Donald Trump is once again president of the United States. His previous foreign policies started a trade war with China and raised questions over the U.S.' commitments to allies in the region. Now, many are wondering what his foreign policy on Taiwan will be.
On this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out, TaiwanPlus reporter Aadil Brar is joined by Rorry Daniels, managing director at Asia Society Policy Institute, to discuss what attitude Trump could take toward Taiwan and his new administration's Asia-Pacific policy.
On this episode of Zoom In Zoom Out, TaiwanPlus reporter Aadil Brar is joined by Rorry Daniels, managing director at Asia Society Policy Institute, to discuss what attitude Trump could take toward Taiwan and his new administration's Asia-Pacific policy.
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00:00Welcome to zoom in zoom out, your global look at news from Taiwan, I am Adil Brar.
00:18Donald Trump is now officially the President of the United States.
00:22His foreign policies in the first terms escalated a trade war with China and left many Asia
00:27Pacific allies guessing about US commitment to the region.
00:31Now with a new cabinet sworn in, Trump has promised to impose additional tariffs on China
00:37as well as his early comments about Taiwan have left many guessing about his foreign
00:42policy towards Taipei.
00:45And now to discuss US-China relations and how President Trump's second term will take
00:50its foreign policy towards Taiwan, we are joined by Rory Daniels.
00:55She is the Managing Director at Asia Society's Policy Institute, as well as a senior fellow
01:01at the Institute's Center for China Analysis.
01:04Welcome to the show, Rory.
01:06It's so great to be here.
01:07Thanks for having me.
01:08Let's first zoom in on China's response to all of this.
01:12How is Beijing responding to President Trump's second presidency?
01:16And what are some of the early views that China has expressed towards President Trump?
01:21I think China sees the Trump presidency as one marker or milestone in a deteriorating
01:29relationship.
01:30But it's not specific to President Trump or to this moment in time.
01:34It's actually a relationship that's been deteriorating for about a decade or more.
01:38So from China's perspective, and maybe particularly from the elite Chinese political types like
01:45Xi Jinping's perspective, the United States really is out to contain China's economic
01:52rise.
01:53They see the world through an ideological lens that says that as the West declines in
02:00relative terms, in relative power, and the East rises, the West will use all tools of
02:07power at its disposal to make sure that China cannot emerge as a true strategic peer and
02:14competitor.
02:15So I think China is looking at this election in a much broader sweep of US-China relations
02:21and their place as a rising power in history.
02:25Do you think Beijing is concerned about President Trump's unpredictability?
02:30China is thinking about the tactical moves that it might have to make to protect itself
02:35in the short term.
02:37So Donald Trump has always been very transparent about his policy ideas and motivations.
02:45China knows that there is going to be a lot of pressure on US-China trade, particularly
02:50the bilateral trade deficit, which is something that President Trump has talked about for
02:55a long time as a marker of health in the relationship.
02:59He sees the deficit as the sign of an unhealthy relationship, but also on high technology,
03:06which is really where both sides are putting all of their eggs in kind of one economic
03:11competitiveness basket.
03:13So China is preparing in the short term by thinking about its tools of leverage.
03:20You can see that China has already started kind of walling off its economy from the US,
03:27particularly in the high tech sector, in part because of moves that the Biden administration
03:31have made to restrict sales of high technology to China and to stop working with China's
03:36companies that are trying to develop that technology, but also in part to accelerate
03:42the production of that technology inside China so that China can be more self-sufficient
03:48and therefore a little bit more protected from this pressure campaign that it sees from
03:52the West to contain its economic rise.
03:56So those are the two kind of big, broad things that I think China is thinking about when
04:00it looks at President Trump coming in.
04:02In your view, do you think President Trump will take a more confrontational approach
04:06as compared to the mix of competition and cooperation that we saw under President Biden?
04:12Is that the kind of approach President Trump will go for?
04:16I don't think it can be categorized that simply.
04:21I think there is the capacity inside the Trump administration to pursue some version of competition
04:28mixed with confrontation and mixed with limited, albeit cooperation.
04:33That's not going to be the public narrative about what the US is doing on China.
04:37But in reality, President Trump and the Trump administration officials, some of them can
04:42be quite pragmatic on some of these issues.
04:44On the other hand, I think that it remains really unclear what kind of role some of the
04:50people who have been appointed by Trump in key positions will play on China policy.
04:56So he has hired people like Senator Marco Rubio, who is one of the US's most prominent
05:03and outspoken China hawks.
05:06His national security advisor as well, Senator Walsh, is someone who has said that the US
05:11and China are locked in a long-term strategic competition.
05:14So there's certainly the appetite to be tough on China that's bipartisan in the United States.
05:20Again, it is an attitude that President Biden also took.
05:25But also, I think that there is some room for pragmatic cooperation.
05:28It's not going to look the same.
05:29It's not going to be in the same channels.
05:31I doubt we see a kind of a regular channel set up perhaps between Wang Yi and Senator
05:38Walsh.
05:39That's probably not going to happen.
05:41But it doesn't mean that there isn't some room for moderating the relationship on the
05:45margins to avoid all-out conflict and war.
05:49He does not want to go to war with any other major power.
05:54And he wants America and American power, particularly American military power, to be used relatively
06:00sparingly.
06:01During his first term, President Trump imposed nearly 25% tariffs on Chinese goods.
06:07And now he has repeatedly said that he will impose additional tariffs on China.
06:11How do you think Beijing will respond to these additional tariffs in the second term?
06:16I think China will be doing what it's already doing, which is on the one hand to try to
06:23internationalize transactions in the R&P, to try to diversify trade routes so that some
06:29of its products can be brought to market in other places, including emerging markets.
