Taiwan’s former president Tsai ing-wen surprised observers of international affairs during her keynote address in late November at the prestigious Halifax International Security Forum. She urged the United States to prioritize military assistance to Ukraine before shifting Washington’s focus to Taiwan. “They [the Americans] should do whatever they can to help the Ukrainians. We [Taiwan] still have time.”
It was an odd statement on multiple levels. Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party had consistently given high priority to both arms purchases and de facto security commitments from the United States. That certainly was true during her own administration, especially as Beijing increased both the number and scope of its military exercises in waters near Taiwan throughout her second term. Given the surge in tensions across the Strait, it must have seemed especially peculiar for a DPP leader to choose this moment to advocate de-prioritizing Washington’s security commitment to her own homeland.
Pressing the United States to increase its military assistance to Ukraine also was decidedly unhelpful. Joe Biden’s lame-duck administration has taken numerous steps recently that have exacerbated already dangerous features of the war between Ukraine and Russia. The president’s decision authorizing Kyiv to use U.S.-supplied ATACM missiles to strike deeply into Russian territory has ratcheted tensions between Moscow and NATO to unprecedented levels. The Kremlin responded to Washington’s provocation by deploying a new generation of hypersonic missiles. It also embraced a revised nuclear doctrine that noticeably lowers the threshold for Russia’s willingness to use nuclear weapons.
The timing of Tsai’s interjection also was unhelpful for multiple reasons. Given Biden’s long-standing, reckless support for Ukraine, everyone should hope that he gets through the final weeks of his presidency without further escalating conflict with nuclear-armed Russia. Tsai’s advocacy of undiminished U.S. military support for Ukraine increases the risk of a fatal blunder during the twilight of the Biden presidency.
Her position, though, is likely to be spurned by a Trump administration. There is no question that Trump and his new national security team regard Beijing’s likely conduct, both economically and militarily, as a more serious problem than anything pertinent to Ukraine. Although he may again encounter the ridiculous smear from his first term that he is “Putin’s puppet,” Washington’s Ukraine military intervention faces ongoing eroding public support in the United States. The new administration certainly does not detect any mandate to continue pouring tens of billions of dollars into Kyiv’s corrupt coffers. There is likely to be even less sustainable public support for the enhanced danger of war with Russia that the Biden administration has bequeathed to Trump. The new president will have numerous incentives to bring the Ukraine morass to an end as soon as possible, not perpetuate it by engaging in new provocations toward Moscow.
Conversely, there is a strong likelihood that U.S. policy toward the PRC, which was surprisingly uncompromising under Biden, will become even more so during Trump’s second term. Manifestations of an extremely hardline stance are already emerging with respect to trade policy even before the president-elect takes office. Trump has stated that he wants to impose a 35 percent tariff on imports from China as well as 25% on those from major U.S. trading partners Mexico and Canada.
It is less certain yet whether Trump will seek to expand Washington’s security ties with Taiwan. However, those links greatly increased during his first term, and much to the surprise of many outside observers, continued to flourish during Biden’s years in the White House. There is now pervasive bipartisan support in Congress and American public opinion for Taiwan as a vibrant democracy and de facto U.S ally.
Congress’ strongly pro-Taiwan attitude is combined with growing wariness in the United States about the PRC’s military intentions and capabilities. Increasingly, members of America’s political and policy elites seem to regard China as a U.S. rival just slightly less odious—and potentially more dangerous--than Russia. Indeed some key Trump allies, including Vice President-elect J. D. Vance openly regard the PRC, not Russia, as America’s principal geo-political rival and security threat. Given the widespread bipartisan support for a tough stance toward China, combined with Trump’s own inclinations, a confrontational U.S. stance toward the PRC on security as well as economic issues is probable. And Taiwan is the most likely flashpoint.
President Xi Jinping clearly is worried about the trajectory of U.S.-PRC relations. During an official visit to Peru in November to celebrate Beijing’s growing economic ties with that country, Xi took the occasion to admonish the United States about its recent, disturbingly belligerent international behavior.He especially emphasized the need for a superpower to treat other major powers with caution and respect. It was apparent that the conduct of the outgoing Biden administration in creating new military confrontations with Russia he found especially worrisome. However, it was likely that he also considered Washington’s overall attitude toward the PRC increasingly unfriendly, if not outright menacing.
When Beijing negotiated a peace accord between Iran and Saudi Arabia, instead of expressing appreciation to China for helping to reduce tensions in the Middle East, the United States stoked tensions by imposing new sanctions on Iran’s principal ally, Syria. Washington’s response to the PRC’s efforts to mediate the war between Russia and Ukraine was even more negative. The underlying message was clear: The United States was the hegemonic power in Europe, and it was using Ukraine as a military proxy to crush Russia’s power. China’s interference (even if it might help bring the bloodshed in Ukraine to an early conclusion) was not welcome.
Such developments do not bode well for the future of U.S.-PRC relations. Tsai’s odd efforts to de-prioritize military ties between Washington and Taipei might temporarily restrain the more aggressive impulses of the Trump administration in East Asia, but she did so by reducing the chances that the new president will follow his inclination to terminate NATO’s bloody and disastrous proxy war in Ukraine. The bottom line is that if a repetition of the Ukraine-style catastrophe in either Eastern Europe or East Asia is to be avoided, the Trump White House needs to heed Xi’s admonition about how a responsible superpower must behave.
