Latest news with #GlobalTaiwanInstitute
Nikkei Asia
14-05-2025
- Business
- Nikkei Asia
There is no US-Japan trade deal in sight
Riley Walters is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and senior nonresident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute. It has been over a month since U.S. President Donald Trump announced his "Liberation Day" tariffs.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is Trump's abrupt turn on Ukraine giving Taiwan the jitters?
On the first day of China's pomp-filled National People's Congress, the yearly agenda-setting meeting of the country's rubber-stamp legislature, Beijing announced that it would ramp up its military spending by nearly $250 billion this year, an increase of more than 7%, as it continues to modernize its armed forces. Beijing has been bolstering its military rapidly while pressing, with increasing assertiveness, territorial claims over disputed islands across the South China Sea — and its claim over the democratically governed island of Taiwan. China considers Taiwan a renegade province and President Xi Jinping has vowed to reassert Beijing's control over the island for years, by force if necessary. But Taiwan has had vital backup for decades from its biggest international partner, the U.S., which is obligated under domestic American law to provide the island with sufficient means to defend itself from any aggressor. American military ships and aircraft continually ply the South China Sea's waters and skies around Taiwan, demonstrating, the U.S. military says, the right to free navigation in international space. The freedom of navigation operations have led to some tense encounters in recent years. China says Trump admin's change to U.S. fact sheet on Taiwan "further damaging" regional peace Over the past week, Taiwan's government and many of its 23 million people have watched and considered President Trump's aggressive posturing with Ukraine, and his blowup with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House last Friday in particular, with unease. "I think these events in their totality are deeply unnerving for the people of Taiwan," Russell Hsiao, the executive director at the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., told CBS News. "This seeming about-face from the United States in its position of support for Ukraine, I think, raises some doubts among people in Taiwan whether this could potentially happen to them as well, in the heat of a battle against China - to have its most important and principal security partner essentially pull the rug from underneath them." Taiwan's history with the U.S., and with Trump Since 1950 - the year after communist forces won China's civil war against the Nationalists, who then fled to Taiwan and eventually established their own, democratic administration - the U.S. has sold more than $50 billion worth of weapons to Taipei, including HIMARS rocket systems, F-16 jet fighters and dozens of advanced Abrams battle tanks, according to the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. The Taiwanese government has earmarked nearly 2.5% of its 2025 budget, nearly $20 billion, for defense. But pressure is building from the Trump administration for Taiwan to do more — similar to the pressure aimed at the United Kingdom and the European Union to bolster their defense spending as the White House seeks to shift the financial burden of supporting Ukraine onto its neighbors, and to get America's NATO allies to contribute more to the alliance. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump's nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy said Taiwan should quadruple its defense spending. "I agree with President Trump that they should be [spending] more like 10%, or at least something in that ballpark, really focused on their defense," nominee Elbridge Colby told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te quickly offered a proposal to boost his administration's defense spending to over 3%, a move that would require approval by Taiwan's congress, the Legislative Yuan. taLai has not spoken directly with Mr. Trump since the American president won reelection in November, but he conveyed his congratulations through Mr. Trump's former national security advisor, Ambassador Robert O 'Brien. That was in stark contrast to Lai's predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen. Mr. Trump, in the weeks just after his first election win in 2016, controversially accepted a congratulatory call from then-Taiwanese President Tsai, breaking decades of U.S. diplomatic protocol that was aimed at keeping relations with Beijing cordial. Mr. Trump's transition team said at the time that the presidents had spoken about, "close economic, political, and security ties," which angered Beijing. Up until that point, no U.S. president-elect or sitting president had spoken directly with a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when Washington switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Communist Party-ruled China during a detente with the Nixon administration. Taiwan may have "a better hand" with Trump While the difference in their personal engagement may be some cause for concern in Taipei, Hsiao, at the Global Taiwan Institute, played down anxiety this week, using Mr. Trump's own framing of geopolitics as a game of cards, after he told Zelenskyy that Ukraine, "does not have the cards" to make demands for U.S. security guarantees. "Taiwan does have a better hand in terms of what it can offer to the United States in terms of a reciprocal bilateral relationship," said Hsiao. "That remains a robust economic partnership, a strong security relationship and certainly a very critically-important high-tech industry." Despite its size — Taiwan covers significantly less ground than West