Taiwan is a key asset in the US’ ongoing “strategic competition” with China and one that it cannot afford to lose, an academic told a seminar in Taipei yesterday.
Despite US President Donald Trump’s repeated refusal to openly commit to Taiwan’s defense in the event of a Chinese invasion, the US Congress has maintained its decades-long bipartisan support for Taiwan, said Lin Wen-cheng (林文程), a professor at National Sun Yat-sen University’s Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies.
Taiwan’s strategic importance to the US in the first island chain, coupled with its global dominance in the semiconductor industry, means Washington cannot afford to lose Taiwan to China if it wants to prevail in the US-Sino competition, Lin said.
Photo: I-Hwa Cheng, Bloomberg
That structural bilateral “strategic competition” and confrontation would continue for decades to come, he said at the seminar on Taiwan-US-China trilateral relations.
Meanwhile, Wang Hung-jen (王宏仁), a professor in National Cheng Kung University’s Department of Political Science, warned that Trump’s reluctance to commit to Taiwan’s defense and his change of stance on Ukraine could send the wrong message to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), potentially resulting in an increase in Beijing’s pressure on Taipei.
The approach by the US could lead to Xi making hasty decisions and aggressive moves, including military action against Taiwan, Wang said.
On Tuesday last week, Trump again refused to make clear his stance on protecting Taiwan from a hypothetical takeover by China when asked by a reporter during a Cabinet meeting whether it was his policy that China would never take Taiwan by force while he is president.
“I never comment on that,” Trump said. “I don’t comment on it because I don’t want to ever put myself in that position.”
Trump also reiterated that he has a “great relationship” with Xi and said that Washington welcomes good relations with Beijing.
Before Trump was inaugurated, he said in an interview on NBC in December last year that he would “never say” if the US was committed to defending Taiwan against China.
Trump’s stance on the cross-strait issue is a departure from that of his predecessor, former US president Joe Biden, who had said unequivocally on several occasions that he would commit US troops in the event of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
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