The attendance of 183 international dignitaries at the Double Ten National Day celebration was an important public measure to affirm Taiwan’s sovereignty and international support. Despite the prominent attendance of three sitting US congressmen, the failure of the US Democratic Party to send any representative is an unfortunate setback for the strong bipartisan support for Taiwan in the US.
With rising polarization between political camps in the US and in Taiwan, increasingly at odds over traditional foreign policy consensuses, it is more important than ever that US support for Taiwan remain bipartisan.
If support for Taiwan becomes polarized, it risks undoing forty years of stable and continuous bipartisan support for providing Taiwan with sufficient defense under the Taiwan Relations Act. Polarization over support for Taiwan would inject the US’ divisive partisan politics and domestic political priorities into its relationship with Taiwan, as is happening with US support for Israel and Ukraine.
With the US Congress in recess until the middle of next month, there is no excuse for the Democratic Party to not send even a single representative to one of the most important commemorations of a critical Indo-Pacific security partner. A recent major hurricane prevented a fourth Republican representative from traveling to Taiwan, but no Democrats cited the hurricane as preventing their international travel. This gross imbalance in US representation promotes an unfortunately growing, yet inaccurate, perception that the US Democratic Party is less supportive of Taiwan.
This image largely comes from the Democrats’ progressive left flank, where skepticism of US confrontation with China and the legacy of Cold War narratives about Taiwan engender a degree of dubiousness about supporting Taiwan.
Despite this setback, the Democratic Party has long been strongly supportive of Taiwan, even including explicit support for Taiwan in its party platform this year, something the Republicans did not include. The Taiwan Relations Act was drafted by a Democratic congressman, passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in a Democrat-controlled Congress and signed by then-US president Jimmy Carter, a lifelong Democrat (who recently turned 100 years old).
Nancy Pelosi, the former US House of Representatives speaker and the most powerful Democrat in Congress in the past century, has been one of Taiwan’s strongest supporters in Washington. Pelosi in 2022 pushed forward with a high-profile visit, despite the rumored objections of US President Joe Biden, who himself voted for the Taiwan Relations Act and has vowed four times to defend Taiwan. Her visit echoed a 1997 visit by then-US House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican, emphasizing the longstanding robust bipartisan congressional support for Taiwan.
Taiwan has made its own missteps in managing the bipartisan relationship. Obsessive courting of highly partisan and marginal figures such as former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo or former UK prime minister turned far-right influencer and Trump booster Liz Truss has driven away those on the left or even some mainstream Democrats from more prominently supporting Taiwan.
Taiwan continues to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars toward Pompeo, even though he has no political future in the US, and increasingly calls for radical positions, such as the immediate abandonment of the name “Republic of China,” which are at odds with the “status quo” positions advocated by Taiwan’s main political parties. These prominent and ostentatious acts of Kabuki Theatre draw much attention and even scorn, while achieving little to actually improve Taiwan’s relationship with the US.
Antipathy from the left toward Taiwan is entirely avoidable, given that Taiwanese society has so much in common with their progressive values. Taiwan’s record on indigenous rights, its thriving LGBTQ+ community and the single payer socialized healthcare system provide much for progressives to admire. While far from perfect, Taiwan’s innovations in transitional justice could inspire a model for the reparations that many US progressives aspire toward.
If Taiwanese officials plan to fete Republican hawks such as former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley at global security fora, such outreach should be balanced by inviting a delegation of US progressive congressmen and civil society leaders to participate in a dialogue on civil rights for indigenous peoples and models for implementing reparations.
The relationship between the US and Taiwan is a strong and enduring one, built on not just common security interests, but shared democratic values and a thriving Taiwanese-American community. Politicians on both sides should work harder toward more balanced and bipartisan outreach that elides partisan divides.
Sasha B. Chhabra is an analyst, commentator and media consultant on China’s foreign policy, Taiwanese politics and cross-strait affairs.
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