Taipei, Taiwan — A mammoth bust of Chiang Kai-sheck lords over the lobby of Taiwan’s foreign ministry. He stands a silent sentinel overlooking the flags representing all of the 12 nations that formally recognize Taiwanese sovereignty over their island. On the surface, that modest collection of friendly states — many of which are tiny island states themselves — is a testament to China’s efforts to isolate its neighbor. But the country’s many commercial and military partnerships with great Western powers betray the relative inefficacy of China’s bullying.
While diplomatic recognition matters, the absence of that status is no obstacle to mutual defensive partnerships. Joe Biden made that plain in 2022 when he abandoned America’s traditional posture of “strategic ambiguity” and pledged the commitment of U.S. forces to Taiwan’s defense in the event of hostilities with the mainland. I asked Taiwan’s foreign minister, Dr. Chia-Lung Lin, about Biden’s declaration and legislation the president signed last month providing Taipei with $567 million in military aid. Has Taiwan engaged in any formal coordination with the Pentagon to integrate the U.S. and Taiwanese militaries in preparation for a potential conflict? Without going into details, Lin confirmed high-level “collaboration” was ongoing. “We are grateful to the U.S. for treating us as a reliable partner,” Lin added.
But what about the aid? It’s little more than a stop-gap measure. Will Taiwan satisfy its critics who insist the embattled country must commit vast new sums to its own defense? I received a practiced response.
Taiwan had already increased its defense budget by 80 percent over the last eight years, Lin explained, from $330 billion NTD ($10.5 billion USD) to $660 billion NTD ($21 billion USD). As a percentage of GDP, Taiwan’s defense expenditures grew from 2 to 2.5 percent — more than many NATO allies commit to their own militaries. And, of course, the American president cannot simply go rogue when it comes to U.S. commitments to Taiwan’s defense. All American arms sales to Taipei are “guided by the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA),” he reminded his audience.
Nor are America’s contributions to Taiwan charity, Lin continued. “China is the decisive enabler,” he later declared, citing Beijing’s contributions to Russia’s war effort amid its campaign of conquest in Ukraine. The threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party is “not only to Taiwan but also the world.” China and Russia are “forming a coalition,” and the only proper response is to develop a defensive alliance in the Pacific to counter that menace. A Pacific version of NATO — what Lin described as a “lattice-like security framework,” in which Taiwan takes on a central, formal role is one of this government’s core strategic objectives. “We’re all on the same boat,” Lin noted. But Taipei’s partnership with the U.S., in particular, is uniquely “vital for Taiwan’s survival.”
The TRA, the law that governs all non-diplomatic relations between Washington and Taipei, may prove a flimsy bulwark against American political actors who resent the status quo. One of whom may succeed Biden in the White House. “Taiwan should pay us for defense,” Donald Trump told Bloomberg reporters this summer. “You know, we’re no different than an insurance company.”
Summoning all the tact of which he was capable, deputy foreign minister Wu Chih-chung François casually dismissed the significance of Trump’s disparagement of both Taiwan and the United States. “We already pay for our own defense,” he laughed when I confronted him with Trump’s remarks. “For the past 50 years, I think, Taiwan [has taken] charge of our own defense issues. And when we buy a new weapon, we have already paid.”Military aid is “not given by the U.S., not given by France,” he added. “We are not particularly worried about what Trump is saying. We already do what he’s saying.”
Wu echoed a notion I’d heard from a variety of other Taiwanese sources insofar as his country’s deterrent capabilities extend to the commercial realm, too. “If China [attacks] Taiwan, immediately the factories of the world will stop to function. Because every factory in the world needs semiconductors,” he added. “The world needs Taiwan, and Taiwan needs the world.”
Presumably, Taiwan’s overwhelming dominance in the semiconductor sector represents a threat not just to its enemies but to its friends, too. Maybe Taiwan’s appeals to our shared normative values — our respective democratic governments, our commitment to the rule of law, and our mutual prosperity guaranteed by the U.S.-led world order — will fail to persuade those in the West who balk at the commitments our allies impose on us. However, where values might fail, holding out the prospect that Chinese aggression would put a grinding halt to the material conditions that make modernity possible might prove more convincing.
Neither Lin nor Wu seemed especially concerned about the outcome of the coming presidential election — though they, like every foreign political observer I encountered, are paying close attention to this unconventional presidential election cycle’s machinations at a granular level. Wu was particularly dismissive of a questioner who set out to gauge his thoughts on the “threat” Trump’s potential restoration to the presidency posed to democracy itself. “Who says their leaders are the best?” he asked. Not the citizens of the world’s democratic countries, which are rife with factionalism and disunion. Only the authoritarian countries in his neighborhood — North Korea and the People’s Republic of China — can boast a false consensus in support of their totalitarian despotisms. And it’s all a mirage. “If we opened our frontier,” Wu speculated, Taiwan would quickly become “flooded by Chinese nationals.”
The Taiwanese know democracy is a messy thing. Its governing officials understand politics, and its leaders seem perfectly capable of compartmentalizing campaign-trail rhetoric. At least, that’s what they’re willing to tell a visiting American journalist.