Brazil Taiwan Front disappears from the Chamber while Lira went to China

The Brazil-Taiwan Parliamentary Front disappeared from the Chamber of Deputies website shortly before the trip of the President of the House, Arthur Lira (PP-AL) to China. According to the leader of the newly created bench, deputy Júnio Alencar (PL-MG), the front was included in the Chamber system, with Lira’s own signature, but it was not visible for even two days. When contacted, advisors from the Chamber of Deputies were unable to explain what happened.

The Brazil-Taiwan front has all the necessary requirements to be installed in the Chamber of Deputies, such as statute and 212 signatures of support, above the minimum required of 191 for installation.

Despite the surprise at the “disappearance” of the bench on the Chamber’s website, Alencar says that he cannot relate the fact to Lira’s trip and that he will wait for his return to Brazil to understand why the parliamentary front has been removed from the relationship that is available on the Chamber of Deputies website.

The deputy explains that he has always had a lot of sympathy for Taiwan, for its “history of resistance, against the Chinese dictatorship and the Communist Party”, and for having reinvented themselves in another territory. Therefore, he decided to create a parliamentary front, since the Chamber has many Brazilian fronts in partnership with other countries.

Issues involving Taiwan are sensitive for China. The Chinese Communist Party sees the island as one of its provinces and wants, even if it needs to use force, to “reunify” the territory with the mainland. Taiwan, however, is a sovereign democratic state with its own Constitution, Armed Forces and political parties.

The conflict has lasted more than 70 years and intensified with each visit by representatives of the United States to Taiwan, or vice versa, or with Chinese military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait and has the potential to give rise to a war that could pit China against the U.S. The island’s independence is strategic for the American economy, as it is where half of the world’s processor chips are produced.

Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation began in 1971, when the United Nations (UN) recognized the People’s Republic of China as the sole representative of the Chinese nation, and Taiwan ceased to be part of the UN.

The People’s Republic of China exerts enormous diplomatic pressure on countries around the world not to recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Brazil, for example, does not recognize the island as a country. As a prerequisite for maintaining diplomatic relations with a country, Beijing demands that it not recognize Taiwan, which it considers a rebel province. In April, the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) reiterated its “firm adherence to the one-China principle”.