Virginia — the densely populated island is one of the United States' top trade partners. According to U.S. government data, in 2024 it was the seventh biggest, with total estimated trade worth almost $160 billion dollars. This week, with Ukraine's critical minerals deal with the U.S. hanging in unsigned-limbo, Taiwan's most important, most valuable company, TSMC, which supplies semiconductors to some of the world's biggest companies, including Nvidia, Apple and Google, agreed a new $100 billion deal with Mr. Trump to build five new semiconductor facilities in Arizona. President Trump said it would "create thousands of jobs — many thousands of jobs, and they're high-paying jobs." He said the announcement would bring Taiwan's U.S. semiconductor investment to about $165 billion in total. "We're going to produce many chips to support AI progress and to support the smartphones' progress, and we thank President Trump again for his support," said TSMC CEO C.C. Wei, standing side-by-side with the president at the White House. Mr. Trump has frequently accused Taiwan of "stealing" from the U.S. semiconductor industry, and taking American jobs. With the agreement signed, Mr. Trump said TSMC would now be immune from the 25% tariffs he is levying across the foreign semiconductor industry. The deal likely drew a sigh of relief from leaders in Taipei, but with an increasingly pushy, vastly larger and better-armed China less than 100 miles away, they are unlikely to let their guard down. "It's very key for Taipei, its leaders, to maintain calm and [be] cool headed with regards to dealing with the Trump administration," Hsiao told CBS News. "But more needs to be done in order to make sure that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, which is of course the most important security partnership for Taiwan, remains robust and strong under the Trump administration." Dolly Parton's husband, Carl Dean, died at age 82. Here's a look back at their love story Federal employees received a new email about weekly tasks. Here's how agencies responded. Watch: Trump's full address to Congress
CBS News
05-03-2025
- Business
- CBS News
Is Trump's abrupt turn on Ukraine giving Taiwan jitters as China vows to seize the island?
On the first day of China's pomp-filled National People's Congress, the yearly agenda-setting meeting of the country's rubber-stamp legislature, Beijing announced that it would ramp up its military spending by nearly $250 billion this year, an increase of more than 7%, as it continues to modernize its armed forces. Beijing has been bolstering its military rapidly while pressing, with increasing assertiveness, territorial claims over disputed islands across the South China Sea — and its claim over the democratically governed island of Taiwan. China considers Taiwan a renegade province and President Xi Jinping has vowed to reassert Beijing's control over the island for years, by force if necessary. But Taiwan has had vital backup for decades from its biggest international partner, the U.S., which is obligated under domestic American law to provide the island with sufficient means to defend itself from any aggressor. American military ships and aircraft continually ply the South China Sea's waters and skies around Taiwan, demonstrating, the U.S. military says, the right to free navigation in international space. The freedom of navigation operations have led to some tense encounters in recent years. Over the past week, Taiwan's government and many of its 23 million people have watched and considered President Trump's aggressive posturing with Ukraine, and his blowup with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House last Friday in particular, with unease. "I think these events in their totality are deeply unnerving for the people of Taiwan," Russell Hsiao, the executive director at the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., told CBS News. "This seeming about-face from the United States in its position of support for Ukraine, I think, raises some doubts among people in Taiwan whether this could potentially happen to them as well, in the heat of a battle against China - to have its most important and principal security partner essentially pull the rug from underneath them." Taiwan's history with the U.S., and with Trump Since 1950 - the year after communist forces won China's civil war against the Nationalists, who then fled to Taiwan and eventually established their own, democratic administration - the U.S. has sold more than $50 billion worth of weapons to Taipei, including HIMARS rocket systems, F-16 jet fighters and dozens of advanced Abrams battle tanks, according to the Council on Foreign Relations think tank. The Taiwanese government has earmarked nearly 2.5% of its 2025 budget, nearly $20 billion, for defense. But pressure is building from the Trump administration for Taiwan to do more — similar to the pressure aimed at the United Kingdom and the European Union to bolster their defense spending as the White House seeks to shift the financial burden of supporting Ukraine onto its neighbors, and to get America's NATO allies to contribute more to the alliance. On Tuesday, Mr. Trump's nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy said Taiwan should quadruple its defense spending. "I agree with President Trump that they should be [spending] more like 10%, or at least something in that ballpark, really focused on their defense," nominee Elbridge Colby told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Taiwan President Lai Ching-te quickly offered a proposal to boost his administration's defense spending to over 3%, a move that would require approval by Taiwan's congress, the Legislative Yuan. taLai has not spoken directly with Mr. Trump since the American president won reelection in November, but he