Trump's 'transactional view of foreign policy' signals shaky support for Taiwan, Plus China’s third plenum fails to impress -- China Boss News 7.19.24

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What happened.

In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, former President Donald Trump suggested that Taiwan should compensate the US for its defense against China, likening the US to an insurance company and stating that Taiwan "doesn't give us anything."

The United States is obligated by the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with billions of dollars in weapons to help defend against a potential Chinese attack. This legislation, passed in 1979, reflects the US' commitment to Taiwan's security and its strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region.

US weapons sales to Taiwan even increased during Trump's time in office, according to the Guardian.

Still, neither law nor trade seemed to hold sway with the former President, who, after surviving an assassination attempt last week, is gaining support in his 2024 election bid.

Adding another layer of uncertainty to US efforts to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Straits, Trump highlighted Beijing's military aggression, saying he "wouldn't feel too secure if I was [Taiwan]" and questioning why the US was acting as Taiwan's "insurance" when it, he asserted, had taken American chip business.

"I mean, how stupid are we? They took all of our chip business," Trump said. "They're immensely wealthy."

Why it matters

New uncertainty for an old deterrence policy

"Trump's transactional view of foreign policy and his desire to 'win' every deal could have ramifications around the globe—and even rupture US alliances," Bloomberg staff wrote in Businessweek's The Big Take.

"Asked about America's commitment to defending Taiwan from China, which views the Asian democracy as a breakaway province, Trump makes it clear that, despite recent bipartisan support for Taiwan, he's at best lukewarm about standing up to Chinese aggression," they added.

Someone will inevitably argue that Trump was maneuvering back into the decades-old approach of keeping Beijing guessing, more formally known as Strategic Ambiguity.

However, according to respected former staff and officials who've had deep interactions with the former President, Trump is not a prudent leader who organizes his thoughts before speaking. He also regularly balks at accepting the advice of experts.

This may be one of those instances, but it doesn't make what was said less dangerous.

For one, there's an emerging consensus among security analysts and China-Taiwan watchers who believe the US' 40-year-old Strategic Ambiguity policy today not only fails to deter Beijing from attacking Taiwan but creates conditions for such an event to occur.

Raymond Kuo at Rand said earlier this year that although it was intended "as dual deterrence," the policy "has never [been] officially articulated," and that "[a]s Beijing's military capabilities have increased, pivotal deterrence has steadily faltered."

"In 1996, Beijing fired missiles over the island to protest the Taiwanese President speaking at his college reunion in the United States. But it avoided further provocation after Washington sailed two aircraft carriers through the strait. After Pelosi's 2022 trip to Taiwan, China responded with military exercises and missile overflights. Washington restricted itself to verbal condemnation and avoided any military displays, even as the Chinese People's Liberation Army has continued its coercion and incursions," Kuo wrote in Foreign Policy.

Sending China and US allies the wrong signals

Just Security's Peter Devine, a former fighter pilot and now a game theorist at the U.S. Naval Academy, insists that Strategic Ambiguity has become irrelevant because China "will invade anyway."

"What strategic ambiguity does now is deter Taiwan's potential allies from committing to defend the thriving island democracy, and that's a big problem. Strategic ambiguity assumes that minimizing Taiwan's assertiveness minimizes the probability of war; it does not. China continues to vow it will take Taiwan by force, if necessary, and that threat is becoming increasingly plausible," Devine said last year.

Said differently, Trump's comments on Tuesday made the hotspot in the Taiwan Straits all the more precarious.

Whereas Biden has repeatedly tossed Strategic Ambiguity aside, publicly stating several times that US forces would defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, a Trump 2024 win makes US support for the democratic island appear less, not more, of a given.

The Jamestown Foundation's Chinese politics analyst Willy Wo-lap Lam says the decision to launch an attack on Taiwan is up to Xi Jinping, who at the age of 71, is grappling with a dilemma.

Xi's conundrum is how to swiftly achieve his legacy of National Rejuvenation, a core objective of which is to reunite Taiwan with the Mainland, while "miserable" economic conditions at home throttle the state's finances and headwinds from abroad erode Beijing's influence.

"Uncertainty about what lies ahead could push Xi to launch an invasion for two reasons: first, he could be compelled by a sense that his window of opportunity will not be open for much longer; and second, uncertainty from the rest of the world is something that Xi might attempt to take advantage of," Lam says.

Historical animosity between Japan and South Korea has prevented high-level meetings and cooperation in countering China for years.

But more recently, driven in large part by the efforts of President Joe Biden's administration, they have become frenemies and are strengthening their defense ties in response to growing concerns about China's assertiveness in the region, as well as threats from North Korea.

At Camp David last August, Biden welcomed the leaders of Japan and South Korea, "where," according to CNN, the three "pledged to 'inaugurate a new era of trilateral partnership.'"

"Then last month, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on the sidelines of a security conference in Singapore, where they announced joint military exercises - nearly unthinkable just a few years ago. The trilateral meeting of the chiefs of defense at the Japanese Defense Ministry on Thursday, held for the first time in Tokyo, underscored the rapidly developing cooperation," news staff said.

Japan and South Korea are wary of China's intentions toward Taiwan, and their new cooperation initiatives were conceived with the status quo in mind.

Before his trilateral conference with US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. CQ Brown and South Korean Adm. Kim Myung-soo, Japanese Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida said China was trying to "change the status quo by force" in the East China and South China seas, while North Korea was carrying out "repeated ballistic missile launches and continuous arms transfers" to Russia.

To which Gen. Brown responded: "I expect that the three of us sitting here in Tokyo today will send a message to the regional threats but also more globally on the strength of our relationship, our alliances, and the work that we need to continue to do."

Under the prospect of another Trump presidency, however, that message looks more like passing banter and less like a commitment.

This Week's China News

The Big Story in China Business

CHINA'S THIRD PLENUM FAILS TO IMPRESS: By the time you read this, China will have concluded its Third Plenum, an important meeting held every five years that generally sets the government's economic priorities.

However, you will not be wiser about what occurred because the meeting is completely closed to the outside world.

Even though some have said that the event could be "the most important defining moment of President XI Jinping's rule since a similar gathering in 2013 that laid out his vision for reforming the country," the documents that will follow will be rife with party jargon and generalizations.

Few - maybe no one - including in Beijing, will know what it means in practice.