The bombshell book by former US national security adviser John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, has sparked intense debate. Unlike Americans, who are focusing on US President Donald Trump’s ability to govern, local media have highlighted chapter 10, “Thunder Out of China,” and used that as a basis for how they view the future development of US-Taiwan relations.
For example, on page 288, Trump compares Taiwan to the tip of one of his Sharpie pens and China to the Oval Office’s Resolute desk, and on page 290, Bolton predicts that after Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds, Taiwan could be next.
It is not clear whether Bolton’s motivation for publishing this book was to take revenge on Trump or to wade in as an influence in the US presidential campaign. Perhaps only those involved know what is true.
What Taiwanese should be paying attention to is whether there might be pro-China forces in the nation trying to use the book to manipulate public opinion, once again creating the narrative that the US is “abandoning Taiwan.”
Regardless of whether the US will stand up for Taiwan, there is no doubt that the nation must be prepared to resist China’s threats. Discussing whether the US will abandon Taiwan is a red herring in the contest between the government and the opposition.
Trump’s China policy has been influenced by US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien, who succeeded Bolton nine months after he was sacked, and his positions on the Taiwan issue and US national security. Observers had expected O’Brien to continue Bolton’s hardline, hawkish China stance, and even China’s assessment was that O’Brien is a hawk disguised as a dove, whose anti-Chinese stance remains unchanged, although he might use more peaceful means.
In his book While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis, O’Brien bluntly states that the US in the past made the mistake of ignoring Chinese expansion, and he strongly criticizes former US president Barack Obama’s administration, and its stance on foreign policy and military buildup.
Bolton, by the way, wrote a blurb for the book’s dust jacket.
O’Brien is familiar with the Taiwan issue. Not only did he visit the nation in 2016 and does he have a good understanding of the political and economic situation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, but as early as in 2011, he started to urge the US to sell Taiwan F-16C/D fighters to narrow the military gap with China.
US Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger, who O’Brian selected for the post, is a retired marine who worked as a journalist stationed in China. He was once while reporting beaten and detained by police in Beijing, and as a result, some say Pottinger is the man around Trump who China fears most.
Prior to filling the position, Pottinger appeared with Taiwan’s then-deputy minister of foreign affairs Hsu Szu-chien (徐斯儉), who is now deputy secretary-general of the National Security Council. Their position on countering China’s non-peaceful rise is consistent with that of Trump: The premise for “making America great again” is to strengthen cooperation with allies. Adequate military power is the only guarantee of having the strength to maintain peace.
Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office, Taiwan, one of the US’ democratic allies, has been continuously deepening its autonomy and strengthening its national defense. There is no need to panic because of a couple of paragraphs in Bolton’s book.
Chen Kuan-fu is a graduate law student at National Taipei University.
Translated by Lin Lee-kai
World leaders are preparing themselves for a second Donald Trump presidency. Some leaders know more or less where he stands: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows that a difficult negotiation process is about to be forced on his country, and the leaders of NATO countries would be well aware of being complacent about US military support with Trump in power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be feeling relief as the constraints placed on him by the US President Joe Biden administration would finally be released. However, for President William Lai (賴清德) the calculation is not simple. Trump has surrounded himself
US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named US Representative Mike Waltz, a vocal supporter of arms sales to Taiwan who has called China an “existential threat,” as his national security advisor, and on Thursday named US Senator Marco Rubio, founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China — a global, cross-party alliance to address the challenges that China poses to the rules-based order — as his secretary of state. Trump’s appointments, including US Representative Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the UN, who has been a strong supporter of Taiwan in the US Congress, and Robert Lighthizer as US trade
Following the BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia, last month, media outlets circulated familiar narratives about Russia and China’s plans to dethrone the US dollar and build a BRICS-led global order. Each summit brings renewed buzz about a BRICS cross-border payment system designed to replace the SWIFT payment system, allowing members to trade without using US dollars. Articles often highlight the appeal of this concept to BRICS members — bypassing sanctions, reducing US dollar dependence and escaping US influence. They say that, if widely adopted, the US dollar could lose its global currency status. However, none of these articles provide
On Friday last week, tens of thousands of young Chinese took part in a bike ride overnight from Henan Province’s Zhengzhou (鄭州) to the historical city of Kaifeng in search of breakfast. The night ride became a viral craze after four female university students in June chronicled their ride on social media from Zhengzhou in search of soup dumplings in Kaifeng. Propelled by the slogan “youth is priceless,” the number of nocturnal riders surged to about 100,000 on Friday last week. The main road connecting the two cities was crammed with cyclists as police tried to maintain order. That sparked
RSS