Why Taiwanese are among the foreign soldiers in Ukraine?

• Mr. Tseng was “one of the most righteous persons” he had ever met – Mr. Lin.
• “dedicated his life to Ukraine’s fight for freedom.” – Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Jack Yao, 28, was one of many who decided to leave as well.

Why Taiwanese are among the foreign soldiers in Ukraine? the answer to this question is complicated. The mother of Tseng Sheng-guang has one last look at her son before he is laid to rest in a casket in a chapel in the city of Lviv, in western Ukraine.

She is joined by other family members and other Ukrainians who want to pay respects to a soldier who lost his life thousands of kilometres from home while fighting for a nation he had never been to.

She continues, “Sheng-guang my boy, I want you to know that you were really brave.” You will always be my baby, and you have my admiration.

When he was slain last month in the eastern city of Lyman, Mr. Tseng was engaged in combat with the territorial defence forces of the International Legion of Ukraine. The first Taiwanese to lose his life in combat in Ukraine was him.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement following Mr. Tseng’s passing that he had “dedicated his life to Ukraine’s fight for freedom.”

There are thousands of foreign soldiers fighting in Ukraine, but there are just a few Taiwanese soldiers there—roughly 10.

However, the Russian invasion has had an impact on the independent island halfway around the world. China asserts that Taiwan is a part of its territory and has threatened to use force to reunite it. The mainland is not what Taiwan considers to be the case.

Following US lawmaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August, tensions in the Taiwan Strait spiked, angering Beijing. China’s response was to conduct military exercises near the island.

Sammy Lin, who became acquainted with Mr. Tseng online, claimed that Mr. Tseng was concerned that Taiwan would someday share Ukraine’s fate.

I recall him telling his buddies that he couldn’t watch as the Russians persecuted and murdered the Ukrainian people, the man recalled.

According to Mr. Lin, Mr. Tseng was “one of the most righteous persons” he had ever met.

Those who have served their mandatory military duty in Taiwan are qualified to enlist in Ukraine’s Foreign Legion.

Jack Yao, 28, was one of many who decided to leave as well. He arrived in Ukraine three days after President Volodymyr Zelensky asked for international volunteers to assist Ukraine’s struggle, journeying from Taipei through Poland and then towards the capital Kyiv.

Nobody anticipated it would happen, he said, “but I was thinking about the circumstances from last year, especially with the Russians taking a lot of soldiers and tanks to the border with Ukraine.”

“I was thinking about what I could do to support Ukraine because the situation with Taiwan and over there is the same as ours.”

As soon as he enlisted, he was assigned to close-quarters reconnaissance missions by the Georgian Foreign Legion. The Russians were still trying to seize Kyiv when he arrived.

He refers to the town to the north of the city as Bucha and claims that there were numerous bomb and rocket assaults while the Russians were there.

“I had one operation and I watched our troops murdered in an explosion. The bomb exploded behind them, over 50 metres distant.”

He was able to talk about Taiwan with other members of his squad when they were idle.

“They were telling me you can’t die here because you have to go back and protect your motherland,” he recalled. “One guy had lived in Taiwan for two years and knew the situation. Taiwan and Ukraine are just like brothers. It’s 100% the same.”

While Mr. Yao has now moved back to Taiwan and resumed running his coffee shop, others have not. Two Taiwanese provided an explanation of their goals in a recent charity film for Ukraine.

They hold up a Taiwan flag and declare, “The major reason we come to Ukraine is to safeguard Ukrainians’ safety.”

We are prepared to come to Ukraine and give up our lives and our freedom for the safety of the people there because we are equally concerned that if Russia wins, China would do the same to Taiwan.

However, not all Taiwanese travellers to Ukraine were considering geopolitics. Li Chenling stated Chinese in June that he came there to live a “memorable existence.”

He said that his willingness to fight in the event of an invasion of Taiwan would depend on how the US and the government of Taiwan would react.

In the case of a Chinese invasion, US President Joe Biden has reiterated that the US will support Taiwan. Washington’s official position, however, is one of “strategic ambiguity”; it neither commits to nor disavows the possibility of supporting Taiwan.

Mr. Biden stated last month that he did not think a Chinese invasion of Taiwan was imminent. Prior to the G20 summit in Bali, it came after a face-to-face encounter with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

According to Paul Huang of the Taiwan Public Opinion Forum, there are differing opinions among the broad Taiwanese population about the risk of violence.

He told the sources: “Interestingly, more people tend to imply that they are not scared.

He continued, “As we have seen from Ukraine, how scared people are about a certain scenario has nothing to do with how likely it is to occur, nor does it imply anything about preparedness.

However, he noted that few Taiwanese believed their country would be able to resist China for as long as Ukraine did against Russia.

The mother of Mr. Tseng said she had found some solace in her son’s decision to fight alongside others for Ukraine.

While she was grieving, she remarked, “I find a lot of solace in the knowledge that, in the last moments of his life, Sheng-guang was battling alongside a band of the bravest soldiers, that they supported each other and were together in life and death.”