06:33And they know that there is some pressure on President Trump while he wants to pursue
06:38this very tariff-heavy trade agenda to control inflation in the United States.
06:45So as tariffs on Chinese products come on board, the likelihood that consumer prices
06:51rise will be high.
06:52And so there will be a period at which those two tensions kind of come together.
06:57And that might create leverage on both sides for China, who is having, you know, a country
07:02that is having some economic struggles right now, particularly in their domestic economy,
07:07and for the United States, who might also be facing some domestic economic pain from
07:11the strategy to come to the table and come up with an agreement to at least let some
07:16pressure off.
07:17I think at this point, the leadership of the U.S. and China both see their power is very
07:23fungible, meaning that they would be totally fine using the power of their markets and
07:30their goods to pursue political and security goals.
07:34In fact, no economy has probably felt this more than Taiwan, which has been seeing China
07:39put informal and formal restrictions on trade and investment for now over a decade.
07:48So now let's zoom out of the region and look at Taiwan.
07:51At the moment, there's a political tussle between the ruling DPP and the opposition
07:56KMT.
07:57How do you think China views that political tussle in Taiwan?
08:01And how do you think that will inform Beijing's strategy when Trump is in power?
08:07I think China sees the evolving political situation in Taiwan as one that buys time
08:15for solution to the Taiwan issue that they would like.
08:20So there was a period right after Tsai Ing-wen was elected, the PRC felt that if it could
08:28wait until the KMT was back in power, it would be able to pursue its agenda of political
08:35negotiations that it had wanted to pursue after the cross-strait agreements were signed
08:40in around 2010.
08:42I think now what they see is that that opening may be coming back.
08:46By the way, I'm not suggesting that is a correct view.
08:49I don't see the current KMT leadership as particularly open to cross-strait political
08:55negotiation.
08:56But I think from China's perspective, the elite in Beijing do not actually want to take
09:03Taiwan by force.
09:04They don't want to go to war over Taiwan.
09:07They would prefer a gradual political integration that achieves the same goal, but without using
09:13force.
09:14The use of force is very risky for a Chinese leader.
09:17If one tries to take Taiwan by force and fails, that's it, game over.
09:22Maybe not just for the leader, but for the entire political legitimacy of the Chinese
09:26Communist Party.
09:29President Trump has said a few things about Taiwan's defense.
09:32He expects Taiwan to invest more in its defense.
09:35Do you think that will become a sticking point in relations between the US and Taiwan?
09:41And will he really ask Taiwan to invest more in its defense?
09:46This has been a long-time President Trump initiative to ensure that any defense commitment
09:54that the US makes, even a soft commitment like the Taiwan Relations Act, which says
09:59that we'll provide arms to Taiwan of a defensive nature to ensure the balance of military power
10:04across the strait, that any of those commitments come with a substantial investment by that
10:12ally and partner in their own defense.
10:15Is it a sticking point?
10:16I hope not, and I don't think so.
10:19I think Taiwan will do what it needs to do to ensure that President Trump is satisfied
10:23with its defense commitments.
10:26Another thing that Taiwan can do is to reframe this discussion.
10:33One part of this discussion is just about the balance of military power, like what arms
10:38is Taiwan buying, et cetera.
10:40Some of this conversation is about military preparedness.
10:43Is the Taiwan military up to the task of repelling a blockade, let's say, a likely
10:48scenario, repelling a blockade for a week or two until assistance can arrive from other
10:53places?
10:54But part of this is also investing in civil defense and infrastructure.
10:59Does Taiwan have the energy stores it needs?
11:01Does it have the food stores it needs?
11:03Is civilian preparedness ready for a blockade-style situation or potentially, although I find
11:10it very unlikely, the use of force?
11:13There are ways to frame this conversation so that Taiwan can come up with some creative
11:17solutions to contributing to defense without necessarily making the types of major commitments
11:26that would put so much fiscal pressure on other areas as to destabilize the political
11:32situation in Taiwan.
11:34Several experts have said that 2025 will be the year when China escalates tensions in
11:39the Taiwan Straits.
11:40They have said that there could be moderate tensions in the strait that could lead to
11:43wider conflict.
11:45How do you think President Trump will respond to these tensions?
11:48Will he send more support or rally the allies?
11:51Certainly, this is an issue that is not just important to the United States.
11:56Global shipping lanes of communication go through the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan
12:00in ways that would be extremely disruptive if Beijing were to escalate tensions to the
12:06point where there was a conflict in the Taiwan Strait.
12:09The Koreans are worried, the Japanese are worried, the countries of Southeast Asia are
12:13concerned, Europe is concerned.
12:15It wouldn't be difficult to rally that type of international support.
12:19I'll say also that I agree with experts that 2025 is going to be a tough year for Taiwan.
12:25I do think that there is some pent-up frustration that Beijing feels due to the election of
12:32Lai Ching-de, who they see as an independent separatist.
12:36I do think there's been some holding back while the U.S. election was determined, and
12:41that holding period is going to be over.
12:44There's also a high value in Beijing for testing and probing these responses from the Trump
12:49administration.
12:50What will the cabinet do is a great question, and we don't know their thinking and strategy
12:56on these types of major events.
12:58This remains to be determined, but I do agree that we're probably facing a period of volatility
13:04over the next year or so.
13:06And it's worth watching and it's worth tracking who those appointees are, what they've said
13:11about Taiwan, and how they're responding to other crises and conflicts overseas, including
13:16what is continuing in Ukraine, as well as the kind of emerging deterioration of the
13:22Middle East.
13:23With that, thank you for joining us today and sharing your insights with us.
13:28Thank you so much for having me here.
13:30It's been a pleasure.
13:32This has been Zoom In Zoom Out.
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13:37Thank you for joining us today.
13:38We'll see you next time.
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