Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s recent diplomatic trip from July 11 to 22 included two nights in the United States. Two days before Tsai’s departure, the United States showed support for its unofficial ally by tentatively approving arms sales worth US$2.2 billion to Taiwan. However, there are three reasons why Trump can hardly expect to save Taiwan from diplomatic isolation. First, China keeps an eye on it. Since Tsai’s inauguration three years ago, Taiwan has seen a significant improvement in relations with the US, Japan and like-minded nations in Europe. US Senator Cory Gardner, chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy, visited Taiwan last May, just two days after Burkina Faso switched sides from Taipei to Beijing. During his stay, Gardner emphasised that this “bipartisan [US] legislation will help ensure that major international organisations do not turn a blind eye to our ally Taiwan simply because of China’s bullying tactics”. Gardner has reintroduced the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act, or the Taipei Act . That is why Tsai visited Denver on July 20. But if anything is certain, it is that Beijing will not turn a blind eye to Gardner’s proposed legislation. No wonder that China’s ambassador Cui Tiankai tweeted on July 12, “#Taiwan is part of #China. No attempts to split China will ever succeed. Those who play with fire will only get themselves burned. Period.” In her book The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State , Elizabeth C. Economy of the Council on Foreign Relations pointed out that Xi Jinping’s dual-reform trajectories – a more authoritarian system at home and a more ambitious foreign policy abroad – provide Beijing with new levers of influence the US must learn to exploit to protect its own interests. While Tsai may curry favour among Western politicians, she must explain to them how she will promote stability in the Taiwan Strait. Otherwise, the US is likely to not sacrifice its own national interests to provide Taiwan with support. Second, Latin America choosing sides. Rhetoric aside, Taiwan’s diplomatic situation is precarious. There is a fear that the island’s remaining diplomatic allies will look to China, producing an avalanche of severed ties in the near future. Burkina Faso’s severing of ties with Taipei in 2018 came less than a month after the Dominican Republic cut its ties with Taiwan. El Salvador also switched sides from Taipei to Beijing on August 21. The move drops Taiwan’s diplomatic count to 17. Now more than ever, Hong Kong is key to Taiwan unification It is true that Taiwan remains a moral and economic developmental model for Latin America. However, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has also become attractive for Taiwan’s allies in Latin America. Panama is a great example of a country that decided that the benefits of friendship with China are too good to pass up. Five months after China and Panama established official diplomatic relations, Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela visited Beijing in November 2017. Going forward, Panama is likely to play a key part in China’s efforts in Latin America, with the Panama Canal and the country’s strong financial and logistics platforms giving China key infrastructure capabilities in the region. How the belt and road could lead Vietnam away from green energy Third, Tsai does not believe in the one-China principle, and one of the most important reasons for Taiwan’s current diplomatic predicament is Tsai’s unwillingness to endorse the principle. This 1992 policy stated that both Beijing and Taipei recognised that there is only one China, but each had different interpretations of what that meant. As a ghostwriter of Lee Teng-hui’s “special state-to-state relationship” in 1999, Tsai doesn’t believe Taiwan is part of “one China”. Now, as leader of the Democratic Progressive Party, her responsibility for this stance is clear. As long as the DPP remains inflexible on its stance towards independence, it is unlikely that there will be a ceasefire in the diplomatic war between Beijing and Taipei. Worse, “peaceful reunification” has proved elusive after Tsai’s election as president in 2016. Consequently, “some Chinese nationalists now argue that China has only a brief window of opportunity to seize Taiwan. Talk of ‘forceful reunification’ is ascendant”, as was argued in Foreign Affairs earlier this year. The next possible diplomatic battlefield will be the Northern Triangle of Central America. The US was not at all happy with the move by El Salvador to ditch Taiwan for China. Senior US Senator Marco Rubio even described the decision as a “terrible mistake” and one which would “cause real harm to relationships with US”. The more China reduces Taiwan’s diplomatic space, the more Tsai’s creative use of unofficial diplomacy grows. Tsai’s recent journey included a meeting with envoys from Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and receiving an award from Freedom House president Michael Abramowitz. This trend is likely to continue in the run-up to Taiwan’s presidential elections in January, and elicit greater vitriol from Beijing – and perhaps military intimidation or the poaching of Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic allies – as relations between Washington and Taipei gradually change. Indeed, Taiwan needs permanent allies, but as the great Lord Palmerston noted in the 19th century, “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests”. Does Taiwan have the power and capability to satisfy its current allies’ permanent interests? If not, it will be nearly impossible to keep them allies. Dr Antonio C. Hsiang is professor and director of the Center for Latin American Economy and Trade Studies at Chihlee University of Technology, Taiwan