Taiwan plays a key role in Washington’s model of deterrence against China, former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in a speech in Taipei yesterday.
During US president-elect Donald Trump’s first term, “we had developed what we believe was a pretty effective model of deterrence against adversaries who wanted to undermine the set of rules and values that the people of Taiwan and the people of the US hold dear,” Pompeo said at a forum organized by the Formosa Republican Association.
“Succeeding in continuing to build this model will not solely rest at the feet of president Trump and his team, but it will be shared with Taiwan; you will be crucial in this effort. Free nations, especially those in this Indo-Pacific area, must send an unambiguous message to Beijing that Taiwan is free and independent and is going to stay that way... It is imperative that we speak with that clarity. Chinese President Xi Jinping [習近平] will not determine the future of Asia or of Taiwan, we will. We’ll do it alongside Japan, Australia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and India,” he said.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
Pompeo, who was on his fourth visit to Taiwan since 2022, reiterated his view that the US should end its policy of “strategic ambiguity” in its relations with Taiwan, as it misleads the international community and increases aggression in the Asia-Pacific region.
During the forum, participants sought Pompeo’s input on what Trump would do in his second term, particularly with regard to US relations with China.
Asked if Trump would let Ukraine fall amid Russia’s invasion and rearrange his administration’s strategic priority to China, Pompeo said the US would continue to do the things that are necessary to deter Moscow.
“Trump would command a place for US leadership in Europe, in which he would convince Europeans to be more serious about their security and defense after 25 or 30 years of complacency,” he said, adding that he would remind Russian President Vladmir Putin of the cost of continued aggression.
As China posed a real-time substantive risk to the US during Trump’s first term, Pompeo said that he was “near certain” that the second Trump administration would develop a similar approach to then.
“In terms of mindset and how the president would approach it, he’s determined to get them to stop killing Americans with fentanyl, to build [a] strong military deterrent, and those are focused fundamentally on the risk from Xi Jinping and his CCP” (Chinese Communist Party), he said.
The rule of reciprocity would guide the direction of US-China relations in Trump’s second term, Pompeo said.
“The idea of reciprocity would be the central feature as you all think about how the US will deal with the broader set of issues. We will treat the CCP the same way they choose to treat us and you. We’re going to demand that they engage in the world stage on a level-playing field with the same set of rules that give everyone the same opportunity to succeed,” he said.
Rather than looking at the contradiction of what Trump said on the campaign trail about Taiwan and his nomination of pro-Taiwan officials with nervousness, Pompeo suggested that Taiwan be willing to be forthright and engage with the US.
“The best indication of how Trump thinks about this [US-China relations] is what actions he took when he had the capacity to actually take actions... [People] should not forget there is [the] US Congress that has got its own views and will have a substantial say in many of these policies,” he said.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS