“Taiwan is 9,500 miles away,” former President Donald Trump said. He told Bloomberg June 25. “68 miles from China.”
In a wide-ranging interview, the 45th president spoke as if he was ready to cede the self-governing island to Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its 34th province. As Bloomberg noted, “President Trump has made it clear that, despite recent bipartisan support for Taiwan, he is lukewarm at best on standing up to Chinese aggression.” (Related: Exclusive: Red state attorneys general subpoena local 'China service center' linked to Communist Party intelligence wing)
Other news outlets were less forgiving. A New York magazine headline screamed: “If President Trump returns to the presidency, he will encourage China to invade Taiwan.”
The United States has no formal treaty obligation to defend Taiwan. Instead, for decades it has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity,” avoiding telling either China or Taiwan what it would do in the event of an imminent conflict.
Strategic ambiguity is also intended to prevent Taiwan from invading China, but that concern has disappeared since Taiwan's democratization. Despite the changing circumstances, Washington has maintained that policy while moving closer to Taipei.
As Jonathan Chait rightly wrote in a New York piece about strategic ambiguity, Trump is “blowing it to smithereens.”
In his interview with Bloomberg, Trump also tore to shreds America's official “One China Policy,” according to which Washington recognises the People's Republic of China as the sole legitimate government of China, acknowledges Beijing's claim to Taiwan, and maintains that Taiwan's status remains in fact unsettled and that any resolution of its status must be approved by the Taiwanese people. As the State Department reiterates, US policy is based on “the Three Communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances.”
And now it's based on a Bloomberg interview.
Trump “rocked the boat” in that interview, retired Air Force General Blaine Holt told me. The former president complained that Taiwan was stealing U.S. semiconductor business — not true; U.S. companies were determined to outsource their chip factories — and argued that Taiwan needed to, in Holt's words, “put its foot in the door,” meaning it had to pay for its own defense.
Taiwan Allocate about 2.5% of gross domestic product to defense spendingNot bad numbers, but not enough given the threat of Chinese aggression.
But Taiwan's defense spending has been a problem behind the scenes. Taiwan has long wanted to spend more on its defense, but U.S. administrations have refused to sell it to it. Even when the president agreed to a sale, the Pentagon would delay it, often delivering the goods it paid for years late.
Taiwan expressed its dissatisfaction after a bipartisan congressional delegation visited Taiwan in May and met with President Lai Ching-te. The U.S. has pledged to “move forward” with sales.
The US's less-than-strong response has discouraged friendly nations on the island, making some feel they should side with China, who has been able to portray the US as untrustworthy.
Paradoxically, Trump could remedy this situation: after all, he has implied that the US would defend Taiwan if it bought more American-made weapons. “I think we're no different to an insurance policy,” the Republican presidential candidate told Bloomberg.
Trump got this wrong, because Taiwan is as important to the US as the US is to Taiwan. After the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 (which Trump points to as his successor’s unforgivable failure there), Taiwan has become a key test of US credibility and resolve around the world.
“If the US were to sit back and watch as Xi Jinping's China annexed Taiwan, it would open the door to a chain reaction of China rapidly co-opting US interests around the world,” Charles Barton of the Prague think tank Synopsys told me. Failure to defend Taiwan could destroy the US's alliance structure. What Trump doesn't understand is that without allies, Americans would have to defend themselves at their borders, not far from home as they do now. (Related article: Gordon Chan: Xi Jinping is killing our children)
Since the late 19th century, policymakers in Washington have drawn America's western defense boundary along the coast of East Asia, and Taiwan sits in the center of that boundary, where the South China Sea meets the East China Sea.
The Taiwanese islands protect the southern approach to Japan, a key U.S. ally, and the northern approach to the Philippines, a treaty power with the U.S. As a result, Taiwan prevents the Chinese navy and air force from expanding into the Western Pacific and operating near the U.S. coast.
Moreover, if Taiwan's semiconductor manufacturing operations were to fall into Chinese hands, it would cripple American business. One Taiwanese company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), produces 92% of the world's most advanced semiconductors.
And most fundamentally, in a world where the Communist Party is waging a relentless assault on democratic governance, the United States cannot allow Beijing to take over any democracy, especially one as important as Taiwan.
Taiwan could also be Washington's main weapon against the Chinese regime: The vast majority of Taiwanese people do not consider themselves “Chinese,” but many in China do, after decades of brainwashing by the regime.
Because the Chinese people view the Taiwanese as Chinese, Taiwan's vibrant democracy undermines the Communist Party's core argument that the Chinese people cannot govern themselves. In the face of almost daily Communist attacks on American democracy, the next American president should not let go of any weapon against the Chinese Communist regime, especially such a powerful weapon.
In other words, defending Taiwan is a core American interest.
Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Collapse of China and China Goes to War. Follow him on X Gordon G Chang.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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