A former top envoy to the US and a defense expert yesterday called on the government to increase its defense spending to prove the country’s mettle to US President Donald Trump, who began his second term this week.
Trump has raised questions over how supportive of Taiwan he would be after saying on the campaign trail that Taiwan “stole our chip business” and needed to “pay us for defense.”
He has also suggested that Taiwan pay the US for protection and that it increase defense spending to 10 percent of its GDP.
Photo: CNA
Speaking at a seminar in Taipei yesterday, Stanley Kao (高碩泰), a former top envoy to Washington, said Taiwan should not worry too much about Trump’s campaign rhetoric because turning that rhetoric into actual policies requires going through a process.
Trump’s new Cabinet is also stacked with Taiwan-friendly people who are considered hawkish on Beijing, including his choice for US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, a foreign policy hawk on China and Iran who has proposed a number of Taiwan-friendly bills, Kao said.
Nonetheless, given Trump’s “transactional” nature, Taiwan should make a strong argument to Washington that Taiwan-US relations are “irreplaceable,” he said.
That should include gradually increasing its defense budget to beef up its defense capabilities, reinforcing its supply chain resilience and ensuring the “continuation and normalization” of Taiwan-US relations, he said.
Echoing Kao’s argument, Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said at the forum that Taiwan would likely remain strategically important to the Trump administration.
Trump’s interest in securing control of Greenland and the Panama Canal showed that his national security team was prioritizing the recalibration of the US’ presence in geographically strategic locations, Su said.
The Taiwan Strait, as a shipping and air corridor of global significance and part of the first island chain that forms the US’ first line of defense against China, is of great strategic value to the US and would likely factor into that approach, Su said.
That is why Taiwan needs to increase defense spending to enhance its defense resilience and prove to Trump that Taipei is a reliable partner to Washington and is willing to do its part in boosting its self-defense capabilities, the defense expert said.
Su added that Trump’s appointment of a number of China-hawks, including Rubio and his nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth.
The appointments suggest that Trump would be playing the “good cop” while his China-hawkish national security team would play the “bad cop,” with Trump adopting a more sympathetic demeanor and his team adopting a hostile approach to get others to cooperate.
Kao, who served as Taiwan’s representative to the US from May 2016 to July 2020, facilitated the historic telephone call between then-president-elect Trump and then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in December 2016.
The call marked the first time that a US president or president-elect had directly spoken with a Taiwanese president since Taipei and Washington severed official diplomatic relations in 1979.
Kao retired in July 2020 and now serves as the senior adviser of a local think tank, according to the Institute of National Policy Research, which organized yesterday’s seminar.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “[we] appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
ON PAROLE: The 73-year-old suspect has a criminal record of rape committed when he was serving in the military, as well as robbery and theft, police said The Kaohsiung District Court yesterday approved the detention of a 73-year-old man for allegedly murdering three women. The suspect, surnamed Chang (張), was arrested on Wednesday evening in connection with the death of a 71-year-old woman surnamed Chao (趙). The Kaohsiung City Police Department yesterday also unveiled the identities of two other possible victims in the serial killing case, a 75-year-old woman surnamed Huang (黃), the suspect’s sister-in-law, and a 75-year-old woman surnamed Chang (張), who is not related to the suspect. The case came to light when Chao disappeared after taking the suspect back to his residence on Sunday. Police, upon reviewing CCTV
TRUMP ERA: The change has sparked speculation on whether it was related to the new US president’s plan to dismiss more than 1,000 Joe Biden-era appointees The US government has declined to comment on a post that indicated the departure of Laura Rosenberger as chair of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). Neither the US Department of State nor the AIT has responded to the Central News Agency’s questions on the matter, after Rosenberger was listed as a former chair on the AIT’s official Web site, with her tenure marked as 2023 to this year. US officials have said previously that they usually do not comment on personnel changes within the government. Rosenberger was appointed head of the AIT in 2023, during the administration of former US president Joe