As World History Turns, Has Tsai Administration Waken from Anti-China Dream？
United Daily News Editorial, January 24, 2021
Representative to the United States Bi-khim Hsiao was invited to the inaugural ceremony of President Joe Biden. The National Security Council of the White House expressed that U.S. commitment to Taiwan is rock-solid. This comment has immediately been propagandized by the blowhard administration of President Tsai Ing-wen as a great diplomatic breakthrough, as to cover its lacking of confidence in its own all-out pro-American policy. While the Biden administration adjusts U.S. relations with mainland China and Taiwan, does the Tsai administration remain reluctant to remove its role as Donald Trump’s daring anti-China vanguard?
There were several Mr. Trump’s moves of “last-minute madness” before he stepped down. For instance, the Department of State’s proclaimed removal of self-imposed restrictions on officially contacts with Taiwan and suddenly announced then canceled Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft’s visit to Taiwan. The Trump administration then released a “Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific”; and so on. All these moves were unceasing series of drama which Taiwan has its role deeply involved. Before departing the White House, Mr. Trump set up Taiwan as a trap for his successor, essentially leaving behind a political legacy, which his successor may not embrace, rather difficult to overturn. With Mr. Biden in office, Taiwan may worry less about the Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, a policy about which Taiwan has mixed feelings of hope and fear.
In the Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, a confidential document drafted by White House National Security Council in 2017 and ratified by Mr. Trump in 2018, asserts that the United States ought to support Taiwan to make effective asymmetric international strategy and abilities, and to include Taiwan as a country the United States should defense within the first island chain nations. This document, classified as confidential, was released 30 years in advance prior to the transfer of power. It was obvious to make President Biden difficult to overturn Mr. Trump’s political legacy.
However, this document has exposed many contradictions of Mr. Trump’s full range anti-China policies. Following are some examples. While hoping to build up an international consensus to deal with China, Mr. Trump’s “America First” was a great destroyer to such a consensus. To cope with China’s economic challenges, Mr. Trump chose to withdraw from Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and let China to lead Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). In the aspect to strengthen the U.S.-ASEAN relations, Mr. Trump made himself the absentee of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit without regret. In his efforts to comprehensively contain China, Mr. Trump has offended almost all his European allies, that was simply to open a back-door for China’s straight walk-in, and to make rapidly the Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between China and Europe. In the aspect of promoting “American value” to keep American influences and to balance the Chinese model of governance, Mr. Trump utilized his supporters to destruct American values. The worst of all, Mr. Trump intended to restore the Cold War mentality and reverse the path of world history.
In the Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, Mr. Trump has become the most supportive president of the United States towards Taiwan. While defense of Taiwan is not equivalent to dispatching troops to Taiwan, yet that was the clearest outline set by Mr. Trump in defending Taiwan’s security. However, quite contradictory, Mr. Trump also has pushed the Taiwan Strait to the utmost level of risk among all global potential conflicts. Mr. Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed that United States will keep its commitments in order to ensure Taiwan’s self-defense capability. The commitment of the Biden administration is not as strong as that of the Trump administration. Mr. Trump is unpredictable, yet what the Biden administration needs now is not an anti-China vanguard. In fact, Mr. Trump’s Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific has completely defined the nature of U.S.-Taiwan relations in the last three years, and provided answers for many recent controversies happened in Taiwan.
For instance, the recent lifting of the ban for importing American pork with ractopamine residual, could not earn a long-waited and highly-hoped negotiation for the United States-Taiwan bilateral economic and trade agreement. From the Trump administration’s Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to President Biden’s new Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, both of them have clearly expressed that currently there would not be a new trade agreement. It turned out that Tsai administration had fought a scorched earth of ractopamine pork for nothing. Such a sacrifice was never for the sake of trade agreement, but merely showing loyalty to Mr. Trump.
One more example: The Tsai administration’s “Southbound Policy” to ASEAN countries, started in her first term, has hardly found way out; it survives as an achievement by keep pumping in money. When the “United States Strategic Framework for the Indo-pacific” has come to light, Tsai administration eventually found a new opportunity as to link Taiwan into America’s Indo-Pacific strategy. It was not a move to find new trade opportunities for Taiwan but made Taiwan a member in the American-led front against China.
On one hand, Mr. Trump has provided great support to Tsai administration in order to increase its anti-China strength, yet on the other hand Tsai administration has been held hostage and lost its independence and capability. The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) has bluntly get involved in Taiwan’s elections and political disputes. The AIT also openly rebuked Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen for her anti-ractopamine pork position. Legislative Yuan Speaker Yu Shyi-kun has once disclosed that when National Communications Commission (NCC) was budgeting the subsidy to 5G tele-communications businesses: “The AIT people came to talk to me.” It shows that the AIT has get involved in our policy-making and budget reviewing process. It looks as if the quasi-embassy is a supervisor of the Tsai administration.
After a four-year turmoil of the previous Trump administration, President Biden can hardly and totally overturn Mr. Trump’s anti-China framework, yet he may make some adjustments. Taiwan has sacrificed cross-strait relations politically and, highly dependent on the mainland Chinese market economically, compressed its defense in depth, and narrowed its international space. Mr. Biden is about to let the United States rejoin the international community from which Mr. Trump has withdrawn. While the train of world history is turning, has the Tsai administration waken up from the four years of its anti-China dream?