Taiwan fears Trump will speak off-script on its fate in Beijing
TAIPEI, Taiwan — A determined Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to the White House podium on Tuesday and announced that, under President Trump’s leadership, the United States was launching a bold new operation to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, based on the principle of freeing international waterways.
An hour later, Trump reversed everything and ended the complex military effort less than a day later.
For America’s allies, it was the latest proof that the words of the US government depend entirely on the whims of the president. Those are the concerns fueling anxiety in Taipei ahead of Trump’s state visit to China this week.
Two sources familiar with the discussions said senior administration officials privately assured Taiwan’s leadership ahead of the trip that Trump had no intention of changing longstanding U.S. policy on the island; this has been a stance of “strategic ambiguity” that has avoided making any clear-cut statements about Taiwan independence since it was put forward by Henry Kissinger 55 years ago.
A White House official firmly stated that U.S. policy toward Taiwan “remains the same as the first Trump administration.”
“The US One China policy, as our cross-Strait policies are collectively known, is based on the Taiwan Relations Act, the three US-PRC Joint Declarations, and the Six Assurances to Taiwan,” the official said. “There is no change in our policy regarding Taiwan.”
But Chinese officials told The Times that their president, Xi Jinping, plans to raise the issue as a priority, knowing that only one person will speak on behalf of the administration today – Trump himself.
A key concern here is whether Xi can leverage the familiarity of his private audience to change Trump’s stance and potentially tie it to other U.S. goals.
Taiwanese officials fear that even the most subtle rhetorical shift in Trump’s policy could jeopardize the fragile status quo that has worked to his advantage for decades. They similarly sought assurance that the administration would pursue a pending U.S. arms sale valued at more than $10 billion, which won approval from Taiwan’s legislature on Friday.
“The most serious scenario would be for President Trump to make an offhand statement like ‘I oppose Taiwan independence,’ especially if he links it to trade, the Iran issue or a summit agreement,” said Chienyu Shih, a senior fellow at Taiwan’s Institute of National Defense and Security Studies. “This would represent a significant rhetorical concession for Beijing.”
Rubio told reporters at a news conference Tuesday that China understands Washington’s longstanding position on the island, expressing similar confidence on the Iran dossier.
“I’m sure Taiwan will be a topic of conversation. It always is. The Chinese understand our stance on this issue — and we understand theirs,” Rubio said.
“I think both countries understand that it is not in any of our interests for anything destabilizing to happen in this part of the world,” he added. “We do not need destabilizing events to occur in Taiwan or elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific. This is in the mutual interest of both the United States and China.”
Trump has previously expressed his desire to change US policy towards Taiwan.
Trump openly questioned the One China policy during his first presidential campaign in 2016, drawing Beijing’s ire for suggesting he might support Taiwan independence. Following his victory, he accepted the call of the Taiwanese president and would later support significant arms sales to Taipei.
But Trump hesitated in a meeting with Xi in 2017, telling the Chinese leader he could “resolve” the Taiwan issue “within a few months,” according to the Wall Street Journal. The Chinese were reportedly so taken aback by this comment that they dismissed it as a rhetorical flourish.
“There are concerns that the conversation between the two leaders could veer into sensitive territory on Taiwan,” said Brian Hart, deputy director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, “but there are still many in the administration who will appreciate the importance of overall continuity in U.S. policy.”
US support for Taiwan’s democratic movement used to be a matter of principle. Today Washington sees this as a matter of national security. More than 60% of semiconductors, including 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, are produced in Taiwan. And it is seen as part of the first island chain to guard against China’s maritime expansion.
A fierce debate between Taiwan’s Cabinet and the parliamentary opposition ended Friday over how much to spend on U.S. defense equipment, not whether to accept it. The Legislative Yuan approved $24 billion in purchases, including a defense package passed by Congress in December and the pending arms sale, falling short of Taipei’s $40 billion offer.
Anticipation for the president’s state visit is high in the capital, where local news is filled with questions about the impact of Trump’s war in Iran on his appetite to support Taiwan.
Chinese defense analysts see the war as a sign of US weakness. But Taiwanese defense experts have learned a different lesson: Cheap equipment for a smaller army, such as stupid mines dropped into the Strait, can be enough to cripple a superpower.
The latest US National Security Strategy, released by the Trump administration in December, emphasized the importance of support for Taiwan and the status quo.
But the Taiwanese noted that the strategy also called for an end to forever wars in the Middle East, offering little preview of the president’s sudden strategic move against Iran in February, setting off a war few saw coming.
Jyh-Shyang Sheu, a Taiwan-based expert on Chinese politics and military capabilities, said “it may be difficult to predict” what Trump chooses to say in China.
But “we’re still focusing on US policy in Taipei,” he added, “we’re focusing more on what they do rather than what they say.”
