Trump test could prove toughest challenge for Taiwan’s next president William Lai

If Trump beats Joe Biden, former US president’s unpredictability and America-first approach could be a major headache for incoming Taiwanese leader
Trump took confrontational stance towards Beijing when in office, but has also refused to say if he thinks the US should help Taiwan if it is attacked

Taiwan

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 10:00am, 28 Jan 2024

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The prospect that Donald Trump could return to power is one of the major challenges facing Taiwan’s president-elect William Lai Ching-te.

Although Trump took a confrontational stance towards Beijing as president, since losing the 2020 election he has accused Taiwan of “taking away” chip business from the United States and questioned whether America should come to its aid if attacked by mainland China.

Lai will face a tough task in keeping the US onside if Trump wins, analysts said, especially given his transactional approach to international relations as well as his America-first and isolationist leanings.

Lai, who secured an unprecedented third term for the Democratic Progressive Party this month, will take office on May 20 when Tsai Ing-wen ends her second four-year term.

But attention is already turning to November’s US presidential election, which is looking increasingly likely to be a repeat of the 2020 match-up between Trump and Joe Biden.

Trump appears on course to secure the Republican nomination for the third time despite the multiple court cases he is facing, including criminal charges relating to his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election result and others that could result in a jail sentence.

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Observers said that if Trump returned to the White House, his approach may be very different compared with his first term, when he remained on good terms with Tsai’s government.

“The times and US-[China] relations have all changed from the period of 2016-2020,” said Alexander Huang, a professor of international relations and strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei City.

However, he did not alter the long-term US policy, which does not officially recognise the island as independent but opposes any forcible change in the status quo.

Shortly after winning the US election in 2016, Trump broke with protocol by speaking with Tsai by telephone – to the fury of Beijing which views the island as part of China and has not renounced the use of force to bring it under its control.

Max Lo, executive director of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society, said Trump was new to conventional White House-style operations then, and “this explained why he would pick up the phone and chat with Tsai Ing-wen”.

Throughout his tenure between 2017 and 2021, Trump not only lifted various in-house rules to allow high-level exchanges between the two sides but also authorised a record 11 batches of arms sales worth US$15 billion to Taiwan and signed multiple bills friendly to the island.

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Observers said Trump’s unpredictability and his “America-first” views would also be a tough challenge for Lai.

“The Lai government is expected to face even stronger punitive measures from Beijing, which has identified the president-elect as an ‘obstinate splittist’ who would bring the risk of war to Taiwan,” Lo said.

“Lai needs the US to have his back to deal with Beijing and if a second Trump term focuses only on the America-first policy, it would deal a serious blow to Lai.”

He also cited the former president’s comments last year, when Trump told Fox News that Taiwan was “taking away the chip business from the US” and refused to say if the US should intervene if the island was attacked by mainland China.

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Beijing has suspended official exchanges with Taiwan since Tsai was elected president in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle.

In addition to intensifying its military operations around Taiwan, Beijing has also poached 10 of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to ramp up the pressure on Taipei.

As the mainland views both Lai and vice-president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim, formerly de facto ambassador to the US, as hardcore separatists, Beijing’s pressure campaign would be even stronger, observers said.

Thomas Zhang, a Greater China analyst at FrontierView, a US market intelligence provider, said: “[Trump] is likely to view the US-Taiwan relationship more from a transactional perspective and could be less committed to coming to Taiwan’s aid in terms of military assistance.

“William Lai will likely be facing a tougher external environment than President Tsai both economically and politically, because Trump could be less friendly to Taiwan’s chip industry and may even exert more pressure on Taiwan for his political gains.”

William Lai will take office as Taiwan’s next president in May. Photo: AP

Tamkang University’s Huang said Lai “should buckle up first among other leaders in the region” if Trump wins.

Lo said the next Taiwanese leader needed to tread a fine line before the election. “After he takes office in May, Lai should not show he overly supports Trump as he might face a backlash from the Biden government, given that Biden would remain in power for six more months until the November poll and might win a second term,” Lo said.

Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, said Trump had become “increasingly erratic and unhinged”.

But Ross Darrell Feingold, a former Asia chairman of Republicans Abroad and political risk analyst based in Taipei, said the comment about the chip industry “was probably made out of frustration at the US lagging behind in the number of fabs it has where the latest chips are manufactured” and because he disliked US subsidies paid for foreign hi-tech companies.

He said it may not be a reliable guide to his policies if elected and he was also unsure if Trump would take a personal interest in US policy towards Taiwan.

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He added: “What we can be sure of is that his political appointees to foreign policy and national security-related jobs will be China hawks and sceptics, and, just as in the first Trump administration, very friendly to Taiwan.

“Some of the same people might return to a second Trump administration, and the vetting process for new appointees will certainly check whether potential appointees have a past relationship with China – such as in business – or were previously in a position whether in or outside government where they demonstrated support for Taiwan.”

Feingold added: “Taiwan can safely assume that a second Trump administration will be more friendly to Taiwan than a second Biden administration.”