May 08, 2018
The Trump Administration's Policy Toward Taiwan
Less than a month after the November 2016 election and several weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, U.S. policy toward Taiwan faced an early defining moment. On December 2, thepresident-elect received a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president Tsai Ing-wen. The first direct presidential communication since 1979, the telephone connection appears to have been carefully orchestrated. The next week Trump said he was reconsidering the 40-year-old “one China” policy built on three U.S.-China joint communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, and other major policy statements. Yet in his first official phone call with China’s leader, President Trump reassured President Xi Jinping that the United States remained committed to the one-China policy. These early muscle movements of Taiwan policy revealed some of the characteristic negotiating tactics of both the author of The Art of the Deal and the Chinese government. President Trump, seeking to improve his bargaining position over Taiwan, provoked an early test with Beijing to announce that the United States would henceforth be less predictable than in the past. Meanwhile, China made clear that the only sure path to fruitful cooperation would require strict adherence to Chinese principles. These moves presaged future tension and competition, given that the Trump administration had every intention to seek peace but prevent coercion against the people of Taiwan: in other words, the new president accepted the one-China policy of the United States and not the one-China
Read the Full Article at NBR
More from CNAS
-
XI Jinping Looking to Bring North Korea Back Into China’s Orbit: Analyst
Video
Duyeon Kim, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, says her sources have informed her that Beijing is unhappy with Pyongyang’s growing relationship w...
By Duyeon Kim
-
Does the Quad Still Matter?
Commentary
Under the second Trump administration, some analysts have expressed growing pessimism about the group’s effectiveness, given the president’s apparent lack of interest in atten...
By Lisa Curtis
-
Thwarting Communications Blackout
Reports
Executive Summary Control over the physical means of transmitting information—the lifeblood of modern societies—has become a central area of contestation between Taiwan and th...
By Jacob Stokes & Ryan Claffey
-
Pakistan’s Growing Regional Role
Video
Pakistan’s regional role is expanding — but what does it mean for the Middle East, the United States, and the Indo-Pacific? In a new MBN Digital Salon, Jeffrey Gedmin discusse...
By Lisa Curtis
