a documentary series sanders with the founders, empowering their continent through digital innovation, a transformer, work, and living conditions in their country, and inspiring with their ideas. africa watch, you know, w documentary, you're watching d. w news, asia coming up today. we take a closer look at taiwan china relations, begging ease tensions, and a highly controversial meeting. top officials, there seemed to suggest it's possible if only ty, one's opposition party were in charge, plus, willing to die for another country,

the story of taiwanese volunteer fighters who travelled all the way to ukraine. ah, i melissa chan, thanks for joining us. a visit to beijing by a delegation of politicians from taiwan main opposition party, the coming dog. the camp t for short has been closely watched and controversial, controversial because china has sent almost 2000 fighter jets into ty, ones, air defense identification zone over the past 12 months. so the cam tease, overtures, come at a time that to tie one's government empower the democratic. progressive party seems badly timed, but the can t says engagement is necessary, especially when the fact is that so much business is done between the 2 sides. in

the meetings, however, of top beijing officials comments about politics. not business, grabbed the headlines. china warned the k m t that it needs to oppose taiwan independence. joining us as my changes jeroski head of the taiwan, our 1st at the european values center for security policy. thanks for coming on to the program. and my team they came to visit is raising eyebrows, but they recently performed very well in elections. so can you 1st talk about that and why the party performed? well, 1st of all, thank you so much for having me on to day. and yes indeed, it came to visit to china. is there anything out of eyebrows also considering the broader to your political context and a server deepening of rifts in the relations between the united states and china? as we have seen, for example, during for balloon gate. and however,

since you mentioned their recent electoral success of the kmc, something that we really have to bear in mind is that in the context of poems, politics, local elections tend to be very local. voters returned to the places where they hauled their household registration to deliberate on issue such as traffic safety or subsidies for local welfare programs. their local elections are not a referendum on the geopolitical future of taiwan. they are not a referendum on their future direction of developments over taiwan straight. so s we leaned closer to the upcoming 2020 for presidential and legislative elections . i would be very cautious not to extrapolate too much from her recent performance of the key mt in local elections. of course, for example, the decision of president saying when to resign from the function of the chair, a person of the democratic progressive party is assign events. a d p. p needs to

regroup after a less than satisfactory performance in the local contests. but it shouldn't be viewed as a pressure result for what's about to happen in 2024. got it. and so right after these elections, which they came to you did do well as you explained, which is a big blow to president size party. they head up to beijing, so how is this being received by the taiwanese public? the opinions are definitely makes if this visit is not taking place in the back. you, me, robert. we should view it in light of the changes in so to say core political attitudes of taiwanese electorate. and as the mother of fox, the push of the mean done to pursue closer ties with china is not consistent with what we see in new all over to the no opinion on the research. so,

for example, as of 2022, over 60 percent of respondents that are present, the studies identify exclusively as taiwanese. over the 30 years, we have data for that figure has increased by over 50 percentage points. so, taiwanese identity is increasingly independent in the sense of being distinct from the chinese identity. as people in taiwan are increasingly assertive about assuring the right to have this identity. this means that there is some, there are some calls about the under utilize potential of this visit because the mainland 1st council, the main executive body in charge of cross street relations in the complex executive has caused them to go down to use this business as a way to convey the will of taiwanese people to maintain their democratic way of life. however, that didn't seem to be high up on the agenda,

which instead focus primarily on economic relations. the well being of over 1000000 pay when nice business people in china and efforts to restore more viper on trade relations between both sides. a beijing basically picked a party who wants to see run taiwan with this visit and is suggesting there be better relations, less aggression with the k m t empower so despite the fact that citizens tend to focus on the bread and butter local issues and care less about foreign policy. how might all of this impact towns, presidential elections next year? this visit, particularly and, and things that might happen beyond despite the electoral success of the guam done in the recent local electoral contest, the party is very much a major or sole searching exercise. so this was again,

despite their very successful performance in local elections, the overall support or party identification of parents electorate was the government down on decline. if we look at the data year on year between 20212022. the identification with common tank has gone down by as much as 3 percentage points from 17 to 14 last year. meanwhile, the quickest growing by the voters in taiwan are those who identify as political independence. i think that this is a pet trent that we have to monitor very closely. also, as new players emerge on the taiwanese political scene, for example, that when people's party of the former mayor of type the city cohen, sir, who is very likely to issue a presidential bid himself his party is also traditionally aligned with the pen blue camp. so the political block surrounding the warming done. and i,

i believe it, especially if occasion he were to nominate or more and more moderate candidate for the presidential elections in 2024. we might see a split in the, in the blue color in taiwan. that will be very interesting to watch now and you know, so we've talked about the islet remaining pretty divided when it came, when it comes to the kind of relationship it has with aging, with some pretty strong feelings from those opposed to better relations with china . people who feel taiwan is a democracy and not like china with its authoritarian system or king. i want to share with viewers a story from our type, a reporter catch one year about a young taiwanese man who went to ukraine to join the fight. take a look with the men who recorded the this is tony, do he crossed a war front?

