Analysis: How US Could React to China's Requests for Change of Policy on Taiwan

TaiwanPlus News

Following the Wall Street Journal's reports that Chinese President Xi Jinping is requesting that the Trump Administration officially oppose Taiwanese independence, how has the US traditionally reacted to China's attempts to change policy on Taiwan? TaiwanPlus sat down with Institute for Indo-Pacific Security Chair and former US assistant secretary of defense Randall Schriver to find out how Trump could react to such scenarios.

Transcript

00:00So when people look at President Trump, he's very hard to predict and then you

00:05personally work with him very closely. What is his decision-making process like

00:10looking at US-Taiwan-China relation? I haven't seen any any signs that he views

00:16Taiwan as a bargaining chip as you sometimes hear when you talk to people

00:20here or that he's he's on the brink of making huge concessions related to

00:26Taiwan. I don't know him that well but I did spend some time supporting the

00:33Korea diplomacy and I was with him in Hanoi when he walked away from a deal

00:37with the North Koreans. He said it was a bad deal and sometimes you walk away from

00:40a bad deal. So in my experience he is transactional but really still grounded

00:49to American interests and unlikely to take a bad deal as long as he recognizes

00:53it's a bad deal. In November we all know that Trump will meet potentially meet

00:58with his Chinese leader Xi Jinping. What do you think that the topics they will

01:03probably talk about or Taiwan related? It's quite common for China to make

01:08attempts at linkages. Well if you want this on trade you've got to do this on

01:12Taiwan. I don't think that's gonna be a very attractive offer to the president. I

01:17don't think he will want to look weak. I don't think he'll want to to make a move

01:21that looks like he made too much too many concessions to Xi Jinping. I want to

01:25quote here because Treasury Secretary Scott Besson actually comment about the

01:29chip about Taiwan as well and then there he said the single greatest point of

01:33failure for the world economy is the 99% of the high-performance chips that are

01:38produced in Taiwan. So he's trying to do risk by moving more chips production

01:46elsewhere. So what do you think about that? I can't speak for him and I can't

01:50interpret exactly what he meant. Just in general like the US administration has moved by doing that.

01:54Yeah to me it suggests Taiwan should be a closer partner and a stronger partner and

01:59that our economies are complementary not competitive. We should have a lot of

02:04confidence in Taiwan's ability to continue to play that role as a global

02:08leader particularly a dominant leader in the supply chain when it comes to these

02:13high-end chips. Yes the the US would like to see some of that production

02:18manufacturing move to the United States. Yes we'd like to see some of the supply

02:22chain also move to the United States so that we have some clean and and secure

02:29capability to manufacture but it would be unrealistic if by de-risk they mean a

02:33hundred percent. No and they mentioned like 30, 40, 50 percent. Yeah I understand the

02:38the interest on the part of the administration in the United States but

02:43that's a that's a negotiation Taiwan has chips to bring to the table to no pun

02:47intended.

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