More than 40 percent of Taiwanese respondents believe that the US’ commitment to protecting Taiwan would decline during US President Donald Trump’s second term, compared with the level of support under his predecessor, former US president Joe Biden. The findings come from the “American Portrait Survey,” conducted by Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s leading research institution, in mid-March.
In the survey of 1,249 adults, 21.1 percent said they expected the US to show “much less” commitment to Taiwan’s security under Trump, while another 23.3 percent anticipated “somewhat less” support.
While 5.7 percent of respondents said they believed the US would show “somewhat more” commitment to Taiwan’s defense under Trump and 4.6 percent expected “much more,” the largest share — 38.5 percent — anticipated the level of protection would “remain the same” as in the past few years before Trump returned to the White House on Jan. 20.
Photo: CNA
Asked whether they were concerned that the US and China might reach agreements that could compromise Taiwan’s national interests, 59 percent of respondents said they were.
The survey — part of an annual Taiwan-based assessment of public perceptions of the US and China — was released on Friday by Wu Wen-chin (吳文欽), a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Political Science, during a seminar in Taipei.
Wu said that the results reflect growing unease among Taiwanese regarding Trump’s foreign policy approach and its potential impact on Taiwan-US relations.
In last year’s edition of the survey, conducted while Biden was still president, Taiwanese were asked whether the US would deploy troops if China launched an invasion of Taiwan. At the time, 15.3 percent said the US “definitely would not” intervene, while 16.4 percent said it was “unlikely.”
One year later, this year’s survey revealed a significant increase in skepticism. The share of respondents who believed the US “definitely would not” intervene rose to 18.7 percent, and those who said it was “unlikely” climbed to 23.7 percent — a combined increase of more than 10 percent.
Perceptions of US trustworthiness also declined. Last year, 50 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement that the US is a trustworthy country. That figure jumped to 59.6 percent in this year’s survey.
Funded by Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, the survey is part of a research program that began in 2021 and is expected to run for 10 years.
This year’s edition was carried out by the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University through telephone interviews conducted from March 18 to 23. It collected 1,249 valid responses from individuals aged 20 and older with household registration in Taiwan. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.77 percent.
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