US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte has criticized moves toward holding a referendum on applying for UN membership under the name Taiwan. This is an important warning regarding the relations between Taiwan and the US, and we should pay close attention to what follows.
Negroponte's statements bring to mind former secretary of state Colin Powell's interview with Hong Kong's Phoenix Television in October 2004. Powell said at the time: "There is only one China. Taiwan is not independent. It does not enjoy sovereignty as a nation."
Recently, with statements like Negroponte's that a referendum is "a step towards the declaration ... of independence of Taiwan," or by Dennis Wilder, the senior director of East Asian Affairs on the US' National Security Council, that: "Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not at this point a state," Washington has virtually become a mouthpiece for the Chinese government. It is increasingly obvious that China uses the US government to put pressure on Taiwan.
The problem is that the US is willing to oppress Taiwanese democracy rather than muster up the will or the courage to take a stand against China's arbitrary and unreasonable demands. And when the US chooses the side of China, relations between Taiwan and the US cannot avoid structural change.
For a long time, Taiwan was different from other Asian countries in that it had no strong national anti-US feeling or movement.
It is therefore worth examining how the US government's position brushes aside the manifestation of the will of the Taiwanese public and harms relations between Taiwan and the US.
With the US and China standing together in preventing Taiwan from breaking out of its diplomatic isolation, feelings of dislike and distrust are growing among Taiwanese. Some polls in Taiwan illustrate this development. The favorable impression the Taiwanese have of the US is steadily weakening, and anti-US sentiment is brewing.
In the interview with Phoenix Television, Negroponte said that "Taiwan has no better friend than the United States." But Washington often disregards the fact that for a long time, Taiwan has been the US' most reliable friend. It seems to take Taiwan's support and cooperation for granted, while disregarding what Taiwan stands for and what it wants. US opposition to Taiwan holding a referendum on UN membership reflects this arrogant attitude.
The biggest blind spot the US has regarding Taiwan is that it doesn't know how to deal with its democracy and its people.
It still believes that by putting pressure on Taiwan's leaders it can change policy. This is exactly the mistake that the US most often warns the leaders in Beijing against.
When Washington criticizes Taipei and says that pushing for a referendum is a mistake, it not only criticizes President Chen Shui-bian (
Rhetoric that seeks to separate Chen from the public only serves to show how little the US, one of the world's foremost democracies, understands democracy.
Arrogance and lack of understanding on the part of the US only makes Taiwanese feel angry and frustrated.
When anti-US sentiment emerges in Taiwan, it could gradually evolve into anti-Americanism, and this in turn could influence Taiwan's strategic choices.
This might be the most important factor in structural changes in the relationship between Taiwan and the US.
Lo Chih-cheng is an assistant professor of political science at Soochow University and the secretary-general of the Taiwan Society.
Translated by Anna Stiggelbout
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS