Forty years of unofficial ties between Taiwan and the US have been marked by a transformed engagement in security, defense, economy, culture and other areas. This became evident at a reception to mark the 40th anniversary of the US’ Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) in Taipei, where former US House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan applauded Taiwan as a reliable partner to the US in the Indo-Pacific region and wished that other parts of the world could be more like Taiwan.
With a huge US delegation to commemorate the day, Ryan also said: “Ours is a friendship grounded in history, shared values and our common embrace of democracy, free markets, the rule of law, religious freedom and human rights.”
While the US and China enjoy diplomatic ties, Washington has always focused on strengthening its relationship with Taipei. It was in this context that despite switching diplomatic ties from Taiwan to China, the administration of then-US president Jimmy Carter continued expanding engagements between Washington and Taipei.
Consequently, the US in 1979 crafted the TRA, which says that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities” and the decision about the nature and quantity of defense services that America will provide to Taiwan is to be determined by the president and the US Congress.
While the following US administrations continued to bolster ties with Taiwan, US President Donald Trump has taken a slew of measures to elevate engagements between Washington and Taipei to a new height.
Apart from political overtures that have been observed between the two sides, including stopovers by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in Los Angeles last year and in Hawaii in March, the Trump administration allowed President Tsai to deliver a political speech in the US, which in many ways was a significant shift in US policy toward Taiwan.
Earlier, President Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act, clearing the way for visits by high-ranking US officials, such as Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary Alex Wong (黃之瀚), who visited Taipei and met President Tsai.
In February, five Republican senators wrote a letter asking US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to invite President Tsai to address a joint session of Congress.
More importantly, the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy states that the US “will maintain our strong ties with Taiwan in accordance with our one China policy, including our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide for Taiwan’s legitimate defense needs and deter coercion.”
It was in this context that President Trump signed the travel act.
In June last year, US Assistant Secretary of State for Education and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce led a delegation to Taiwan for the dedication of the US$255 million American Institute in Taiwan complex.
The Trump administration has twice notified Congress of major foreign military sales to Taiwan, in June 2017 (seven cases valued at US$1.36 billion) and in September last year (a single case valued at $330 million).
In April last year, the US Department of State issued licenses to allow US firms to market technology to Taiwan for its indigenous submarine program, while in March, President Tsai said her government submitted a request to purchase F-16V jets from the US.
Furthermore, the US Navy conducts regular transits of the Taiwan Strait.
One of the reasons for the elevated ties is that presidents Tsai and Trump share strong feelings over China’s imperial motives.
Thus, while Taiwan occupies a vital place in the Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy, which is largely aimed at containing China’s rising clout in the region, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) assertive posturing against Taiwan has made President Tsai foster strong ties with the US. In fact, the transformed ties with the US could be used by President Tsai as a major foreign policy achievement to secure her re-election.
At the same time, the two sides have shared economic, trade and commerce interests.
While the 40th anniversary of the TRA marked a new high point in the relationship, the time has come for a structural attempt to be made to develop a strong and prospective balance of power against an aspiring imperial power in the region.
Sumit Kumar is a former Ministry of Foreign Affairs visiting fellow at National Chengchi University and a research fellow at Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies in Kolkata, India.
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,
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
The last foreign delegation Nicolas Maduro met before he went to bed Friday night (January 2) was led by China’s top Latin America diplomat. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪), Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Venezuela’s soon-to-be ex-president tweeted on Telegram, “and we reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.” Judging by how minutely the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring Maduro’s every move on Friday, President Trump himself was certainly aware of Maduro’s felicitations to his Chinese guest. Just
On today’s page, Masahiro Matsumura, a professor of international politics and national security at St Andrew’s University in Osaka, questions the viability and advisability of the government’s proposed “T-Dome” missile defense system. Matsumura writes that Taiwan’s military budget would be better allocated elsewhere, and cautions against the temptation to allow politics to trump strategic sense. What he does not do is question whether Taiwan needs to increase its defense capabilities. “Given the accelerating pace of Beijing’s military buildup and political coercion ... [Taiwan] cannot afford inaction,” he writes. A rational, robust debate over the specifics, not the scale or the necessity,
RSS