Taiwan faces threats from the US as well as China, and it cannot allow its future to be controlled by a handful of “extremists” in the government, former National Taiwan University (NTU) president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said on Saturday.
Kuan made the remarks in a speech titled “When a Bull Enters a China Shop” — a reference to US President Donald Trump’s China diplomacy — at an event organized by the Taiwan People’s Party.
Regarding Taiwan’s current geopolitical situation, the country faces risks from the US, such as tariffs and the costs of a deal to ease them, shifts in semiconductor supply chains, policy uncertainties and the White House’s demand that Taiwan pay “protection fees,” Kuan said.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
“To Trump, in particular, there is nothing more important than buying and selling, and Taiwan has no way of predicting what will be included in those deals,” he said.
At the same time, Taiwan continues to be “highly dependent” on China for trade, even as cross-strait relations deteriorate, he said, adding that Taiwan could increasingly find its economy squeezed by both Beijing and Washington.
Just as Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that he does not “have the cards” in prevailing in Russia’s invasion, Taiwan must also think about “what cards it holds,” Kuan said.
Economically, Taiwan should use the pressure from China and the US to spur economic reforms, including further opening its markets and cultivating more diverse service-sector industries, he said.
It should also seek to “stabilize” its relations with China, he said.
In terms of security, “Trump likes making deals, and it is possible that he will make a deal on Taiwan’s security,” Kuan said.
Rather than becoming a pawn for the US, Taiwan needs to find a way to act with initiative and agency between Washington and Beijing, he said.
Turning to the government, Kuan said that cross-strait relations were being led by a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration that won only 40 percent of the votes in last year’s presidential election.
“The future of 23 million people should not be controlled by a small number of extremists in the DPP,” he said.
Although Taiwan is not the primary actor in cross-strait relations, it has the ability to “balance” its relations with the US, and thus ease some of the risks it faces from China, he said.
Kuan, an economist, was president of NTU from 2019 to 2023 and was National Development Council minister in 2014 and 2015 under then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
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