Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: White House/Public Domain
THE GEOPOLITICAL EFFECTS of a testy exchange between US president Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House are already being felt worldwide.
In the day since the exchange, there is already talk of nuclear proliferation as a response to a renewed lack of faith in America’s global power. French president Emmanuel Macron, for example, has raised the prospect of nuclear deterrence for Europe, France already being one of Europe’s two countries with nuclear deterrent. Less seriously, there has emerged an online crowdfunding for Ukraine to develop nuclear arms.
The impact, of course, will also be felt in Taiwan. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Taiwan has viewed Ukraine as offering strong parallels.
A shooting war over Taiwan with China, of course, would play out very militarily differently from Ukraine. Invading Taiwan would be many orders of magnitude more difficult than invading Ukraine, seeing as Taiwan is an island. Taiwan is not connected by land with China and the logistical challenges of staging a beachhead invasion of Taiwan would be immense.
Nevertheless, even if the scenario of a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be difficult to compare to Ukraine, many of the fundamental dynamics are still there. Taiwan is also reliant on support from the US, and Trump has, as with Ukraine, seen fit to lash out at Taiwan as a freeloader on US munificence, stating that Taiwan should pay the US for defense, or accused Taiwan of “stealing” the US semiconductor industry.
Still, Ukraine has come to offer an abstract framework for imagining how a future war over Taiwan might play out. For example, since the war in Ukraine, the Taiwanese public as well as policymakers have increasingly discussed Taiwan possibly having to go it alone in a war with China. Support from the US might not necessarily involve direct intervention.
To this extent, it is unclear whether Trump, Vance, or other leaders of the Trump administration are aware of the differences in wartime scenarios between Taiwan and Ukraine. They might see Taiwan similarly. It is also possible that Trump and Vance, likewise, do not realize Taiwan’s strategic importance for the US, whether that is in terms of Taiwan’s geopolitical positioning in the First Island Chain, or its heft in global semiconductor manufacturing.
Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te. Photo credit: Lai Ching-te/Facebook
Certainly, there are those in the Trump administration who are firmly aware of Taiwan’s importance to the US, but they could potentially be overruled. Indeed, as with the first Trump administration, after the weekend’s debacle in the White House, we are likely to see a departure of experts from the US State Department.
The blow to American prestige from the exchange between Trump, Vance, and Zelenskyy will be immense. This will, more broadly, contribute to global skepticism in US power–and the US’s ability to maintain security guarantees. As for the leadership of the Trump administration, they are likely to relish this newfound round of uncertainty and seek to leverage this uncertainty to coerce polities that are otherwise historic allies into greater submission.
In Taiwan, then, we are likely to see a renewed round of US-skepticism, such as occurred during the first Trump administration. Namely, comments and actions by Trump will be used in order to encourage distrust in the US as a potential ally in the event of a Chinese invasion. This narrative will be amplified by Chinese disinformation efforts, as well as China’s domestic allies in the form of the KMT.
At the same time, there will be those who probably react in defense of Trump. Though such individuals are in the minority in Taiwan, they are often a vocal presence online. It can be expected that this polarization will continue.
Where Taiwan’s security is concerned, Taiwan is not likely to pursue nuclear arms, even if the sudden talk of nuclear proliferation has led to some news reports reexamining when Taiwan had a nuclear program. After all, Taiwan would seek to avoid the perception of it as a rogue state. At the same time, trends towards self-reliance are likely to be increased by the crisis of legitimacy in global US power.