Former US president Donald Trump, 78, was again elected president last week. Many countries, including Taiwan, were hit by not just the victory, but also its scale, and are now trying to process, evaluate and prepare for the change.
Elections in democratic countries reflect what people want and demonstrate social values. Trump’s victory and the Republican Party’s sweeping gains in congressional elections underlined Americans’ discontent over the ruling Democratic Party’s handling of inflation and immigration over the past four years and how its liberal ideology and policy could not win over voters’ hearts.
Trump secured many votes among male, Hispanic voters, first-time voters and in swing states, polls and analyses showed. He was trusted to handle economic issues and crises, while his strongman leadership style was popular.
Taiwan is one of the countries that would be strongly affected by Trump’s return to the White House. To evaluate Trump’s potential policy in his second term, his personal style and beliefs must be studied, including what he said and advocated during his campaign, his Taiwan policy during his first term, with things happening in the US and outside the US also a consideration.
Trump did not enunciate a clear stance toward Taiwan during his campaign. He did not promise to send troops to defend the country, just vaguely saying he would not let a war break out. The most concerning remark he made was that Taiwan had “stolen” the US’ semiconductor business and should pay more “protection money” to Washington in the face of Chinese coercion.
As a seasoned businessman, Trump is known for his practical approach to politics and ability to make deals. “America First” and “Make America Great Again” were his mottos. He valued reciprocity and fair trade. Adhering to protectionism, imposing tariffs would be his means to pursue a trade balance, which is a traditionally isolationist agenda. He is unpredictable because he is populist, dominating and disruptive.
Taiwan should prepare for the new situation by staying cautious and self-reliant. To evaluate this “Trumpian shock,” the nation should not only focus on analyzing the situation, but also ask how it can protect itself and whether Taiwanese are doing their best to fulfill their responsibility to the fullest extent.
Defense spending as a share of GDP is a good indicator of whether a country takes its security seriously. In Taiwan, the ratio is usually between 2 and 10 percent. Compared with other countries facing external threats, such as South Korea, Israel and the US, Taiwan’s military expenditure is at the lower end.
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times Opinion columnist and winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, wrote why the US does not believe in Taiwan’s resolve to defend itself.
Having been in Taiwan to watch its presidential election in January, Kristof said that the nation is not willing to make huge sacrifices for its security.
Compared with the US, Israel and Estonia, Taiwan spends less on its defense in terms of GDP. Conscripts serve just one year of compulsory military service. Taiwan is phasing out nuclear power plants, which can generate electricity locally and would be essential in the case of a blockade, and it relies on imports for more than 97 percent of its energy needs.
National defense spending, the length of military service and energy security are the three areas that Kristof identified as showing that Taiwan’s stance and resolve regarding its own defense are found wanting. It is for this reason that he does not advocate changing the “strategic ambiguity” that has defended Taiwan for decades to “strategic clarity.”
On Trump’s transactional approach, US political scientist and Harvard professor Joseph Nye Jr said that in dealing with the incoming US administration, Taiwan has to think in terms of what it could do for Taiwan, and what it needs to do — and must ask those questions of itself. In dealing with the Trump shock, Taiwanese should calmly ask themselves if they are unwilling to go all out for their own security, why would they expect the sons and daughters of Americans to fight for them?
The same applies to the economy. In the past 20 to 30 years, Taiwanese businesspeople disregarded former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) cautionary policy of “No haste, be patient,” and instead rushed headlong to secure a foothold in China’s market. This assisted China’s economic rise, ultimately leading to today’s military tensions in the Taiwan Strait, and to the continuous intimidation and suppression that Taiwan faces.
The first Trump administration upended the wishful thinking of US foreign policy since the time of former US president Richard Nixon; that is, the hope that economic development in China would lead to political change. It was through a US-China trade war, followed by competition in tech, that saw a move away from the concentration of Taiwanese business investment in its hostile neighbor, to the clear detriment of Taiwan.
In the first three quarters of this year, Taiwan’s exports to the US rose to a 25-year high of 24.1 percent of the total, while last year 41.1 percent of overseas investment went to the US.
In this regard, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co is to open a plant in the US, and is investing in plants in Japan and Germany to manufacture chips and supply local markets. This could only be good in aggregate not only for the company, but also for Taiwan’s industry and economy as a whole.
Taiwan’s economy and industry need to be closely linked with advanced economies if they are to develop and thrive. Rushing to China and investing in a hostile country would only lead to tears. Indeed, the new dynamic that Trump is set to introduce would be a real opportunity for Taiwan to become stronger and move forward.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs recently announced that plans are in place to assist Taiwanese businesses to relocate out of China so that they can reduce their exposure to expected new tariffs.
However, more importantly for Taiwan is to take advantage of this opportunity to promote corporate investment in the US, from manufacturing to drone technology, areas in which the US and Taiwan need to improve their cooperation.
Taiwan stands to gain or lose from Trump’s China policy, depending on which direction he takes. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sure to pull out all the stops to play up Trump’s unpredictability and mobilize its fellow travelers to try to cause rifts in Taiwan-US ties. In recent years in Taiwan several suspect narratives have emerged, with people saying that Taiwan is being used as a pawn in US-China relations, that people should be skeptical of US motives or that the only way to secure peace is to accede to the CCP’s wishes.
Taiwanese should remain vigilant against these narratives, which conspire to implicate only the US — which has supported Taiwan since the end of World War II — and ignore China, which is the only country that is threatening its security.
Translated by Fion Khan and Paul Cooper
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