Speaking about security arrangements between the Philippines and other like-minded nations, and how these arrangements might benefit Taiwan, Renato Cruz de Castro, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan Fellow at National Chengchi University, smiled and said, “We are neighbors.”
De Castro made the remarks during an interview on the online platform Taiwan Talks about the possibility of a hub-and-spokes strategy, centered on the Philippines. He said that Visiting Force Agreements (VFA) have already been ratified with the US, Australia and Japan; signed with New Zealand; and are under negotiation with Canada, France and Italy. The UK and South Korea had expressed interest in signing similar accords.
Yesterday’s incident of a China Coast Guard ship ramming a Philippine vessel in the South China Sea was just the latest example of why Manila is keen to sign VFAs, and why countries near and far, with an interest in keeping the South China Sea open to shipping, are lining up to be on the list.
Taiwan is not on that list. Despite the obvious need for such integration in the evolving regional security landscape, Taiwan does not have official relations with any of those countries.
Taiwan has no official relations with India, either, and yet in the article “Taiwan: India’s distant neighbor,” on this page on Oct. 11, Rup Narayan Das noted that Indian civil society has moved increasingly closer to Taiwan, and further from China, which India actually neighbors.
“Neighbor” means more than geographical proximity; it also entails affinity. Being a neighbor does not always imply neighborliness; the opposite is also true.
Taiwan has long held close relations with Japan: both words, “neighbor” and “neighborly,” apply.
Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected president of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and the presumptive Japanese prime minister, has said that Taiwan is an important friend of Japan’s, and called it an “extremely important partner and a valued friend” in a written response to a Hudson Institute questionnaire on Oct. 1.
Takaichi has visited Taiwan several times recently. On one of these occasions, during a visit in late April, Takaichi proposed a “quasi-security alliance” between Japan, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and India to build a stronger network to protect each other. She did not say from who, exactly. We know who she meant.
Takaichi is a protege of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was the first Japanese politician to voice concern that a contingency in the Taiwan Strait was a contingency for Japan. Like Abe, she has consistently called on Japan to reinforce its military capabilities. Like many political figures of countries with security arrangements with the US, she has expressed concerns over US President Donald Trump’s administration, hence the idea of the “quasi-security alliance.”
We would not know if Takaichi will be elected as the new Japanese prime minister until at least Oct. 20. If elected, she would have practical constraints because of her need to engage with China, and again, none of the nations on her list have official relations with Taiwan, so such an alliance might be difficult to get off the ground. That said, as political commentator Rath Wang (王健智) writes in “What Takaichi means for Taiwan” on today’s page, the withdrawal of the pacifist Komeito on Friday from the Japanese government coalition and the possibility of cooperation with other parties stronger on defense could well strengthen Takaichi’s hand on national security arrangements.
Taiwan would certainly benefit from integration into a regional security alliance, but even if it is technically left out, there are reasons it could benefit from the Philippines-centered hub-and-spoke idea.
As de Castro explained in the Taiwan Talks episode, the countries looking to sign a VFA with the Philippines know the importance of having a base in which to acclimatize themselves and drill equipment from a Euro-Atlantic environment to one similar to Taiwan's, should they be asked to assist the US in a Taiwan contingency.
As he said: we are neighbors.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
Ahead of US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) meeting today on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea, an op-ed published in Time magazine last week maliciously called President William Lai (賴清德) a “reckless leader,” stirring skepticism in Taiwan about the US and fueling unease over the Trump-Xi talks. In line with his frequent criticism of the democratically elected ruling Democratic Progressive Party — which has stood up to China’s hostile military maneuvers and rejected Beijing’s “one country, two systems” framework — Lyle Goldstein, Asia engagement director at the US think tank Defense Priorities, called
A large majority of Taiwanese favor strengthening national defense and oppose unification with China, according to the results of a survey by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC). In the poll, 81.8 percent of respondents disagreed with Beijing’s claim that “there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China,” MAC Deputy Minister Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference on Thursday last week, adding that about 75 percent supported the creation of a “T-Dome” air defense system. President William Lai (賴清德) referred to such a system in his Double Ten National Day address, saying it would integrate air defenses into a
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
RSS