Analysis: Taiwan's Diplomatic Strategy for Incoming Trump Administration

TaiwanPlus News

As Donald Trump returns to the White House, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te's administration will have to adopt new diplomatic strategies. TaiwanPlus speaks to political scientist Wei-Ting Yen to find out what Taipei's priorities will be.

Transcript

00:00What policy priorities might President Lai make with the incoming President-elect Donald Trump administration?

00:07I think the Lai administration will have to have a different strategy moving forward

00:14because in the past eight years under Tsai Ing-wen's administration, especially after 2020,

00:21we know she has been advocating for the importance of Taiwan through the lens of CHIPS,

00:27but also the democracy, the value of democracy.

00:31But we know the new Trump administration is not very value-focused,

00:39so promoting Taiwan as a democracy might not be as effective diplomatically to the new administration.

00:48And so I think for the Lai administration, they will continue working with the U.S. on the security front,

00:58as well as making partnership in other aspects.

01:02So if the U.S. and Taiwan do need to find additional values,

01:05what sort of priorities might the Lai administration set and what kind of cautions should they take?

01:12So I think the most important kind of consensus that every party in this triangular relationship will agree

01:24is that maintaining peace and stability across straits is important.

01:30No one wants a war, and the U.S. does not want another war right now in the world.

01:37And so I think that should be a key message moving forward,

01:44which means that Taiwan will want to welcome more substantive support on cooperation,

01:55military training, on getting more weapons, getting the weapons we already paid for,

02:03instead of having some lip service to support Taiwan publicly,

02:09which may unnecessarily escalate the cross-strait relation while Taiwan is not getting any benefits substantively.

02:20I think that is the area we want to avoid.

02:24So how then might President Lai maintain Taiwan's security priorities while also cooperating with the United States?

02:32On the security front, I think it is important to continue all the cooperation Taiwan already has with the U.S.

02:42and making sure that we can continue having that cooperation quietly moving forward.

02:51I do have one concern, which is that under the Trump administration, it's becoming more uncertain.

03:00One reason is Trump himself is a more uncertain leader.

03:05The second reason is because this is his second term.

03:10So we're going to see intra-party competition emerging very soon.

03:16And so Taiwan should be very cautious to be caught up in the intra-party competition

03:23and to be cautious that the possibility that some Republican politicians in the fight against China may jeopardize Taiwan's interest.

Category

Transcript

Recommended