Republican candidate and former US president Donald Trump is to be the 47th president of the US after beating his Democratic rival, US Vice President Kamala Harris, in the election on Tuesday.
Trump’s thumping victory — winning 295 Electoral College votes against Harris’ 226 as of press time last night, along with the Republicans winning control of the US Senate and possibly the House of Representatives — is a remarkable political comeback from his 2020 defeat to US President Joe Biden, and means Trump has a strong political mandate to implement his agenda.
What does Trump’s victory mean for Taiwan, Asia, deterrence in the Taiwan Strait and the wider alliance of liberal democracies?
Some analysts have said that given Trump’s remarks on the campaign trail that Taiwan “stole” the US’ chip industry, his election would mean rockier Taiwan-US relations.
However, these concerns are unwarranted. Support for the US-Taiwan relationship is not only a bipartisan consensus in the US, but with the Republicans likely taking Congress and the White House, the support is likely to be turbocharged.
US-Taiwan relations went from strength to strength during Trump’s first presidency, beginning with the then-president-elect’s unprecedented phone call with then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Dec. 2, 2016. Relations have since developed onto an even firmer footing, and given the strong people-to-people ties, deep diplomacy and the stakes of the US’ competition with China, Taiwan-US ties are sure to continue their positive development.
For the wider region, Trump’s victory means that the US’ “pivot to Asia” strategy, which was initiated by then-US president Barack Obama’s administration in 2011, would finally become a reality.
Washington never made that pivot as it continued to allocate resources to Europe and the Middle East, failing to meet the challenge of a rising China — “perhaps the most consequential” US policy failure since 1945, wrote former US deputy national security adviser Robert Blackwill and Center for a New American Security chief executive officer Richard Fontaine in their recent book Lost Decade: The US Pivot to Asia and the Rise of Chinese Power.
Trump’s incoming administration is likely to address this by definitively shifting the US’ focus to Asia. Many of Trump’s foreign policy advisers and potential political appointees — including former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien — believe strongly in the Taiwan-US partnership, and that US statecraft in the 21st century must be laser-focused in meeting the challenge posed by China.
This prioritization would certainly bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific region, especially in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing has been emboldened by a distracted US to push the envelope around Taiwan, including by ramping up air and sea incursions, seeking to alter the “status quo” and bullying Taiwanese to accept the new reality. Asia as the US’ primary theater would chasten Beijing in its escapades, and with Taiwan focused on defense reforms and boosting military spending, deterrence is only likely to increase.
While Trump’s foreign policy goals are hard to interpret, a consistent theme has been for allies to share more of the defense cost burden. This is a positive and necessary development for liberal democracies and US allies in Europe and Asia, as it puts the international rules-based order — which is backed by US power — on a firmer, more sustainable footing.
As Daniel DePetris wrote in The Spectator recently, a “status quo US foreign policy has been remarkably durable,” and while Trump would make changes, Taiwan, the US and the wider democratic world would continue to work closely to uphold an international order that protects their shared interests and values.
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
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