure of authoritarian expansion and shouted“Long live Taiwan and long live France !”

Luncheon banquet began after exchanging visits and group photo. President You shared before he proposed a toast that he visited France twice. France is one of his favorite countries. It has beautiful scenery with abundant culture. It is also one of the cradles of global democratic politics philosophy. He also mentioned that he was inspired by the artistic sentiments along the Seine River Bridge. As a result, he started to promote Yilan county’s artistic bridges, trying to initiate a dialogue with environment. Afterwards, Taiwan’s bridges emulate Yilan’s French style artistic bridges. Other than art, Frane is also a country of cuisine. Therefore, President You arranged Taiwan’s delicacies to share with the delegation.

Follwoed by the remarks of Legislator Tsai Shi-in, Chairman of Taiwan-Frence Inter-parliamentary Amity Assoication, he mentioned that his greatest regret was that he had never been to France after being elected as the chairman. Over the past two years, he has recived many French delegation. He hoped that he could accompany President You to Frane this coming July. He continued to mention that France is an imporatnt country in Taiwan’s external relations. After the new representative office in Aix-en-Provence Office was established, bilateral exchanges had been further enhanced. In addition to parliamentary exchanges, both sides have cooperation in the fields of economics, trade and military. He thanked the French government to include Taiwan as important Indo-Pacific Strategic partner and for voicing in favor of Taiwan on a numerous occasions and for sending warships to parole the Taiwan Strait. Despite the pandemic, Taiwan and France still enjoyed economic and trade growth. In particular, Taiwan is France’s important champaign market. With the efforts of French Office in in Taipei Director Jean-François Casabonne-Masonnave’s to reduce he champaign tax, the Legislative Yuan passed the bill. Therefore, the Taiwanese people do not need to worry about the high cost of enjoying champaign anymore. They can toast as much as they like. He continued to introduce his constituency is n Keelung, which played an important contact point in Taiwan-France relations. In the Sinco-France battle in 1860’s, the battle ground was in Keelung City. A French general thus was buried there. More than a hundred years later, that graveyard became a historical park. When the delegation visited Keelung, the Keelung city mayor and himself for sure will extend warm welcome to them. 

New Power Party Caucus Convener Chiu Hsien-chih noted in his remarks that memebers of the delegation come from different political parties. He is from New Power Party. Taiwan adopts a democratic system with different political parties. He especially mentioned that President You is one fo the founders of the Democratic Progressive Party. When Tawian was still in the one party era with authoritarian regime, President You risked his life to found the party. Although he is from different political party, he still waned to show admiration and respect to President You. As Taiwan small political party, New Power Party really hoped Taiwan can move toward French multi-party system. This is the noraml of democracy. France adopts bicameral system and has two rounds of presidential election. He hoped that Taiwan can also operate like France. He also shared his student life in Germany’s Heidelberger when he studied law there. During that time, he visited Fraince many times and also visited many cities. France is one of the favourtie countries of the Taiwanese people. He cocluded his remarks by hoping that Franc will focus more on China’s humanrights and democratization. Experiences showed that democraies are less likely to have a war. He hoped that everyone will work together to assist China in its democratization.