i want to fight for you cren fades and we're told unfair of asia. the shells were flying around me, volumes of meal, but once a bomb fell in front of my trend show very dark. i was lucky, it didn't explode. just i couldn't believe it is. i went on gun via he went to you . cranston, after the war, started to help refugees that he saw things that made him want to fight. so it's all. this was early in the war. they said it was only a special military operation, but they also bomb people's houses. this is domino's pizza, laura. and so i joined the battle 200 and he says, just as he played his part in helping you cren, so can taiwan, despite china's efforts to isolate the island diplomatically, he's proud of being a taiwanese woollen tier soldier. my niece lou come true taiwan from via cuba. okay. people. yeah. oh, love oh,

going do is home now after 3 moms in ukraine. he had spend most of his money. he now has a job at a supermarket and is happy to have gotten alive. do new, another man who flew thousands of kilometers to fighting ukraine, but didn't come home. since and gong is the 1st and so far, the only taiwanese to die fighting for ukraine. i went to that a taiwanese sacrificed his life for the freedom of another country over me. he's a hero. this many other men who wrote the names on this flag half. oh, so die the tires on your losing him lay entire experience. makes it difficult for him to sleep. but he said, i want you to treat the euchre wall. it's a wake up co worker. huh? yeah, the ukranian people are very united. but when i look at taiwan, why are we so divided in the face of china as possible?

invasion was one. we never said we want to attack others. it's they who want to attack us with, why are we not united? you do has lantis, ward gear to an air soft don trending facility, which he visits to talk about his time in ukraine. he hopes to inspire all the taiwanese people to take civil defense seriously and be ready for if china does attacked, matching you are in taipei and your organization is called the european values center for security policy. just what is your reaction to tony's volunteers in ukraine? tell us about the connection. absolutely, i do not think said there push to contribute to the defense of ukraine among the taiwanese population, even at the highest level of sacrifice, meaning volunteering, to go to fight a battle ground is surprising at all. and as we try to find an explanation for

this great, so the doroty base momentum, i think that we can circle back to what we talked about just a few minutes ago, mainly the trends in taiwanese identity. so people of taiwan are increasingly proud of their own identity and are increasingly willing to assert it. but also because there's space to manifest and distinct, taiwanese identity is fairly new. it was hard to watch over decades of taiwan, transition to democracy, and it is not taken for granted. and i believe that there is onset of their full scale russian invasion of ukraine has really cemented that the fact in the time when the psyche that a democracy nor taiwanese nurse can be taken for granted and have to be effectively defended. in light of growing chinese belligerence, certainly

a fascinating connection that we have seen my 10 year jeff ski. thank you so much for joining us. thank you so much for having me. that's it for today, you can always learn more on our website. and of course, you can check us out on social media. my name is melissa chan in berlin. thanks for watching. ah, every journey is full of surprises. we've gone all out. to give you some tips with more than i'm in your northern

most count, please. ah free time in the long, but it's still very much alive that when you travel you'll go to the central southern germany, europe. oh, do you recognize where exactly? what's the fun and i have learned a lot our culture history. all their d. w. travel extremely worth a visit. ah, ah, a week after a devastating earthquake, his turkey and syria, the scale of destruction is becoming apparent. millions of people have been left homeless and key infrastructure is in ruins. will bring you analysis on the recovery work that lies ahead. of the coming up,

the new research reveals how much europe has spent to survive. the energy crisis will ask, can countries afford the bill? and tugging up the hard stream, have growing competition in australia harbor as he's putting a family business up with skills. hello. this is deed of the business of kate ferguson. thanks for joining me. it's now almost a week since a devastating earthquake here to turkey and syria. as many as 50000 people may have perished, millions more are homeless and struggling to survive amid the ruins of their former homes. the disruption to infrastructure and trade has of course, been significant too. let's take a look at the situation in turkey in particular. and at the energy sector now the b t see pipeline that transports oil from other bay john and kazakstan to j. hon on turkeys mediterranean coast. it is out of action.