As Donald Trump returns to the White House, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te's administration will have to adopt new diplomatic strategies. TaiwanPlus speaks to political scientist Wei-Ting Yen to find out what Taipei's priorities will be.
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00:00What policy priorities might President Lai make with the incoming President-elect Donald Trump administration?
00:07I think the Lai administration will have to have a different strategy moving forward
00:14because in the past eight years under Tsai Ing-wen's administration, especially after 2020,
00:21we know she has been advocating for the importance of Taiwan through the lens of CHIPS,
00:27but also the democracy, the value of democracy.
00:31But we know the new Trump administration is not very value-focused,
00:39so promoting Taiwan as a democracy might not be as effective diplomatically to the new administration.
00:48And so I think for the Lai administration, they will continue working with the U.S. on the security front,
00:58as well as making partnership in other aspects.
01:02So if the U.S. and Taiwan do need to find additional values,
01:05what sort of priorities might the Lai administration set and what kind of cautions should they take?
01:12So I think the most important kind of consensus that every party in this triangular relationship will agree
01:24is that maintaining peace and stability across straits is important.
01:30No one wants a war, and the U.S. does not want another war right now in the world.
01:37And so I think that should be a key message moving forward,
01:44which means that Taiwan will want to welcome more substantive support on cooperation,
01:55military training, on getting more weapons, getting the weapons we already paid for,
02:03instead of having some lip service to support Taiwan publicly,
02:09which may unnecessarily escalate the cross-strait relation while Taiwan is not getting any benefits substantively.
02:20I think that is the area we want to avoid.
02:24So how then might President Lai maintain Taiwan's security priorities while also cooperating with the United States?
02:32On the security front, I think it is important to continue all the cooperation Taiwan already has with the U.S.
02:42and making sure that we can continue having that cooperation quietly moving forward.
02:51I do have one concern, which is that under the Trump administration, it's becoming more uncertain.
03:00One reason is Trump himself is a more uncertain leader.
03:05The second reason is because this is his second term.
03:10So we're going to see intra-party competition emerging very soon.
03:16And so Taiwan should be very cautious to be caught up in the intra-party competition
03:23and to be cautious that the possibility that some Republican politicians in the fight against China may jeopardize Taiwan's interest.