It has been more than a year since US President Donald Trump took office for a second term. The past year has witnessed unprecedented and unforeseen developments that have altered the geopolitical landscape, with repercussions across the world. The deterioration in Canada-US and India-US relations, cracks in transatlantic partnerships, the Venezuela issue, and multiple ongoing conflicts that show no sign of abating all have the US at their core.
As the US turns inward and its attention becomes overstretched, the primary beneficiary appears to be China. Washington’s reduced focus on security in the Indo-Pacific region has created space for Beijing to act more assertively. At the same time, liberal democracies are reassessing and redefining their policies in response to an increasingly self-centric and somewhat absent US.
One consequence is a perceptible shift in how these countries now view China. A few years ago, many stressed the need to de-risk from China. Today, as they confront uncertainty in their relations with the US, they are pursuing trade agreements elsewhere and recalibrating their external partnerships. In relative terms, challenges posed by China appear less immediate than those arising from Washington’s inward turn.
A sustained US retrenchment risks generating structural uncertainty within economic and security frameworks. Arrangements such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, the Quad (formed of Australia, India, Japan and the US) and AUKUS (formed of Australia, the UK and the US) rest on credible and consistent US strategic commitment and presence along with collective efforts of like-minded countries. If that commitment appears highly transactional and erratic, regional actors are likely to hedge more openly, diversify their security partnerships, or adopt more accommodative postures toward China, developments that would disproportionately benefit Beijing. Such recalibration would not amount to alignment with China completely, but it would weaken the inclination to counter Chinese threats. For Beijing, this environment is advantageous. It does not require China to opt for immediate confrontation; it gains from the gradual erosion of US credibility. In many ways, China does not need to act aggressively if it can indirectly reap the benefits of Washington’s policy choices.
Leaders from Europe and Canada have increased high-level engagement with China in recent months. India continues to navigate its persistent China dilemma. Tokyo, meanwhile, faces renewed Chinese assertiveness, evident in the latest diplomatic spat following Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan. Across the board, these countries are exploring alternative approaches to manage their security dilemmas, whether individually or collectively, in a strategic environment where the US appears less present and less predictable.
For Taiwan, the China threat remains existential and more acute than ever. In December last year, China concluded another round of live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The situation becomes even more complex and dangerous as Taiwan navigates domestic political turbulence alongside growing uncertainty in its relations with an increasingly inward-looking US.
Washington remains Taipei’s primary security partner, and this asymmetry and reliance places Taiwan in a precarious position. Strategic ambiguity has long been the cornerstone of US-Taiwan relations, but ambiguity functions only when backed by credible actions. At a time when even longstanding allies have begun to question Washington’s reliability, deterrence risks erosion. A weakening of deterrence in the Taiwan Strait would reverberate throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
As Trump prepares to visit China next month, concerns are mounting over how Taiwan would be addressed in his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Would Beijing use this opportunity to exert further pressure on Taiwan? The possibility cannot be dismissed. Any signaling that frames Taiwan as a negotiable issue would carry profound strategic consequences. Even rhetorical ambiguity can alter threat perceptions in Taipei and among the US’ network of partnerships and alliances.
For the US, upholding the rules-based order is a normative and strategic imperative. Ensuring that Taiwan is not coerced and that stability in the Indo-Pacific region is preserved is central to maintaining deterrence credibility. Failure to do so would further cede strategic space to China and compel US’ partners to pursue alternative security and economic arrangements that bypass Washington. Such recalibration could prove far more costly than the short-term gains of a self-centric foreign policy.
Sana Hashmi is a fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation. The views expressed here are personal.
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