After US president-elect Donald Trump’s stunning victory at the polls, Taiwan faces the question of what it means for US foreign policy and how Taipei should respond to a post-US President Barack Obama world.
Taiwan has long maintained a relatively close relationship with the US Republican Party due to the party’s anti-communist stance, not to mention that in July, the Republican National Convention included, for the first time, the “six assurances” — given to Taiwan by then-US president Ronald Reagan in 1982 — in its official platform.
However, given the glaring divide between Trump and the Republican Party establishment during his presidential campaign, it is an open question whether Trump will follow the party line on various issues, including foreign policy.
From what he has said about Asia, Trump wishes to punish China, which he has described as a “grand master” of currency manipulation, vowing to impose tariffs of up to 45 percent on Chinese products and initiate unfair trade lawsuits. While this might be an economic blow to China if he follows through on his rhetoric, Trump’s complaint about the US having to defend Japan and South Korea might be music to Beijing’s ears, because it suggests a reversal of Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy. Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to maintain the pivot if elected, as she was a major architect of the strategic shift during her stint as US secretary of state.
This so-called “rebalancing” has been regarded by Beijing as an attempt to contain Chinese interests, while highlighting Taiwan’s geostrategic value. A withdrawal from Asia as Trump has suggested would accelerate the realigning of some Asian countries with China, with the Philippines and Malaysia having started to warm to Beijing, and potentially marginalize Taiwan. Considering how ASEAN members rely on China for trade, Beijing having more say and sway in the region would undoubtedly undercut President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) “new southbound policy.”
Trump’s opposition to the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership is also likely to hurt Taiwan’s prospects of joining a trade agreement that would help it bypass efforts by Beijing to hinder Taipei’s formation of economic ties with the global community.
Ironically, Trump’s isolationist stance could mean he would be more willing than previous US administrations to sell arms to Taiwan, as a Taiwanese academic said before election day when asked to imagine a Trump presidency.
The weapons Trump might be prepared to sell to Taiwan could include those the US had not considered before, such as stealth fighters, AEGIS-equipped guided missile destroyers or the latest missile defense systems, the academic said.
However, there is also the possibility that “president Trump” will be a different proposition from “presidential candidate Trump,” as he will have to learn how to form an effective team and work with other Republican, if not Democratic, politicians.
The makeup of Trump’s foreign policy team will have to be closely examined, before Taiwan works out measures it needs to prepare itself for the change in US administration. Trump will have to rely on veteran Republican politicians and existing institutions to make significant decisions and formulate effective policies. In that sense, his foreign policy stance, at least in regard to Taiwan, might not be too remote from what is expected of a Republican US administration.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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