conveyed his congratulations through Mr. Trump's former national security advisor, Ambassador Robert O 'Brien. That was in stark contrast to Lai's predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen. Mr. Trump, in the weeks just after his first election win in 2016, controversially accepted a congratulatory call from then-Taiwanese President Tsai, breaking decades of U.S. diplomatic protocol that was aimed at keeping relations with Beijing cordial. Mr. Trump's transition team said at the time that the presidents had spoken about, "close economic, political, and security ties," which angered Beijing. Up until that point, no U.S. president-elect or sitting president had spoken directly with a Taiwanese leader since 1979, when Washington switched its diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Communist Party-ruled China during a detente with the Nixon administration. Taiwan may have "a better hand" with Trump While the difference in their personal engagement may be some cause for concern in Taipei, Hsiao, at the Global Taiwan Institute, played down anxiety this week, using Mr. Trump's own framing of geopolitics as a game of cards, after he told Zelenskyy that Ukraine, "does not have the cards" to make demands for U.S. security guarantees. "Taiwan does have a better hand in terms of what it can offer to the United States in terms of a reciprocal bilateral relationship," said Hsiao. "That remains a robust economic partnership, a strong security relationship and certainly a very critically-important high-tech industry." Despite its size — Taiwan covers significantly less ground than West Virginia — the densely populated island is one of the United States' top trade partners. According to U.S. government data, in 2024 it was the seventh biggest, with total estimated trade worth almost $160 billion dollars. This week, with Ukraine's critical minerals deal with the U.S. hanging in unsigned-limbo, Taiwan's most important, most valuable company, TSMC, which supplies semiconductors to some of the world's biggest companies, including Nvidia, Apple and Google, agreed a new $100 billion deal with Mr. Trump to build five new semiconductor facilities in Arizona. President Trump said it would "create thousands of jobs — many thousands of jobs, and they're high-paying jobs." He said the announcement would bring Taiwan's U.S. semiconductor investment to about $165 billion in total. "We're going to produce many chips to support AI progress and to support the smartphones' progress, and we thank President Trump again for his support," said TSMC CEO C.C. Wei, standing side-by-side with the president at the White House. Mr. Trump has frequently accused Taiwan of "stealing" from the U.S. semiconductor industry, and taking American jobs. With the agreement signed, Mr. Trump said TSMC would now be immune from the 25% tariffs he is levying across the foreign semiconductor industry. The deal likely drew a sigh of relief from leaders in Taipei, but with an increasingly pushy, vastly larger and better-armed China less than 100 miles away, they are unlikely to let their guard down. "It's very key for Taipei, its leaders, to maintain calm and [be] cool headed with regards to dealing with the Trump administration," Hsiao told CBS News. "But more needs to be done in order to make sure that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship, which is of course the most important security partnership for Taiwan, remains robust and strong under the Trump administration."
The National
27-02-2025
- Business
- The National
Europe won't be the template for Trump's American foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific
Ever since the war in Ukraine began, analysts had been asking what the implications were for East Asia. Now that the US has made an abrupt u-turn on its previous support for Kyiv, and startled European leaders who had assumed they would always be able to rely on America for their security, questions are being asked about the solidity of US commitments in the rest of the world. Could American President Donald Trump pull the rug from under US treaty allies in the Asia-Pacific, including the Philippines, Australia, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, the last of which does not have that status, although former president Joe Biden repeatedly spoke about the island as though it did? In the case of the latter, the comparison with Ukraine is not surprising. As Russell Hsiao of the Washington-based Global Taiwan Institute was quoted as saying earlier this week: 'Taiwan spent the better part of the past three years making the case for how the fate of democracies is intimately tied and what happens to Ukraine affects Taiwan.' Mr Trump is certainly far less bullish on the island, which China sees as a renegade province. He has regularly accused Taiwan of 'stealing' the US chip industry, and has evinced no interest in the idea of defending 'democracies' against 'autocracies', which is, in any case, a Biden-era distinction that does not fit with the transactional America First policy of the new administration. The former Trump protege Vivek Ramaswamy has said in the past that the US should defend Taiwan, should China attempt reunification by force, but only until 2028. By that point, he reckoned, the US would have achieved 'semiconductor independence', and would then have 'very different commitments, significantly lower commitments' to the island. The new President is unlikely to be at all sentimental about these relationships. Last year, he called South Korea a 'money machine', and said the country should be paying $10 billion a year – almost 10 times more than it currently does – to host the 28,500 US personnel stationed on the Korean Peninsula. Will Australia ever get the submarines it expects under the Aukus trilateral security partnership it has with the UK and US? According to Hugh White, an emeritus professor at the Australian National University and one of the country's most eminent international affairs analysts, 'Australia matters a lot less to [Trump] than it did to Biden. The best Canberra can hope for is that Trump, recognising that he has us over a barrel, will jack up the price – and not just be demanding more dollars,' he told ABC News this week. 'More likely, as the handover approaches, he will pull out of the deal. Quite possibly he will do both.' Mr White believes – and I agree with him – that 'Trump is fixated on China as an economic rival, and on keeping China out of America's backyard in the Western Hemisphere, but he has no real interest in resisting China's strategic ambitions in Asia'. If I were Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, I would be nervously wondering whether it had been wise to put all my eggs in the American security basket, and whether a return to the warmer ties with China under his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, might be possible. This also touches on a key reason why imagining that Europe could be a template for US foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific is wrong: leading members of the Trump administration have long advocated for less focus on the old continent precisely because they believe their concentration should be on East Asia, and China in particular. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called China 'the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever faced' at his Senate confirmation hearing in January, and said 'if we stay on the road we're on right now, in less than 10 years everything that matters to us in life' – from medicines to movies, he said – 'will depend on whether China will allow us to have it or not'. He added that America needed to improve its domestic industrial capability and partner with allied nations to secure its supply chains. In an interview last week, Mr Rubio was firm that US allies in the region had no interest in becoming 'sort of tributary states in a Chinese zone of influence', as he put it. 'We are a Pacific nation. We intend to remain one and maintain our relationships there. So that is a red line for us,' he pointed out. (That's particularly interesting to me, as about a decade ago I asked a US State Department official if they had any red lines in the South China Sea, and the answer was 'no'.) Elbridge Colby, Mr Trump's nominee to be Under Secretary of Defence for Policy, is a hawk who received acclaim in the US for his 2021 book titled The Strategy of Denial, which detailed how to prevent Chinese regional hegemony. Nevertheless, he has said that 'my strategy is not designed to suppress or humiliate China' but to maintain the status quo. Mr Rubio has also told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that the US 'does not support' independence for Taiwan. There are shades of opinion in the Trump administration. Elon Musk has extensive business interests in China. I believe, as I've mentioned before, that Mr Trump may well be up for some grand bargain with Beijing, and he may not value traditional allies as deeply as does Mr Rubio, who is at heart a far more conventional Republican conservative. But to conclude, there are two points that underline the difference between the new administration's approach to Europe and East Asia. First, while US Vice President JD Vance once famously said 'I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other', the region where I live does matter, very much, to the Trump White House. They care, because they believe it is imperative to Make America Great Again to do so. And second, as if this isn't clear enough by now, US engagement with the Asia-Pacific will have nothing to do with spreading democracy and liberal values, let alone some of the more exotic ideas the US government used to support abroad. As Mr Rubio put it at the end of January: 'This is an approach to foreign policy based on concrete shared interests, not vague platitudes or utopian ideologies.' When it comes to those: Sorry Europe. You're on your own. As for the Asia-Pacific, due warning has been given that the US is back, but this time shorn of any idealism, and fuelled instead by a ruthless pragmatism and relentless realism.
New York Times
25-02-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Taiwan Watches Trump Undercut Ukraine, Hoping It Won't Be Next
Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine, Taiwan's leaders joined the United States and its allies in declaring solidarity with the victim. Taiwan and Ukraine were fellow democracies, they said, each imperiled by its hulking, authoritarian neighbor. Now, President Trump's turn against Ukraine could fan debate in Taiwan about whether it can count on American support in the event of a widening conflict with China, which claims the self-governed island as its territory. 'Taiwan spent the better part of the past three years making the case for how the fate of democracies is intimately tied and what happens to Ukraine affects Taiwan,' said Russell Hsiao, the executive director of the Global Taiwan Institute, which is based in Washington. 'With the seemingly abrupt change in the U.S. position on the Ukraine war,' Mr. Hsiao said, 'this could have the effect of causing some in Taiwan to question whether the United States could pull the rug from underneath them.' For decades, Taiwan has faced the possibility of invasion by China, which now sends fighter jets and warships nearly every day to probe its defenses. Taiwan's ability to deter a potential attack hinges on whether the United States stands ready to help and even send forces. The island's leaders have made closer ties with Washington a pillar of its foreign and defense policy for nearly a decade. But as Mr. Trump executes a dramatic reversal of U.S. policy toward Ukraine, abandoning Western efforts to punish Russia for the invasion and insisting that Ukraine is to blame for the war, the United States' partners, including Taiwan, are being forced to assess their own positions and weigh how to secure Mr. Trump's support. In Taiwan, Mr. Trump's stinging comments about Ukraine could feed a current of public opinion arguing that the island has been repeatedly abandoned by Washington and cannot trust its promises. 'The prospect of the United States trying to make a deal with Russia over Ukraine, without actually giving Ukraine a seat at the table, will reinforce the sense of American skepticism in Taiwan,' said Marcin Jerzewski, the head of the Taiwan office of the European Values Center for Security Policy, which tries to foster cooperation between European and Asian democracies. Some anxiety has surfaced on social media, with a few Taiwanese commentators suggesting that if war between China and Taiwan should erupt, Mr. Trump might take a similarly transactional approach. (Taiwanese officials have said that the Chinese government covertly amplifies skeptical online talk about Washington in Taiwan.) On Sunday, dozens of Ukrainians and Taiwanese gathered outside the de facto Russian embassy in Taipei. 'Russia is the aggressor,' one organizer said — a message tacitly, yet pointedly, aimed at Mr. Trump. 'If today he could abandon Ukraine — and I don't know if he's really going to abandon Ukraine — then could he also abandon Taiwan?' said Huang Yu-hsiang, a 23-year old technician who was at the protest. 'If they don't care about values, that means they could abandon Taiwan, a consistent supporter of democracy.' Mr. Trump does not appear to have a strong commitment to Taiwanese democracy. That has contributed to concerns that he might put Taiwan's interests at risk if he negotiates a big trade deal with China's leader, Xi Jinping, who has told Mr. Trump and previous American presidents that Taiwan is a key concern in their relationship. For now, Taiwanese officials have been sounding a positive note about relations with Washington, taking care to avoid an open rift with Mr. Trump. At a security forum in Taipei last week, President Lai Ching-te cast Taiwan as a key player in democracies' struggle against authoritarian powers like as Russia, China and Iran. But Taiwan's statements of support for Ukraine have been measured lately, avoiding specifics about Mr. Trump's decisions. What does Taiwan think of the possibility that the United States might cut off support for Ukraine or force it to accept peace terms that favor Russia? Joseph Wu, the secretary general of Taiwan's National Security Council and a former foreign minister, sidestepped the question at the same security forum. 'Serving in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for six — for more than six — years, I know there are things I can say, and there are things I cannot say,' Mr. Wu said. He emphasized that Taiwan understood that it needed to strengthen its military. 'Our own fate is controlled in our hands,' he said. When President Vladimir V. Putin sent Russian forces rumbling into Ukraine in a full invasion three years ago, Taiwanese leaders had already been worried that Mr. Xi might feel emboldened to try something similar on their soil. He had overseen a harsh security crackdown in Hong Kong and a rapid buildup of China's military. Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's president at the time, and her officials drew rhetorical parallels between Taiwan and Ukraine as they sought to raise public support for their policies, including more military preparations and the strengthening of ties with other democracies. Invaders must not go unpunished, Bi-khim Hsiao, who is now Taiwan's vice president, told reporters in 2023, when she was its chief representative in Washington. 'We must ensure that anyone contemplating the possibility of an invasion understands that,' she said, 'and that is why Ukraine's success in defending against aggression is so important also for Taiwan.' It was clear to Taiwan that Mr. Trump's return to the White House would inject uncertainty into the relationship with the United States, even before his recent statements about Ukraine. As a candidate for the White House and after taking office, Mr. Trump said Taiwan was spending far too little on its military and was too complacent about the United States coming to its rescue in a war. He also accused Taiwan of unfairly gaining dominance in the manufacture of advanced semiconductors for smartphones and other technology. But Taiwanese officials and experts have said that, pressure from Mr. Trump notwithstanding, Taiwan is very different from Ukraine and more economically important to the United States. They argue that the Trump administration sees China as a more pressing challenge for the United States than Russia, and that Taiwan can be a loyal partner in that context. Mr. Lai, Taiwan's president, has been trying to head off any serious breach with Mr. Trump. This month, he announced that Taiwan would increase military spending to at least 3 percent of its economic output (up from about 2.45 percent this year). He also said the island — which has more semiconductor fabrication plants, or 'fabs,' than any other place in the world — would come up with proposals in response to Mr. Trump's demand that more such plants be built in the United States. 'From additional arms purchases and energy imports to semiconductor fabs in the United States, the Lai administration will have to come up with an optimal mix that can catch the attention of President Trump and make haste,' said Mr. Hsiao, the researcher in Washington. 'Time is really of the essence for Taipei.'
