How Should Taiwan Handle the U.S. Relationship Under Trump?

Welcome to Foreign policyChina’s summary.

The most prominent events this week: The United States puts pressure on TaiwanThe Chinese Communist Party announces its appointments Fourth degreeChina changes it World Trade Organization condition.

Welcome to Foreign policyChina’s summary.

The most prominent events this week: The United States puts pressure on TaiwanThe Chinese Communist Party announces its appointments Fourth degreeChina changes it World Trade Organization condition.

Trump’s pressure is faced

Months of US President Donald Trump’s second term, Taiwan faces double pressure. While Chinese President Xi Jinping is pressing Trump to formally oppose the Taiwanese independence, the White House pushes Taiwan to transfer a large part of the semiconductor industry to the United States in exchange for protection against China.

Previously, there was speculation among observers about the so -called major deals that could be struck between Trump and Shi, but none of them was achieved at all. Trump, which is to maintain its end of deals, has registered a bad thing, and it will take a sudden naivety for China to make concessions in exchange for his promises – or expect an American administration in the future to adhere to this position.

Xi has achieved some diplomatic success with Trump recently, but made the United States oppose the activity of Taiwanese independence. Although Trump does not seem to give a curse on Taiwan, many Republicans do so, and this step will be seen unambiguously as a surrender to China.

However, Taiwan now lacks the allies in the White House. China’s enthusiastic hawks from Trump’s first term – Mick Bombo, Mike Galgar, and Putinger Matt from among them – are largely with younger isolation. It seems that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was once considered a strong ally of Taiwan, is often interested in chasing approval by the president.

Where does Taiwan leave? One of her options is to try to lie with Trump, perhaps by keeping up with his plans today even if it does not have any meaning in the long run.

In order to be clear, the transfer of the semiconductor industry in Taiwan to the United States is an impossibility of a process because it relies heavily on local material technology, supply chains and experiences. Taiwan employees will not move to the United States collectively, especially after seeing what happened to South Koreans working in Hyundai, Georgia.

But Trump’s plan can extend long talks enough to make it a discussion. Taiwan can pretend to show interest in a plan, make some symbolic investments in the United States, and wait until Trump spends and moves to something else.

Another approach is that Taiwan to pay Trump in another way, either directly or with political preferences. For example, Taiwan has signed an important soybean deal with the United States, which will provide some assistance to US farmers (although hardly enough to compensate for the loss of tens of dollars in Chinese soybean sales).

The most practical approach to Taiwan may be to take advantage of the existing relationships in the Capitol Hill to pressure the White House to continue arming Taipei and guarantee its defense implicitly at least. Taiwan still has many friends on both sides of the corridor, such as Republican senator Roger Weker, who recently visited and described it as a “free country”.

Moreover, if Taiwan is able to find a way to obtain President Li Cheng T-Harvard University graduate and an English speaker with Trump, he has a good snapshot to fix relationships.

In the long run, if Taiwan is unable to trust the United States as a security partner, real discussions may begin to restart its nuclear weapons program – in the 1980s under the pressure of the United States.

What we are following

The dates of the fourth completed session have been announced. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will hold the fourth of the 20th Central Committee from October 20 to 23. They are sometimes used for major employee changes, but there are no clear ads or signs on large transformations this time.

Large political meetings have not been confirmed even near the event, most of them are inherent and also because they may require sensitive negotiations between leaders who have crowded calendars.

The completion session is likely to focus on China’s attempt to balance its economy away from “engagement” and new growth models. I think CCP is looking to get rid of the priorities of the first decades of the rule of Xi, such as focusing on relying on the economic self and destroying local political innovation, without the leadership forced to accept any blame.

China changes the commercial situation. In a long step that the United States requested, China is voluntarily changing its position from the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a “developing” country to “advanced”.

Developing countries enjoy special privileges in the World Trade Organization, but the brand was an unstable suitable for China and many other states for some time. Countries choose how to describe themselves, which have always achieved some individual results: South Korea, for example, is an official developing country but stopped using the situation in the negotiations in 2019.

China was reluctant to abandon influence from its developing situation, but this step helps in Beijing to Washington and reflects Shi’s local priorities because it is a medium -income country. Although the Chinese economy is the second largest in the world, in terms of per capita income, it is approximately 75 years old-at the top of the middle third of all countries.

Read the most read this week

Technology and business

Record surplus trade. Since the start of Trump’s trade war, China’s exports have increased significantly, creating a potential standard of $ 1.2 trillion this year. But this is not good for China as it seems.

Although other countries were reluctant to protect their local markets, for fear of reaction from Beijing, the excess of excessive production in China. This has caused a dangerous contraction in the factory-in other words, manufacturers are forced to sell at lower prices due to severe competition.

But an attempt to reduce the excessive industrial ability is difficult to lead CCP, even when it is an official policy. The balance between the broader economic priorities with the risks of immediate employment is a sensitive issue in China, given a somewhat weak luxury. When workers’ layoffs widely rocked the northeastern rust belt in the 1990s, causing long economic protests and weaknesses.

The United States for Technical Policy injury. Even as the United States and China approach to a high -level agreement on Tiktok, the struggle of the countries continues to be controlled elsewhere. On Monday, the US Department of Commerce expanded the commercial list of Chinese companies, hoping to get rid of the ecosystem of advanced technology in China.

Washington’s different policies are apparently simple: although Trump and his closest comrades are great events such as NVIDIA’s bonus or potential TIKTOK delivery, black lists and other penalties are formulated by intermediate levels with experience in the field of domain and then approved by the White House.

Thus, the latest news follows the relatively natural pattern of competition between the United States of China and technology that has played over the past decade.