Republican candidate and former US president Donald Trump is to be the 47th president of the US after beating his Democratic rival, US Vice President Kamala Harris, in the election on Tuesday.
Trump’s thumping victory — winning 295 Electoral College votes against Harris’ 226 as of press time last night, along with the Republicans winning control of the US Senate and possibly the House of Representatives — is a remarkable political comeback from his 2020 defeat to US President Joe Biden, and means Trump has a strong political mandate to implement his agenda.
What does Trump’s victory mean for Taiwan, Asia, deterrence in the Taiwan Strait and the wider alliance of liberal democracies?
Some analysts have said that given Trump’s remarks on the campaign trail that Taiwan “stole” the US’ chip industry, his election would mean rockier Taiwan-US relations.
However, these concerns are unwarranted. Support for the US-Taiwan relationship is not only a bipartisan consensus in the US, but with the Republicans likely taking Congress and the White House, the support is likely to be turbocharged.
US-Taiwan relations went from strength to strength during Trump’s first presidency, beginning with the then-president-elect’s unprecedented phone call with then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Dec. 2, 2016. Relations have since developed onto an even firmer footing, and given the strong people-to-people ties, deep diplomacy and the stakes of the US’ competition with China, Taiwan-US ties are sure to continue their positive development.
For the wider region, Trump’s victory means that the US’ “pivot to Asia” strategy, which was initiated by then-US president Barack Obama’s administration in 2011, would finally become a reality.
Washington never made that pivot as it continued to allocate resources to Europe and the Middle East, failing to meet the challenge of a rising China — “perhaps the most consequential” US policy failure since 1945, wrote former US deputy national security adviser Robert Blackwill and Center for a New American Security chief executive officer Richard Fontaine in their recent book Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power.
Trump’s incoming administration is likely to address this by definitively shifting the US’ focus to Asia. Many of Trump’s foreign policy advisers and potential political appointees — including former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien — believe strongly in the Taiwan-US partnership, and that US statecraft in the 21st century must be laser-focused in meeting the challenge posed by China.
This prioritization would certainly bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region, especially in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has been emboldened by a distracted US to push the envelope around Taiwan, including by ramping up air and sea incursions, seeking to alter the “status quo” and bullying Taiwanese to accept the new reality. Asia as the US’ primary theater would chasten Beijing in its escapades, and with Taiwan focused on defense reforms and boosting military spending, deterrence is only likely to increase.
While Trump’s foreign policy goals are hard to interpret, a consistent theme has been for allies to share more of the defense cost burden. This is a positive and necessary development for liberal democracies and US allies in Europe and Asia, as it puts the international rules-based order — which is backed by US power — on a firmer, more sustainable footing.
As Daniel DePetris wrote in The Spectator recently, a “status quo US foreign policy has been remarkably durable,” and while Trump would make changes, Taiwan, the US and the wider democratic world would continue to work closely to uphold an international order that protects their shared interests and values.
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) on Saturday won the party’s chairperson election with 65,122 votes, or 50.15 percent of the votes, becoming the second woman in the seat and the first to have switched allegiance from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to the KMT. Cheng, running for the top KMT position for the first time, had been termed a “dark horse,” while the biggest contender was former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), considered by many to represent the party’s establishment elite. Hau also has substantial experience in government and in the KMT. Cheng joined the Wild Lily Student
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has its chairperson election tomorrow. Although the party has long positioned itself as “China friendly,” the election is overshadowed by “an overwhelming wave of Chinese intervention.” The six candidates vying for the chair are former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), former lawmaker Cheng Li-wen (鄭麗文), Legislator Luo Chih-chiang (羅智強), Sun Yat-sen School president Chang Ya-chung (張亞中), former National Assembly representative Tsai Chih-hong (蔡志弘) and former Changhua County comissioner Zhuo Bo-yuan (卓伯源). While Cheng and Hau are front-runners in different surveys, Hau has complained of an online defamation campaign against him coming from accounts with foreign IP addresses,
When Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced the implementation of a new “quiet carriage” policy across all train cars on Sept. 22, I — a classroom teacher who frequently takes the high-speed rail — was filled with anticipation. The days of passengers videoconferencing as if there were no one else on the train, playing videos at full volume or speaking loudly without regard for others finally seemed numbered. However, this battle for silence was lost after less than one month. Faced with emotional guilt from infants and anxious parents, THSRC caved and retreated. However, official high-speed rail data have long
Taipei stands as one of the safest capital cities the world. Taiwan has exceptionally low crime rates — lower than many European nations — and is one of Asia’s leading democracies, respected for its rule of law and commitment to human rights. It is among the few Asian countries to have given legal effect to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant of Social Economic and Cultural Rights. Yet Taiwan continues to uphold the death penalty. This year, the government has taken a number of regressive steps: Executions have resumed, proposals for harsher prison sentences
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