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October 7, 2024 - 1:00pm
Late last week, Donald Trump’s former national security advisor John Bolton sparred with former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy over whether the US should use military power for global security. The debate has highlighted the contrast between the foreign policy ideals of the old and new Right ahead of an election in which voters are keenly aware of heightened geopolitical instability.
“The calculus in Beijing is, if America and the West won’t defend against an unprovoked aggression in Europe itself, we will never come to the side of Taiwan,” Bolton argued at a debate hosted by the conservative Steamboat Institute.
His younger counterpart agreed that a Chinese takeover of Taiwan would be “a foreign policy disaster”, but claimed that defending Ukraine actually weakened the US in relation to Beijing. “China doesn’t reason based on moral authority: they reason based on hard power. And our hard power with respect to China is weaker when we’re involved in other foreign conflicts that don’t advance our interests,” Ramaswamy said, citing recent delays in weapons shipments to Taiwan and a sparse US naval presence in the Pacific.
The exchange demonstrated the growing rift on the American Right over China policy. The Trump-aligned populist Right has coalesced around tariffs as an answer to China’s dominance and aggression. Beneath the surface, however, tensions are brewing over how the US should ensure the safety of Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.
America’s longstanding Taiwan policy has been one of strategic ambiguity, meaning the US does not make pronouncements about how it will respond if China invades the island. But Republicans are now divided over whether to maintain this policy and the extent to which the US should be clear about its intentions to arm and support Taiwan.
During his presidency, Donald Trump was a hawkish defender of Taiwan, sending American fighter jets to the island for the first time since 1992 and speaking directly with its president, the first time such diplomatic ties had been established since 1979. Recently, though, the GOP candidate has become more dovish. He drew condemnation over the summer after he avoided directly answering whether he would defend the island, and then called for Taiwan to pay the US for defence.
“Taiwan should pay us for defence,” Trump said in June. “You know, we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything.” The comments resembled those he made about Nato in February, in which he encouraged Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to member countries which don’t meet their financial obligations.
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SubscribeI think that last paragraph says a lot. Mr Griswold’s observation is blunt and to the point. Kudos to Ms Duggan for seeking a source for comment that is outside the usual cast of characters that make up the conservative think tank world. American Compass is an organization that is increasingly getting under the skin of the conservative establishment and for good reason.
The question of military intervention in Taiwan is staved off for the time being,
This, no doubt, is dismaying to the likes of Bolton who, along with like-minded people on the right, echoes a good part of the left, which increasingly sees war as the default answer to everything. Perhaps watching more than a half million Ukrainians be killed for no good reason has impacted Trump’s view of using the military as a tool. Either way, there is no imminent invasion of Taiwan from the mainland; Beijing sees one China as something that is going to happen over time, and probably without bayonets.
I probably support strategic ambiguity, but what exactly is the strategic value of Taiwan, other than its supply of computer chips?
Ukraine is very different from Taiwan. Ukraine has been an independent country ever since the Soviet Union broke up. We agreed to support that independence. Our policy is clear and unambiguous.
On the other hand, American policy for decades has been that Taiwan is not a country but is part of China, as in the People’s Republic of China. Nothing ambiguous about that policy either. The rest of the world aside from a handful of countries has the same unambiguous policy.
To what degree we should support Ukraine is a matter to debate. Of course we should not fight China if it chooses to take over Taiwan.
I’ve got complicated feelings on the issue of whether/how the United States should defend Taiwan. On the one hand, Taiwan’s present week position is largely the result of the US trying to split the difference and appease both sides in the conflict – i.e. by breaking off diplomatic relations with Taiwan but continuing to sell Taiwan weapons, but not its best weapons, and bullying Taiwan into giving up its nuclear weapons program in the 1980s, and trying to keep up ambiguity about what would actually happen if Taiwan is attacked, and so forth. Defenders of this policy argue that it’s necessary to maintain “stability” in Asia, but at the same time it’s the opposite of what the Americans have done with respect to Israel, whose survival they really care about, and for which “stability” just means “the Israelis are strong enough that nobody has anything to gain by attacking them.”
So when a large nation like the USA encourages weakness and dependency on the part of a small nation like Taiwan (or Ukraine, for that matter), it’s rather trashy to suddenly decide that defending the small nation is unimportant or hopeless after all, and walk away. And yet the complaint that Taiwan isn’t taking its own defense seriously enough, and is trying to freeload, is true. Taiwan spends much less on defense (as % of GDP) than the United States, and their military training regime is deeply unserious.
I’ve written about my mixed feelings re Taiwan in more detail at my own substack:
https://twilightpatriot.substack.com/p/four-remarks-on-the-future-of-taiwan
American policy for decades has been that Taiwan is not a country but is part of China, as in the People’s Republic of China. Nothing ambiguous about that. The rest of the world aside from a handful of countries says the same. Of course we should not fight China if it chooses to take over Taiwan.