US President Donald Trump is bringing significant changes to US foreign policy, with governments around the world, allies and foes alike, scrambling to adjust. This is no less the case for firm friends of the US such as Taiwan.
Trump is shifting the US’ relationship with its allies to one in which self-interest and mutual backscratching play a larger role, rather than relations built solely on shared values. This is not such a bad thing. While shared values are an important component of any international relationship, they have never been and never will be decisive.
Taiwan must learn to adapt and shape its foreign policy accordingly to safeguard its interests in a more competitive world. It has already made great strides in this adjustment. President William Lai (賴清德) has announced that he would introduce a special budget to lift defense spending to more than 3 percent of GDP (original spending had been earmarked at about 2.45 percent). This would not only meet US expectations to boost defense spending, but would also help reduce Taiwan’s trade deficit with the US. Some reports have said the nation expects to purchase at least US$7 billion of US arms.
Not only would the Trump administration see this as a win, but it would also improve Taiwan’s national security and regional stability by bolstering deterrence.
However, in other areas, the government has been slow to react. In meeting Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on chips, rather than discussing how Taiwan’s high-tech manufacturing could help to revive US manufacturing, Lai has touted “semiconductor supply chain partnerships for global democracies.”
As Ryan Hass, director of the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, wrote on X on Friday last week, such rhetoric “does more to expose divergence between Washington and Taipei than it does to signal solidarity.”
Elsewhere, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has talked of “integrated diplomacy” built on democratic values. While this rhetoric worked before Trump’s second term, it might be less effective now.
As Hass wrote in the Taipei Times (“Ryan Hass On Taiwan: What does Trump want from Taiwan?” Feb. 17, page 8), the US president does not care for ideology or political systems, but prioritizes reindustrializing the US, reducing immigration and deterring wars.
“If Taiwan’s leaders are looking for ways to build inroads with Trump and his advisers, they could find fertile ground by highlighting Taiwan’s current and future contributions to America’s industrial expansion, its commitment to its own defense and its responsible management of cross-strait tensions,” Hass wrote.
Given Taiwan’s importance in high-tech manufacturing, which is crucial to reviving US jobs and industry, and its location in the first island chain — a friendly Taiwan helps the US project power, is crucial for the US to defend the likes of Japan and the Philippines, and counterbalances China’s ambitions — the nation has a firm foundation to build even stronger ties with Washington on the basis of mutual self-interests.
Taiwan is a proud liberal democracy facing threats from a far larger neighbor that seeks to undermine its values, freedoms and democracy, which Taiwanese have fought hard for. Taiwanese identify with their democracy, and that is reflected in the nation’s diplomacy. It also has democratic partners in Asia and Europe with the same values binding those ties.
So while it would not be easy for Taiwan’s leaders to shun talking about values altogether, in a new geopolitically self-interested era, national leaders must adapt and find a new balance between values and interests in the nation’s rhetoric and policies.
On Sept. 3 in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) rolled out a parade of new weapons in PLA service that threaten Taiwan — some of that Taiwan is addressing with added and new military investments and some of which it cannot, having to rely on the initiative of allies like the United States. The CCP’s goal of replacing US leadership on the global stage was advanced by the military parade, but also by China hosting in Tianjin an August 31-Sept. 1 summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which since 2001 has specialized
In an article published by the Harvard Kennedy School, renowned historian of modern China Rana Mitter used a structured question-and-answer format to deepen the understanding of the relationship between Taiwan and China. Mitter highlights the differences between the repressive and authoritarian People’s Republic of China and the vibrant democracy that exists in Taiwan, saying that Taiwan and China “have had an interconnected relationship that has been both close and contentious at times.” However, his description of the history — before and after 1945 — contains significant flaws. First, he writes that “Taiwan was always broadly regarded by the imperial dynasties of
A large part of the discourse about Taiwan as a sovereign, independent nation has centered on conventions of international law and international agreements between outside powers — such as between the US, UK, Russia, the Republic of China (ROC) and Japan at the end of World War II, and between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since recognition of the PRC as the sole representative of China at the UN. Internationally, the narrative on the PRC and Taiwan has changed considerably since the days of the first term of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) of the Democratic
A report by the US-based Jamestown Foundation on Tuesday last week warned that China is operating illegal oil drilling inside Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island (Dongsha, 東沙群島), marking a sharp escalation in Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. The report said that, starting in July, state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp installed 12 permanent or semi-permanent oil rig structures and dozens of associated ships deep inside Taiwan’s EEZ about 48km from the restricted waters of Pratas Island in the northeast of the South China Sea, islands that are home to a Taiwanese garrison. The rigs not only typify
RSS