A media interview can be a double-edged sword. On one hand, it gives politicians a chance to explain their views; on the other hand, it can sometimes backfire and have the opposite effect. President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) interview with Reuters on Thursday has turned out to be an example of the latter.
This was not due to any mistake by Tsai; instead, it was Reuters’ doing. There was nothing inappropriate or wrong in Tsai’s responses to the reporters’ questions. Always cautious, Tsai gave appropriate and concrete answers to their questions. She was forthcoming and direct, and displayed the views and bearing becoming of a president.
She was not overbearing on the issue of relations between Taiwan, the US and China, and she gave voice to a Taiwanese identity without deliberately fawning on either the US or China. In short, her behavior was presidential and praiseworthy.
The problem was the reporters’ hypothetical line of questioning.
For example, the reporters asked Tsai: “Will you hold further conversations with [US] President [Donald] Trump? Are you expecting to?”
“We are of course hoping that we will have the opportunity to communicate directly with the US government at critical moments and on critical issues, and do not rule out the opportunity for another telephone conversation with President Trump himself, but this will be dependent on the overall situation and on the US government’s concerns when it comes to handling the affairs of this region,” Tsai said.
This is both a balanced and relevant answer.
However, the headline Reuters gave the report was: “Exclusive: Taiwan president says phone call with Trump can take place again,” and a Reuters reporter immediately asked Trump if he would call Tsai again.
Trump, unaware of the interview with Tsai, brushed the question aside and said that he was addressing the North Korea issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and that he did not want to irritate Beijing with any other issues.
Trump’s response was reasonable: North Korea is the issue that the US most urgently needs to resolve and it needs China’s help to do so.
Another question posed by Reuters was: “Will you directly rule out purchasing F-35 jets?”
“Our military purchases will be directed by our defense strategy needs, and we don’t rule out any item that would be meaningful to our strategy. The F-35 is indeed one such item,” Tsai said.
A Reuters reporter directly asked Trump whether the US would sell F-35s to Taiwan, since Taiwan wants to buy them. Trump said that he had not been notified, that he needed to think about it and that he had to confer with his team.
Reuters’ handling of the report gave the impression that Tsai had suggested that a second telephone conversation with Trump should be organized, and that Trump had rejected the suggestion. However, the Chinese transcript of the interview on the Presidential Office’s Web site shows that Tsai only responded to the Reuters reporter’s question by saying that it would depend on the US government’s considerations, and that there were currently no such plans on either side.
The purchase of F-35 jets is also a hypothetical issue that lacks any substance.
Reuters had a great opportunity to interview Tsai, and several important issues were discussed during the interview. Too bad that all the good points have been drowned out by the furor over two non-issues.
Small wonder, then, that Reuters officials have told the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that they “feel embarrassed” over the whole issue.
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
RSS