Former US president Donald Trump put a cat among the pigeons in a recent interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, in which he said that Taiwan had taken almost all of the US’ chip business.
Trump said that the US is no different than an insurance company, while Taiwan does not give it anything, adding that Taiwan should pay the US for defending it.
He also said that Taiwan is “9,500 [sic] miles [15,289km] away” from the US, but only “68 [sic] miles away from China,” suggesting that this would make it “very, very difficult” for the US to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack.
His words did not give the impression that he is firmly determined to defend Taiwan.
Trump’s chances of winning November’s US presidential election have grown significantly, so his talk about payment for defense and the difficulty of defending Taiwan have had a significant effect on investors. US semiconductor stocks and Taiwan’s stock market fell for several days in a row as an atmosphere of fear spread from the geopolitical sphere to the capital markets.
This dynamic makes it important to correctly interpret Trump’s remarks and prevent them from causing panic.
There are three important issues to consider:
The first question to ask is whether an election victory for Trump would bring about any changes in the US’ ties with Taiwan and China. Trump — being a businessman at heart — seems ready to bargain about anything.
However, the reason so many ordinary Americans support him is that he waves the banners of “Make America great again,” “America first” and bringing manufacturing back to the US, while promising to increase job opportunities and revitalize the US economy.
Although the US economy has rebounded strongly in the past few years, the benefits of that recovery have not been evenly spread. Increased wealth has been concentrated, while the financial market, rather than manufacturing, has been the arena for wealth creation. This has caused the gap between rich and poor to widen sharply, which, along with soaring inflation and rising prices, is making life hard for most people.
Trump’s campaign for the presidency has a consistent theme, linking back even to his 2020 run. His talking points are mainly about a trade war, imposing tariffs on imported products such as electric vehicles, attracting companies to return to the US and luring foreign investors. This means that if Trump does return to the White House, the US’ main opponent will still be China.
US President Joe Biden continued Trump’s anti-China policies and sometimes even more harshly. Amid the many differences between the Democratic and Republican parties in the US, their anti-China stance is a rare consensus. That being so, Trump’s line will definitely not change, which was a theme of his speech when he accepted the Republican nomination.
The second thing to consider is that although Trump will stick to his anti-China line, he has compared Taiwan to the tip of a sharpie, while China was as broad as his office desk. Does that mean that he would overlook Taiwan or even use it as a bargaining chip? Such doubts have become even more widespread since Trump said that Taiwan should pay the US for defending it and it had taken away the US’ chip business.
Taiwanese have always underestimated their nation’s importance. They feel like international orphans whose destiny is uncertain.
However, since the Cold War, the nation has been on the front line of confrontation between the free world and the communist world, effectively blocking communist China’s expansion into the Pacific.
Indeed, it is a beacon of the free world. Since the end of the Cold War, not only has Taiwan’s geopolitical importance remained unchanged, but the dictatorial regime that arrived in the nation and was once criticized by the democratic world has gone through a metamorphosis of democratization and localization, gradually aligning itself with the universal values of freedom and human rights.
Taiwan has undergone a transformation into a sovereign and independent democracy that is a model for developing countries.
During the period of China’s reform and opening up, a large amount of capital, talent and technology shifted from Taiwan to China, causing Taiwan’s manufacturing industries to be hollowed out and its economy to lose momentum. Nonetheless, Taiwan’s economic development has still performed well among the “four Asian tigers,” a grouping that also includes Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.
During the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic, large numbers of Taiwanese entrepreneurs relocated from China to Taiwan, a trend that has been coupled with the successful transformation of the nation’s manufacturing industry.
Taiwan has established a complete semiconductor supply chain and become a key pillar of the global economy, so its connections with the free world are growing ever closer.
As Taiwan reaches out to the world, the world also needs Taiwan.
The nation is irreplaceable, so maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait has become a common concern of the US, Japan, the G7 and NATO — which is a fact that Trump cannot ignore.
The third point to consider is whether Trump’s populist and sensationalist language endangers Taiwan’s security.
He has a habit of saying one thing and doing another. His statement that Taiwan should pay the US for defending it upset a lot of people, but just two months ago Trump said that if China had invaded Taiwan while he was president, he would have bombed Beijing, prompting China to slam Trump and calling him a lunatic.
In his nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on July 18, Trump mentioned Taiwan twice while talking calmly and promising to restore peace in the world.
When analyzing what Trump says, it is important to focus on his general orientation and not get stuck on sensationalism, which is little more than a political performance. In particular, demanding payment for defense is a tactic Trump used during his presidency to put pressure on allied countries. From 2017 to 2021, he repeatedly warned the governments of Japan and South Korea that if they objected to taking on a greater burden of defense costs, the US might withdraw US troops stationed in those two countries.
Trump also often took aim at those among the 32 NATO member states that failed to meet NATO’s goal of spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense. At a rally on Feb. 10, Trump even said he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever they want” to NATO members that failed to meet their financial obligations.
He said that if he had been president when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, he would have bombed Moscow straight away, but many observers suspect that he might abandon Ukraine if he takes office in January next year.
Trump often says sensational things. As a former reality show host, he might see such remarks as part of a political show.
However, major US policies are still constrained by the political system in Washington, which prevents them from going too far astray.
As for wanting Taipei to pay the US for defending it, Taiwan’s national defense has never been a free lunch. Responding to Trump’s statement at a July 17 news conference, US Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller said that Taiwan has been paying for its own defense all along, and that its purchases of US arms are important to regional security and the US economy.
Miller said that the US Congress passed a supplementary bill to provide additional items to Taiwan, but the security cooperation that Washington has provided over the decades has involved Taiwan purchasing US military equipment and is definitely not charity.
Most importantly, Taiwan’s high-tech industry is indispensable to the world, and the Taiwan Strait is the world’s most important maritime trade route. Consequently, Taiwan’s security is not just a problem for Taiwanese, but is also important for the prosperity and well-being of the whole free world.
Taiwanese can and should be confident that the free world cannot do without them.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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