The U.S. allegedly canceled or postponed several Taiwanese officials’ visits to the U.S., including President Lai Ching-te's New York stopover and Defense Minister Wellington Koo’s scheduled trip to meet with Pentagon officials. TaiwanPlus spoke with Bonnie Glaser, the managing director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund to find out why.
00:00How should we interpret alleged reports that the U.S. Council Minister Gu's visit to the U.S.?
00:06And what does that signal for the U.S.-Taiwan relations?
00:10There appear to have been several factors, I think, that led to this postponement, if this is in fact what took place.
00:18The U.S. conducted major strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities at the end of June.
00:24It was reported that that was the primary reason.
00:27But I think it's fair to say that it was also likely that some U.S. officials worried that a visit by Taiwan's defense minister could complicate U.S.-China trade negotiations.
00:38And the Financial Times reported that Minister Gu's visit was actually canceled after a call between President Trump and China's leader Xi Jinping.
00:48I'm confident that these policy talks will be rescheduled.
00:52But it is unclear whether they will be held at the level that was initially planned.
00:59As for what this signals, it suggests to me that there's a high level of sensitivity in the Trump administration about the U.S.-China relationship.
01:08It looks like the trade talks between China and the U.S. have played a key role in the cancellation or delay of President Lai's and Minister Gu's visit to the U.S.
01:19To what extent do you think Beijing's economic leverage is influencing the decision making in the Trump administration?
01:28In terms of Beijing's leverage, I think what is really new is the willingness of China to deploy the rare earth restrictions against the United States.
01:40They did this in 2010 against Japan.
01:42It had mixed results.
01:45The Japanese were able to obtain the deliveries of the rare earth magnets through various means.
01:51And ultimately, China lifted those restrictions.
01:56But now the new element is that in our negotiations with China, the United States has allowed export controls to be on the table.
02:08We have never before said that any of our export controls are negotiable.
02:15Previous administrations, particularly the Biden administration, but before the first Trump administration, refused to do this, saying this is connected to U.S. national security.
02:26But because of the nature of decisions that were taken, I think, by the Trump administration, the Chinese decided that this was a weapon that they were ready to use.
02:37And so they have weaponized rare earths.
02:40How significant is a presidential or cabinet level visits to the U.S. in the U.S.-Taiwan relations, given that the two still have cooperations in many other aspects?
02:50Simply postponing one round of defense policy talks or postponing a presidential transit does not signal at all that there is any weakening in the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, although some may want to interpret it that way.
03:10And it may be used as a narrative potentially Beijing might like to use this to send disinformation or propaganda to Taiwan that the United States is unreliable, which it has been doing over the last few years, trying to convince the public in Taiwan that the United States is unreliable and would never come to Taiwan's defense.
03:36So that that is a potential problem that I think could be a consequence of the postponement of these visits.
