The word "spin" means to turn a problem or a crisis around in order to solve or eliminate it. It thus also means to save a situation after the fact.
Politicians must know, however, that spin is only a means, and a forced means at that. If a politician or government constantly has to resort to spin, and feels that spin is what they do best, that politician or government will eventually encounter bigger problems that no amount of spin will be able to solve. The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) US diplomacy currently finds itself in this situation.
In domestic politics, it may be possible to do as one pleases, and even completely ignore advice. At the most, one will be proven wrong and be forced to admit defeat. But to engage in diplomacy means to have a relation with "outsiders." Outsiders are concerned with their own interests, and have their own priorities regarding what they should or shouldn't do. That is why diplomats never use the singular "I," but always talk in the plural "we."
It is true that the US has been good to Taiwan over the past few years. But, as with friends, if you put a friend in an awkward situation every now and then, periodically telling him to wipe your butt and fix your mess, even the best of friends may stop listening to you, or even abandon you altogether.
Over the past few years, every time the DPP government's leaders have played the brinkmanship game, they've blinked. They've been trying to ascertain the reaction from China, and they've been seeking to ascertain the attitude of the US. But the Chinese have wised up, and will no longer react until the very last moment.
Instead, it is always the US that is forced by the government to react, to "one country on each side of the Strait" referendums, to correcting Taiwan's national title and to a new constitution, and to the most recent fuss over Taiwan not being a US state. As soon as Taiwanese leaders open their mouths, the US State Department is forced to take a position, as if it had nothing else to do but keep itself busy with Taiwanese matters.
Diplomats must put themselves in the position of others. If Taiwan constantly troubles the US, will the US forever continue to shoulder responsibility for these troubles? Of course not.
Every time Taiwan tests the limits of US tolerance and there is the slightest sign of trouble, we either send someone to the US to explain, or we clarify the situation and say that the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
But US politicians invented spin. Could they be so stupid that they don't understand that this behavior on Taiwan's part is only a matter of spin? The US may even know better than the people of Taiwan what the DPP leaders are really thinking. With Taiwan playing the spin game at every opportunity, the US will eventually grow tired and in the end Taiwan may even play itself out of the game.
Since reality forces us to rely on the Americans, Taiwanese leaders shouldn't push them too far and play the brinkmanship game so often in such a short period of time, merely to find out where the US draws the line. If we really must play this game, it should be played in stages.
The US is sure to react when forced into a corner, and then the US-Taiwan relationship will deteriorate instead of improve. Taiwan's US diplomacy currently consists almost only of spin because government leaders have a superstitious belief in their own merits. But unless they spin their own brains a bit and recognize the mistake in continuing this kind of diplomacy, Uncle Sam will eventually change his attitude.
Wang Chien-chuang is president of The Journalist magazine.
Translated by Perry Svensson
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS