The US and Taiwan: 2021 and Beyond

Even before Donald Trump was inaugurated as U.S. president, he showed little regard for longstanding shibboleths in the post-1979 U.S.-Taiwan relationship. In December 2016, a month after his election victory, Trump got on the phone with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in an unprecedented interaction. True, he was president-elect at the time of the call, but the fact of his direct contact with Tsai, combined with his questioning of the United States’ “One China” policy, suggested that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship was heading into territory uncharted since Washington normalized ties with Beijing.

Shortly after the administration took power, pessimists feared that Taiwan might become a pawn in U.S.-China competition. That hasn’t quite happened and the U.S. relationship with Taiwan remains an area of strong bipartisan consensus. Nevertheless, as China intensifies its pressure on Taipei, the U.S. debate on where Taiwan policy should go has intensified.

The cross-strait relationship has been gradually heating up since Tsai’s January 2016 election victory. Tsai and her party, the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, have enjoyed a strong democratic mandate built on the foundation of an unabashedly distinct “Taiwanese” identity. If there’s one lesson from the DPP’s 2016 and 2020 election victories, it’s that “Taiwanization” – the tendency of Taiwanese citizens to identify uniquely with their island and polity versus a more general idea of the “Republic of China” – is inexorable. Unsatisfied with what it sees as Tsai’s dangerous flirtations with independence – something she and her party do not officially support – Beijing has taken to militarily encircling Taiwan with regular naval and air force operations, plucking off its increasingly short list of diplomatic allies, and economically isolating Taipei.

In 2020, Taiwan has enjoyed a surge in global support. Unlike China, it did not mishandle the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. By contrast, Taipei stood as a global icon. Across the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere, Taiwan‘s reputation as a model – particularly for democracies struggling with the pandemic – is strong. But that hasn’t stopped Taipei’s troubles. Even in the earliest days of the pandemic’s outbreak in China, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and Navy (PLAN) conducted multiple operations through the Taiwan Strait, the strategically pivotal Bashi Channel, and the Miyako Strait. PLAAF J-11 fighters, KJ-500 airborne early warning and control (AEWC) aircraft, and H-6 bombers participated in these drills, which coincided with significant Taiwanese domestic political developments. For instance, the generally more China-friendly opposition Kuomintang party earlier this year elevated Johnny Chiang, a China skeptic, to the chairmanship in March. Around this time, the PLAAF continued to saber rattle – even as the U.S. Navy maintained its regional presence.

Recognizing Taipei’s predicament and making good on U.S. commitments to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act, the Trump administration has overseen the authorization of several significant arms deals. These have included, to date, sales of Standard Missile-2 anti-air missile, MK 54 lightweight torpedoes, advanced electronic warfare suites, AGM-154C air-to-ground missiles, spare parts for Taipei’s F-16s, more than 100 M1A2T main battle tanks, and, most recently, 66 F-16C/D Block 70 fighters. Reporting in September, meanwhile, suggests that the administration continues to plan for further arms sales with Taipei – with the possibility of some authorizations even coming through before the U.S. presidential election in November. Taipei continues to seek a range of systems, including sea mines, cruise missiles, and drones that could allow it to better resist a cross-strait amphibious invasion attempt.

Alongside these steps to enhance Taiwan’s ability to help itself, Washington has also taken other unconventional steps that break with years of precedent. In the final days of August, David Stilwell, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, oversaw the declassification of the famous “Six Assurances” former U.S. President Ronald Reagan had given Taiwan. The administration’s decision suggested an interest in signaling resolve to China that Washington would incur costs to defend Taipei. Declassifying the assurances also corrected the historic record on how the United States, in the context of the early 1980s, viewed the U.S.-Taiwan relationship. A separate declassification of a memo sent in July 1982, from then U.S. Under Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, underscored that future U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would be predicated on Chinese behavior. In the current context, as China continues to saber rattle across the Strait, Stilwell argued, robust U.S. support for Taiwan was to be expected.

Outside the administration in the United States, the debate concerning the near-future of U.S.-Taiwan ties has intensified. Writing in Foreign Affairs in early September, Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and David Sacks made the case for a formal collective security assurance for Taipei – something that does not currently exist, despite the widespread expectation that Washington should defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression.

The call for “strategic clarity” in place of the post-1979 “strategic ambiguity,” however, is contentious. Critics, even those who support strong U.S.-Taiwan ties, see this idea as generating moral hazard for Taipei, which they claim has not made the proper investment in its own defensive capabilities. For instance, Taiwan has invested considerably in capabilities that grant it freedom for maneuver in peacetime, such as fighter aircraft, but less in the capabilities that would be important in effectively practicing deterrence-by-denial against the PLAN and PLAAF across the Taiwan Strait. With an election around the corner in Washington, the time appears ripe for broader soul-searching about how the United States should navigate these challenges in coordination with Taipei.

There's also just so much the United States can do unilaterally for Taiwan’s security. Regional allies, including and especially Japan, understand that they do not have the luxury of sitting out a potential Taiwan Strait crisis or conflict in the future. A change of government in Tokyo has elevated Kishi Nobuo, brother of outgoing Prime Minster Abe Shinzo, to the Ministry of Defense in Japan. Kishi is known to be a particularly pro-Taiwan figure within the ruling Japanese Liberal Democratic Party. Tokyo's relationship with Taipei has been close, but delicate, in recent years. It is conceivable that cross-strait deterrence of China may be somewhat enhanced by Tokyo continuing to modernize its own military capabilities while consulting with the United States on how it may play a role to facilitate Taiwan’s defense should deterrence fail.

As great power competition between the United States and China intensifies, Taiwan’s position will remain in the spotlight. Structural factors in the region and long-developing shifts in Taiwanese domestic politics are beginning to make clear to Beijing that the sort of “peaceful unification” that it once imagined may no longer be attainable. The United States and its allies in the Asia-Pacific must reckon with what Taiwan’s status represents for the broader future of the region. Asia’s future may well hang in the balance.