Opinion | Trump’s policy on Taiwan could turn the island into just another US colony as China’s threats achieve little

Overshadowed by news of the on-again, off-again June 12 summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un is the scheduled opening on the same day of the US$240 million headquarters of the American Institute in Taiwan, a de facto US embassy.

It has been reported that Marie Royce, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, is due to open the institute. It is understood that the Trump administration decided not to send a top cabinet-level official to the ceremony to avoid a strong response from Beijing.

Nevertheless, the construction of such an expensive building and its opening on the same day as the US-North Korea summit indicates not only that the US is determined to keep a strong grip on Taiwan – with which it does not have formal diplomatic relations, in honour of the one-China policy it promised to uphold in the Shanghai Communiqué – but that it plans to bolster its influence on the island.

The US has been quietly building its influence in Taiwan ever since Trump accepted a phone call from Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ying-wen, soon after winning the 2016 US presidential election. The Taiwan Travel Act he signed this March allows more high-level visits between Taiwan and US officials, and the US still regularly sells weapons to Taiwan worth billions of dollars.

Trump’s administration is filled with China hawks and the president has imposed, cut and re-imposed tariffs on China at his whim, depending on whether he feels like “punishing” China with a trade war at any given moment. His “America first” policy hardly seems to give much weight to the well-being of any nation’s priorities but his own.