Taiwan’s cabdrivers are famously chatty, and after I settled into the back seat of a taxi in the island’s south recently, my cabby turned to me and cheerfully asked how my day was going, before abruptly declaring, “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.”
He was voicing a concern shared across Taiwan since President Trump pulled back on America’s strong support for Ukraine and added insult to injury by humiliating its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, at the White House in late February. Now people in Taiwan are wondering: If the United States could do that to Ukraine to cozy up to Russia, will it do the same to us to cozy up to China?
For decades, Taiwan’s leaders have framed our standoff with China — which claims Taiwan as its own territory and vows to take it, by force if necessary — as a defense of freedom and democracy, underpinned by the expectation that the United States would back us up if China were to invade. This created a false sense of security, allowing Taiwan’s politicians and people to delay a national reckoning over the best way for us to deal with China in order to ensure the long-term survival of our democracy.
With Mr. Trump casting aside democratic values and America’s friends, Taiwan must begin an immediate, serious national conversation about how to secure peace with China on terms that are acceptable to us, rather than letting bigger powers decide our future.
In online comments and daily conversations, Taiwan’s people are expressing growing doubt over America’s commitment to Taiwan and asking: If the United States no longer seems willing to support a friendly nation like Ukraine in defending its freedom, did all those tens of thousands of young Ukrainians who fought and died for their country do so in vain? An informal poll in early March by an online platform popular with Taiwan college students asked whether, given the latest developments involving Ukraine, survey respondents were still willing to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack or preferred surrender. Most opted for surrender.
Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, appears oblivious to these sentiments. Rather than reaching out to all sides in Taiwan to initiate an urgent national discussion on the direction we should take, he is instead going for fear, confrontation and a revival of dark Cold War rhetoric.
On March 13, citing Chinese espionage, subversion and military threats, Mr. Lai officially labeled China a “foreign hostile force” and promised tighter scrutiny of business, cultural and other links with China. He also announced plans to reinstate a system of military courts to prosecute suspected national security crimes by Taiwan’s active-duty personnel, which was abolished in 2013 over human rights concerns. Taiwan’s leading opposition party, the Kuomintang, accused Mr. Lai of pushing Taiwan toward war, and China predictably warned that he was “playing with fire.”
The problem with Mr. Lai’s approach is that Taiwan can no longer bank on U.S. support. This isn’t something that we are just now realizing because of Mr. Trump, who, besides betraying Ukraine, has already sown doubt about his commitment to defending Taiwan, even accusing us of stealing the semiconductor business from America.
We have long been painfully aware that the United States, like any country, puts its own interests first. Taiwanese of all ages know what happened on Dec. 16, 1978, when Chiang Ching-kuo, our president at the time, was awakened at 2 a.m. and informed that the United States would sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan to recognize the People’s Republic of China, abandoning us — a Cold War ally — to deepening diplomatic isolation. Mr. Trump’s crude approach is merely a difference in style, not substance.
With China growing in strength and the United States turning its back on the world, Taiwan is right to build up its military as a deterrence against attack. But the only way for Taiwan to peacefully secure its freedom is to somehow reconcile with China. Recent history suggests that is achievable.
For decades, Taiwan and China were deeply estranged and essentially in a state of war. But after the Cold War, relations gradually thawed. They were at their best during the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou, of the Kuomintang, from 2008 to 2016. The Kuomintang emphasizes cooperation with China as a way to ensure Taiwan’s stability and prosperity.
Under Mr. Ma’s administration, exchanges in academia, culture and commerce flourished, culminating in his historic meeting in 2015 with President Xi Jinping of China. It seemed, after decades of hostility, that reconciliation was possible.
But the window quickly closed. Public skepticism over the warming ties with China grew in Taiwan, especially after China responded to pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which began in 2014, with a harsh crackdown that continues today. Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party, which is justifiably distrustful of China and stresses protection of the island’s sovereignty, won the presidency in 2016 and has held it ever since. Relations with China have reverted to confrontation and fear.
But it is fear that is perhaps our greatest enemy. Fear breeds hatred and distrust, to the point that even suggesting peace with China is dismissed in Taiwan’s political discourse as naïve, unpatriotic or — worse — as surrender and betrayal.
Fear also breeds an impulse for tighter control, the kind that Mr. Lai is now pursuing. I grew up in Taiwan in the 1950s, when we lived under martial law and constant fear of Chinese invasion. The increasingly tense atmosphere today — Taiwan’s purchase of U.S. weapons, Mr. Lai’s provocative labeling of China as an enemy and the return of Cold War-style suspicion surrounding exchanges with China — all feel like a disturbing return to that era, threatening peace and the progress Taiwan has made in building an open, democratic society.
The clock is now ticking for Taiwan. Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi are expected to meet in person at some point soon. After what happened with Ukraine, there is a very real risk of Mr. Trump casting Taiwan aside to strike a trade or geopolitical deal with Mr. Xi.
Virtually all of us in Taiwan want to protect our cherished freedom. Where we disagree is on how to achieve that — through conciliation or confrontation with China. But one thing is now clear: Relying entirely on the United States while rejecting and antagonizing China is no longer a viable path forward. There can be no democracy without first ensuring peace.
Yingtai Lung is a writer, essayist and cultural critic in Taiwan. She was Taiwan’s first culture minister, from 2012 to 2014, in the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou. Her books include “Big River, Big Sea — Untold Stories of 1949.”
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