Bonnie Glaser has spent decades working on issues related to Asia-Pacific geopolitics and US policy. She is managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific programme, a non-resident fellow with the Lowy Institute, a senior associate with the Pacific Forum, and co-author of US-Taiwan Relations: Will China’s Challenge Lead to a Crisis? This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, clickhere.
Some analysts are saying that American support for Taiwan could be conditional under next president Donald Trump, and that he could use Taiwan as a bargaining chip. What does a second Trump term mean for Taiwan, especially with a Republican-controlled Congress?
After Trump was elected in 2016, he initially tried to use Taiwan to gain leverage over Beijing. After taking a congratulatory call from then-Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen, Trump questioned whether the US should continue to adhere to a one-China policy. In an interview with Fox News Sunday, he said: “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”
Trump’s gambit failed. Instead of incentivising Beijing to negotiate with the US on trade, China refused to engage with him until he reaffirmed his commitment to the one-China policy. A few weeks after his inauguration, Trump endorsed the one-China policy in an introductory phone call with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
After the Trump-Xi summit in Mar-a-Lago in April [2017], Trump ruled out the possibility of talking directly again to president Tsai. He told Reuters that he had established “a very good personal relationship with President Xi” and said he wouldn’t want to cause difficulty for Xi and therefore before having another call with Taiwan’s president he “would certainly want to speak to [Xi] first”.
Trump likely drew lessons from this episode. In his second term as president, Trump is unlikely to take the initiative to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip. However, if Xi presents a specific task related to Taiwan, it is possible that Trump might consider whether he can use the request to obtain something that he wants. For example, I wonder if Trump might be willing to go beyond the traditional US statement that the US “does not support Taiwan independence” and accede to Xi’s appeal that Trump say that the US “opposes Taiwan independence” in return for something that he wants on trade.
Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet in Mar-a-Lago, Florida in 2017. Photo: MCT
