In an essay for Time, Lyle Goldstein, director of Asia engagement at the Defense Priorities think tank, said that Washington must “beware of Taiwan’s reckless leader.” He accused President William Lai (賴清德) of destabilizing the Taiwan Strait by asserting that Taiwan is a sovereign nation and urged the US to restrain him — perhaps with “a private warning.” The implication is clear: If only Taiwan would stay quiet, peace would return.
That argument sounds prudent, but it is profoundly mistaken. It reflects a growing strain of thought in the US that fears war with China so much it is prepared to reward coercion. The same voices call for reducing US support to Taiwan on the grounds that the country is “not a vital national interest.”
Goldstein’s reasoning turns reality upside down. If an elected president defending his country’s sovereignty is “reckless,” what, then, is the word for the autocrat threatening invasion? There is nothing wrong with being a realist — but there is something wrong when a realist cannot even be fair in rhetoric and inverts the moral. When you call Lai reckless, you should also call Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) a predatory despot.
What these so-called realists actually propose is simple: Restrain Taipei, downgrade US commitments and quietly accept that China would one day take Taiwan. They rarely say it outright, but that is the end point of their argument. To “avoid war,” Taiwan must surrender its voice, its security and its future. The US, in turn, must signal to Beijing that force would meet only condemnation, not resistance.
This is the same cowardly logic that once asked why anyone should “die for Danzig.” Each time, the cost of yielding to aggression was not peace, but a wider, costlier war. The Taiwan Strait is no exception. If Taiwan falls, the balance of deterrence across Asia collapses. Japan, the Philippines and South Korea would either rearm or lose faith in US guarantees. The entire Indo-Pacific region would become a region of anxiety — until one day, it simply becomes China’s Asia.
Taiwan’s survival is not only about chips and sea-lanes; it is about freedom itself. Silencing Taiwan would tell millions living under authoritarian rule that liberty was a mistake.
Goldstein’s essay also betrays a misunderstanding of deterrence. Peace does not come from telling small democracies to stay quiet; it comes from convincing aggressors that coercion would fail. The US need not provoke China, but it must leave no doubt that force against Taiwan would carry intolerable costs. Clarity, not ambiguity, prevents miscalculation.
There is nothing reckless about Lai stating what is already true: Taiwan governs itself, elects its leaders and belongs to the 23 million Taiwanese. What would be reckless is pretending otherwise to placate Beijing.
Goldstein’s view is not the prevailing one in Washington. In the US Congress, support for Taiwan remains bipartisan, vocal and overwhelming. The US House of Representatives and Senate continue to pass legislation strengthening ties and pushing for faster arms deliveries.
To fear war is human. To fear moral clarity is fatal. The danger is not in Taipei’s assertion of sovereignty — it is in the growing comfort with moral retreat. Peace built on silence about aggression is the peace of the intimidated. Deterrence without conviction is no deterrence at all. The freedom of one nation, once surrendered, would not be recovered with eloquent regrets. It would be lost — and the free world would be smaller for it, and when the free world shrinks, the US would only shrink with it.
John Cheng is a retired businessman from Hong Kong now living in Taiwan.
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