US President Donald Trump is bringing significant changes to US foreign policy, with governments around the world, allies and foes alike, scrambling to adjust. This is no less the case for firm friends of the US such as Taiwan.
Trump is shifting the US’ relationship with its allies to one in which self-interest and mutual backscratching play a larger role, rather than relations built solely on shared values. This is not such a bad thing. While shared values are an important component of any international relationship, they have never been and never will be decisive.
Taiwan must learn to adapt and shape its foreign policy accordingly to safeguard its interests in a more competitive world. It has already made great strides in this adjustment. President William Lai (賴清德) has announced that he would introduce a special budget to lift defense spending to more than 3 percent of GDP (original spending had been earmarked at about 2.45 percent). This would not only meet US expectations to boost defense spending, but would also help reduce Taiwan’s trade deficit with the US. Some reports have said the nation expects to purchase at least US$7 billion of US arms.
Not only would the Trump administration see this as a win, but it would also improve Taiwan’s national security and regional stability by bolstering deterrence.
However, in other areas, the government has been slow to react. In meeting Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on chips, rather than discussing how Taiwan’s high-tech manufacturing could help to revive US manufacturing, Lai has touted “semiconductor supply chain partnerships for global democracies.”
As Ryan Hass, director of the Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Center, wrote on X on Friday last week, such rhetoric “does more to expose divergence between Washington and Taipei than it does to signal solidarity.”
Elsewhere, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has talked of “integrated diplomacy” built on democratic values. While this rhetoric worked before Trump’s second term, it might be less effective now.
As Hass wrote in the Taipei Times (“Ryan Hass On Taiwan: What does Trump want from Taiwan?” Feb. 17, page 8), the US president does not care for ideology or political systems, but prioritizes reindustrializing the US, reducing immigration and deterring wars.
“If Taiwan’s leaders are looking for ways to build inroads with Trump and his advisers, they could find fertile ground by highlighting Taiwan’s current and future contributions to America’s industrial expansion, its commitment to its own defense and its responsible management of cross-strait tensions,” Hass wrote.
Given Taiwan’s importance in high-tech manufacturing, which is crucial to reviving US jobs and industry, and its location in the first island chain — a friendly Taiwan helps the US project power, is crucial for the US to defend the likes of Japan and the Philippines, and counterbalances China’s ambitions — the nation has a firm foundation to build even stronger ties with Washington on the basis of mutual self-interests.
Taiwan is a proud liberal democracy facing threats from a far larger neighbor that seeks to undermine its values, freedoms and democracy, which Taiwanese have fought hard for. Taiwanese identify with their democracy, and that is reflected in the nation’s diplomacy. It also has democratic partners in Asia and Europe with the same values binding those ties.
So while it would not be easy for Taiwan’s leaders to shun talking about values altogether, in a new geopolitically self-interested era, national leaders must adapt and find a new balance between values and interests in the nation’s rhetoric and policies.
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
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
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of
RSS