Support for Taiwan in the US is a consensus across party lines and administrations, and the US has repeatedly emphasized the importance of Taiwan, showing that peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is a global consensus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
“I know the people very well, respect them greatly. They did take about 100 percent of our chip business. I think Taiwan should pay us for defense,” former US president and presidential candidate Donald Trump said in a Blomberg interview on Tuesday.
Department of North American Affairs Deputy Director Chiao Kuo-you (焦國祐) said the ministry does not comment on the speeches of US presidential candidates, adding that US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller, US House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, Congressional Taiwan Caucus cochair Mario Diaz-Balart, and former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien Jr have all made statements emphasizing the importance of Taiwan and US-Taiwan relations.
Photo: CNA
The US has been working with like-minded countries to make peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait not just a US-Taiwan consensus, but also an international one, Chiao said.
He said that Taiwan would work with like-minded countries and step up national defense capabilities to jointly uphold regional peace and stability, he said.
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Lin Yi-chun (林憶君) said that Taiwan’s national defense spending was higher than the average member country of NATO, and its defense capabilities did not lag that far behind most advanced countries.
The US is the greatest benefactor from the current international order, and maintaining such a world order, regardless of who is elected to office, would require the US to work together with its regional allies, which includes Taiwan, Lin said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said Taiwan has to be self-reliant, adding that it was a mistake to be 100 percent reliant on the US.
O’Brien told Bloomberg that “the Taiwanese have to want their freedom and independence as much as we want it for them.”
“I can’t care more about Taiwan, to send my daughters to defend Taiwan, if the Taiwanese themselves wouldn’t defend Taiwan. And so we need to see the will of the Taiwanese people,” he said, adding, “They need to step up to the plate.”
O’Brien has two daughters who are serving in the US armed forces.
Council on Foreign Relations fellow for Asia studies David Sacks said: “If I was in Taiwan, I would take this statement seriously because it is not an isolated remark — there is now a pattern.”
“This statement, in particular, epitomizes Trumpism because it reflects his purely transactional view of foreign policy,” he added.
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