In the lead-up to the 2020 US presidential election, more Taiwanese were rooting for then-US president Donald Trump than his eventual successor, Joe Biden, a YouGov poll showed at the time. If Trump is declared the Republican nominee for president in 2024, they might want to think twice about backing him again.
Taiwanese support for Trump derived from a belief that he was “on their side,” a view ostensibly backed by the US’ pro-Taiwan policies during his term, including an increase in US arms sales to Taipei and high-profile visits to the nation by senior Trump administration officials.
However, Trump’s support for Taiwan was not altruistic. Rather, it was driven by a desire to gain leverage over Beijing on issues such as trade and North Korea.
The risk for Taiwan if Trump wins the Republican nomination and retakes the White House in two years is that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) might see an opportunity to forcefully take the nation, based on the belief that Trump would do nothing to stop him, including refraining from imposing crippling sanctions of the kind the US and Europe have levied against Moscow after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine.
Insight into what Trump really thinks about Taiwan has come from several books, including journalist Josh Rogin’s Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century, which quotes Trump as telling a shocked Republican US senator that as Taiwan was so close to China and almost 13,000km from the US, should an invasion occur “there isn’t a f***ing thing we can do about it.”
Trump-appointed former US national security adviser John Bolton wrote in his memoir that Trump considered Taiwan to be relatively insignificant, once comparing it to the tip of a Sharpie felt-tip pen.
The first three years of the Trump administration were focused on negotiating a trade pact with China that would deliver a big “win” for the US — and be Trump’s ticket to re-election in 2020. During that time, Trump was open to giving favors to Xi, often at the expense of Taiwan, Rogin wrote.
Efforts to restart negotiations on a free-trade pact with Taiwan also stalled under Trump-appointed former US trade representative Robert Lighthizer, who was concerned about upsetting Beijing and undermining two years of negotiations on the China trade deal.
The friendship between Trump and Xi came to an abrupt end after COVID-19 spread from China to the rest of the world.
Trump’s botched response to the ensuing pandemic — which he vociferously blamed on China — contributed to his losing the 2020 election to Biden. Ever since, there has been a lot of speculation over Xi’s timetable for taking Taiwan — by force if necessary — with estimates ranging from five to 10 years. One school of thought says Xi might have a “now or never” window to take Taiwan given that he has secured a norm-breaking third term and might need a distraction from a raft of problems ranging from demographic decline to a slowing economy.
Biden has, on multiple occasions since being elected, said the US military would support Taiwan in a conflict with China. While some analysts said these statements were mistakes by the gaffe-prone Biden, given the official US stance of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, they were just as likely deliberate attempts to send a message to Xi to dissuade him from using force.
While Xi might think twice about moving against Taiwan while Biden is in charge, that calculation might change if Trump were to be back in the Oval Office. Known for opposing foreign military adventures, Trump has questioned his own defense chiefs about the benefit of having US troops stationed in allies such as South Korea, and even asked them “what do we get” from protecting Taiwan in a meeting in January 2018, journalist Bob Woodward wrote in his book Fear: Trump in the White House.
The “silicon shield” theory states that the US would be forced to come to Taiwan’s aid in a cross-strait conflict to protect the supply chain for semiconductors, which are critical for powering the high-tech economy.
Trump might not agree with the theory, but he does seem to understand the impact that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would have on the global semiconductor supply chain. In a telephone call with professional golfer John Daly in March, Trump said: “You won’t have any computer chips” because China would “blow them off the face of the Earth.”
Craig Addison is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. His Silicon Shield documentary is available on Vimeo on Demand.
In an article published in Newsweek on Monday last week, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged China to retake territories it lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. “If it is really for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t China take back Russia?” Lai asked, referring to territories lost in 1858 and 1860. The territories once made up the two flanks of northern Manchuria. Once ceded to Russia, they became part of the Russian far east. Claims since then have been made that China and Russia settled the disputes in the 1990s through the 2000s and that “China
Trips to the Kenting Peninsula in Pingtung County have dredged up a lot of public debate and furor, with many complaints about how expensive and unreasonable lodging is. Some people even call it a tourist “butchering ground.” Many local business owners stake claims to beach areas by setting up parasols and driving away people who do not rent them. The managing authority for the area — Kenting National Park — has long ignored the issue. Ultimately, this has affected the willingness of domestic travelers to go there, causing tourist numbers to plummet. In 2008, Taiwan opened the door to Chinese tourists and in
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) arrest is a significant development. He could have become president or vice president on a shared TPP-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ticket and could have stood again in 2028. If he is found guilty, there would be little chance of that, but what of his party? What about the third force in Taiwanese politics? What does this mean for the disenfranchised young people who he attracted, and what does it mean for his ambitious and ideologically fickle right-hand man, TPP caucus leader Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌)? Ko and Huang have been appealing to that
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
RSS