In response to the political situation in the US, former US vice president Joe Biden, now the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, picked US Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate.
As the Democratic ticket is likely to win the Nov. 3 election, Taiwan should come up with a plan for the possible changes in Taiwan-US relations in a timely manner.
Compared with the Republican Party, the Democratic Party’s foreign and China policies have three characteristics:
First, there is low tolerance for the risk of conflict in its China policy. For example, although Biden and Harris have criticized China’s predatory trade methods, they are opposed to a Sino-US “trade war” that could end up hurting both sides.
Second, to decrease the risk, Democrats prefer to seek common ground while holding back differences in US relations with China.
Third, their overall foreign policy does not rely on military deterrence, and they tend to solve problems through diplomacy.
These characteristics could have an impact on two aspects of Taiwan-US relations once the Democratic Party regains power: the exchange of visits by top officials and large arms sales, with the exception of the sales of weapons for asymmetric warfare.
In response to the possible changes, perhaps the Taiwanese government should consider taking action in the three following directions:
First, Taiwan should strengthen bilateral exchanges at the working level. A typical example is the new Taiwan Fellowship Act that was proposed by the US Congress in June, which would send 10 US federal officials to their counterpart agency in Taiwan annually.
The bill was proposed by US Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat, and co-signed by more Democrats in the US House of Representatives, which is not very common. This shows that the Democratic Party welcomes bilateral exchanges.
As for Taiwan-US security cooperation, instead of focusing on exchanges between key military officials, Taiwan should propose an increase in the quantity and frequency of Taiwanese officers receiving military training in the US annually.
Next, Taiwan should hedge its bets by calling for a trilateral high-level dialogue prior to a possible transfer of power.
Taiwan’s foreign affairs rely mainly on the US side, while other countries are much more cautious in their policy toward Taiwan.
Taiwan should request that the US and another friendly country establish a mechanism for trilateral high-level dialogue. The US should put pressure on the third country to ensure that it keeps up with Washington’s Taiwan policy.
This would not only reduce Taiwan’s risk, it would also reduce the US’ burden.
Finally, Taiwan should bolster exchanges with the US on soft issues.
Since 2016, the two countries have promoted exchanges on such issues. In particular, through the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF), they have improved discussion of various issues such as women’s empowerment, disease prevention and the digital economy.
Taiwan could propose that the US upgrade the status of the GCTF to gradually transform the platform into a multilateral organization with a policymaking function on specific issues.
For example, in the absence of a multilateral mechanism to discuss the housing of refugees in the Indo-Pacific region, the GCTF could — in addition to the agenda established a year in advance — arrange ad hoc meetings to discuss specific issues such as humanitarian relief for Hong Kongers.
Wu Dee is a congressional lobbyist in the US.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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