It’s now become a familiar pattern in Taiwan that, whenever Donald Trump meets with Xi Jinping, it’s hard to predict what will happen.
Ahead of time, there is a wave of speculation in international media about what Trump may or may not say. Usually, there’s not so much of a panic here in Taiwan. Sometimes, Taiwan does not even come up at all, which is perhaps for the best.
That was certainly what we hoped for this time, as well. And that initially seemed to be the case, with the outcome of the Trump-Xi meeting being that China claimed Taiwan was discussed, while the US readout of the same meeting did not even refer to Taiwan.
It was only afterwards, in an interview with Fox News, that Trump unusually echoed Xi’s language on Taiwan. Consequently, Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, pointed out that Taiwan is not a chess piece to be traded away on the international stage.
But Trump has now doubled down on his anti-independence stance and also suggested that Lai is pro-independence – not that Lai is, as his official position is in favour of maintaining the status quo. And so we are now concerned that the US is throwing Taiwan under the bus in order to make a deal with China.
Trump’s comments put Lai in a tough position, as defence spending is the main battleground between Lai’s pro-sovereignty DPP and the pro-unification KMT. Trump may now use US arms shipments to Taiwan as a negotiating tool with China.
It’s a strange reversal for Taiwan. Trump was initially seen as an ally when he broke with decades of diplomatic precedent to accept a phone call from Lai’s predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen. This made him look like a strong anti-China hawk, along the lines of traditional Republicans.
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But it is increasingly clear to most of the public that this is not the case. Trump is now seen as a transactional leader, willing to break with decades of precedent to get what he wants. His threat to destroy an entire civilisation in Iran did not go unnoticed in Taiwan.
It’s not as though there is panic, or that people are clamouring to get out of Taiwan. This isn’t exactly the first time the US has thrown the Taiwanese people under a bus – for one, the military dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo could only endure because of US support in the interests of anti-communism.
When the US broke ties with Taiwan – known by its official name of the Republic of China – in favour of establishing ties with China, this was also perceived as a betrayal. The enthusiasm of various presidential administrations for business deals with China, while ignoring its human rights record, was also hard to stomach.
Increased instability in the US-Taiwan relationship will probably push Taiwan towards greater self-reliance. This doesn’t mean declaring independence, exactly, but Taiwan will probably pursue a means of domestic weapons manufacture in a way that does not make it so dependent on the US.
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But this will be tough to achieve. The US is the leader in many technologies, such as drones, that would be key for Taiwan’s defence. Likewise, though Taiwan faces the threat of submarine cables being cut and other disruptions to telecommunications infrastructure, countermeasures to cope with this are difficult when the leader in satellite internet is Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Musk accompanied Trump on his trip to China and has on several occasions taken the view that Taiwan should accept an arrangement with China along the lines of Hong Kong’s “One Country, Two Systems”. The region as a whole will keep a close eye on Trump’s shifts on Taiwan. We are not the only country in the region with strong military ties to the US and a tense relationship with China. Trump suddenly backing away from support of Taiwan could be taken by such countries to indicate that they, too, could find themselves out in the cold.
That could push such other countries towards self-reliance, and closer relations with each other. In a grim irony, it could even push them towards making an accommodation with China.
Brian Hioe is a DJ from Taipei and one of the founders of New Bloom Magazine
