The US Congress’ long-term bipartisan support for Taiwan would not change regardless of the outcome of Wednesday’s midterm elections, Taiwanese experts on US politics said yesterday.
With votes still being counted, Republicans and Democrats are in a tight race for control of the US Congress.
Republicans are favored to win the US House of Representatives, but the fight for the US Senate is on a knife-edge, as Democrats, defying expectations, defeated Republicans in a series of competitive races.
Photo: Reuters
Speaking during a Taipei seminar on what the US elections outcome means for Taiwan, Lin Cheng-yi (林正義), a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, said it was worth noticing US Representative Steve Chabot, a long-time pro-Taiwan Republican lawmaker who cochairs the Congressional Taiwan Caucus, failed to win re-election in Ohio.
Moreover, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, cochairman of the Senate Taiwan Caucus, announced he is to retire from the Senate at the end of this year.
However, the loss of two pro-Taiwan heavyweights in the House and Senate this year does not mean the US Congress would be less supportive of the country, Lin said.
US congressional support for Taiwan has been long-standing and bipartisan, he added.
Agreeing with Lin, Hung Yao-nan (洪耀南), a professor at Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of China Studies, said that despite losing two long-time Taiwan supporters, other pro-Taiwan US candidates, including those who recently visited the country, have won their respective races.
“We do not expect to see any major change in US policy toward China and Taiwan,” Hung said.
Two academics said that a major factor in determining the new US Congress’ attitude toward Taiwan is on how they deal with a number of Taiwan-friendly bills that are awaiting passage, including the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023 and the Taiwan policy act.
“Whether these proposed bills will see major revisions in the next Congress will be an indicator,” he said.
Sung Wen-ti (宋文迪) of the Australian National University said it was unlikely that the passage of the Taiwan policy act would encounter any major problem in the next session of Congress.
The problem is what revisions would be made, particularly on clauses that are more symbolic, including renaming Taiwan’s representative office, Sung said.
“How would the Chinese government react and how strong would that reaction be will have a direct impact on US-Sino relations in the next two years,” he said.
Described by its sponsors as “the most comprehensive restructuring of US policy towards Taiwan since the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979,” the Taiwan policy act cleared the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in September.
Some of the bill’s original proposals — including renaming Taiwan’s de facto US embassy, requiring Senate approval for Washington’s envoy to Taipei and designating Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally” — were either removed or made nonbinding due to misgivings from the White House.
Despite this, the updated bill still includes provisions authorizing up to US$6.5 billion in grants from next year to 2027 for Taipei to purchase US arms.
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