Taiwan's election next year is a choice between democracy and autocracy, Vice President William Lai said in comments broadcast after China carried out military drills around the island in anger at his visit this month to the United States.
Lai, the front-runner in polls to be Taiwan's next president at elections in January, made brief stopovers in the United States this month on his way to and from Paraguay, prompting fury in Beijing, which views him as a dangerous separatist given China's territorial claims over the island.
Taiwanese officials had said China was likely to conduct military exercises near the island, using Lai's U.S. stopovers as a pretext to intimidate voters ahead of next year's presidential election and make them "fear war". China should not "make a fuss over nothing" when it comes to foreign travel by Taiwanese leaders, Lai said.
"This election is not a choice between peace and war. We can't order off a menu, choosing peace and then there's peace, choosing war and then there's war. That's not the case. What it is is that we have the right to choose whether we want democracy or autocracy. This is the real choice we have to make in this election."
"I think after recent bilateral engagement China probably doesn't want to rock the boat too much before APEC in San Francisco," said Neill, an adjunct fellow of Hawaii's Pacific Forum think-tank.
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