The election of Donald Trump as US president last month left many people in Taiwan and international foreign policy analysts wondering what the impact would be for the nation, especially considering Trump’s comments on the campaign trail that Taiwan stole the US’ chip business and likening the US’ security support to an insurance provider, saying Taiwan should pay the US more for “protection.”
Such rhetoric framed the US-Taiwan relationship as being built not on shared values, such as democracy and human rights, or with a shared interest in upholding the liberal international order, but on a purely transactional basis, which would be a significant deviation from previous US administrations, especially that of US President Joe Biden.
However, such fears have been shown to be misplaced following Trump’s national security nominations, including US Senator Marco Rubio to be his secretary of state, and US Representative Michael Waltz to be his national security adviser. Both have been strong supporters of Taiwan, sponsoring pro-Taiwan legislation in the US Congress, and advocating that the US focus on regional stability in Asia to check Beijing’s revisionist ambitions.
This does not mean that Taiwan should rest on its laurels. The opposite is the case. Now is the time for the nation to do more on defense. It was encouraging that following Trump’s election, Taiwanese officials contacted Trump’s team about procuring up to US$15 billion in military hardware.
In the On Taiwan column for the Taipei Times on Monday — “Peace Through Strength is Taiwan’s Ticket to Stronger Relations with US” — Ryan Hass wrote that Trump and his advisers believe the Biden administration projected weakness to the US’ adversaries, which emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, Iran and its proxies to attack Israel, and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to push the envelope around Taiwan. Trump’s team wants to “reverse these trends by projecting strength and maintaining unpredictability.”
Hass wrote that one way for Taiwan to deepen cooperation with the US is to position itself as a contributor to Trump’s “peace through strength” vision, which has become the catchphrase of his project to renew US power. “The more both sides lean into this framing, the greater the potential for progress in advancing US-Taiwan relations in the years to come,” he wrote.
Here, there is much low-hanging fruit. Purchasing more arms from the US would help boost US manufacturing and be well received by Trump and his team. The nation could also integrate such rhetoric into its international communications, bolstering the “peace through strength” narrative. Taiwan is also well-placed to be a strong partner for the high-tech industrialization of the US.
More challenging for President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is raising defense spending as a percentage of GDP, given that his Democratic Progressive Party does not have a majority in the legislature, and the opposition parties have shown themselves to be so implacably hostile to helping Lai’s administration be a success, even if that means damaging the national interest.
However, the perception that Taiwan spends too little on defense is likely to grow in salience over the course of the next US administration if “peace through strength” is the lodestar. Taiwan is projected to spend 2.5 percent of GDP on defense next year. By comparison, Poland, a NATO member, is to spend 4.7 percent, and other small nations Singapore and Israel regularly spend 3 and nearly 6 percent respectively. South Korea, a US treaty ally with 28,500 US troops stationed in the country, is to spend 2.8 percent. Therefore, more urgency is needed in the national conversation to ensure the nation would meet its “peace through strength” commitments.
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
Since leaving office last year, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been journeying across continents. Her ability to connect with international audiences and foster goodwill toward her country continues to enhance understanding of Taiwan. It is possible because she can now walk through doors in Europe that are closed to President William Lai (賴清德). Tsai last week gave a speech at the Berlin Freedom Conference, where, standing in front of civil society leaders, human rights advocates and political and business figures, she highlighted Taiwan’s indispensable global role and shared its experience as a model for democratic resilience against cognitive warfare and
The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.” There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint. Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing
The diplomatic spat between China and Japan over comments Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made on Nov. 7 continues to worsen. Beijing is angry about Takaichi’s remarks that military force used against Taiwan by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” necessitating the involvement of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. Rather than trying to reduce tensions, Beijing is looking to leverage the situation to its advantage in action and rhetoric. On Saturday last week, four armed China Coast Guard vessels sailed around the Japanese-controlled Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known to Japan as the Senkakus. On Friday, in what
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