Will Xi Jinping Risk It All in 2025?

There are various analyses and predictions about whether the Chinese Communist Party will launch a war in the Taiwan Strait. Some say it’ll happen in 2025, others say 2027, and still others say 2035. In this writer’s view, it is unlikely to see war break out with Taiwan in 2025, mainly because the critical juncture for war has not yet arrived. Looking at next year, what people are worrying about is whether there will be any changes in relations between the United States and Taiwan once Donald Trump has taken office.

But before even taking the reins, Trump has already fanned the flames in all directions — loudly, boldly and aggressively — complaining about Taiwan, saying that Taiwan has snatched up American jobs, that it is wealthy and must therefore pay protection money. What capacity does Taiwan have to take away U.S.-based jobs? Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s market success isn’t something Taiwan went to the U.S. for, to grab and abscond with; it’s something Taiwan fought for, tooth and nail — which the U.S. didn’t. And if the U.S. had really fought for it, then when would it have been Taiwan’s turn? All Taiwan did was to seize the opportunity and run with it.

When TSMC founder Morris Chang was starting his business, he was filled with trepidation and went around asking for help. After more than 40 years of hardship, his efforts finally came to fruition — and that success was not a U.S. handout, but one achieved through the Taiwanese people’s tireless and trailblazing efforts. Trump’s present blaming Taiwan for the U.S. loss of its chip foundry industry is truly unreasonable.

The claim that Taiwan is wealthy and has to pay the U.S. protection money is contemptible and reeks of mob behavior. When has the U.S. ever protected Taiwan? To date, not a single soldier has been deployed; all the U.S. has done is to sell Taiwan some arms, which Taiwan has paid for. But once they’ve been paid for, there have been delays in delivery, and some of those arms have been obsolete and phased out by the U.S. military. So what is the U.S. protecting Taiwan with?

U.S. warships and military aircraft patrolling the Taiwan Strait are mainly doing so to collect intelligence relating to the CCP, to ensure that international shipping lanes through the strait run smoothly, and to maintain U.S. strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. military’s crescent-moon-shaped deployment around Japan, Korea and the Philippines to ring-fence the CCP serves to protect not Taiwan’s interests, but the United States’ own strategic ones. Trump’s loud and bold rhetoric is therefore actually misleading.

Taiwan’s geographical location is of great strategic significance: The island is at the front line of Asian democracies in their fight against the China-Russia axis of evil, and its advanced technology is of great value to democratic countries. When considering its own interests, the U.S. can’t afford to lose Taiwan, as such a loss would be devastating and forever change the balance of power between the East and the West.

Taiwan no doubt needs U.S. protection, but the U.S. also needs Taiwan to strengthen itself. Taiwan can’t afford to lose the U.S., and the U.S. can’t afford to lose Taiwan. Either side’s survival is closely dependent on the other, so it isn’t a matter of who protects whom, nor can the relationship between the two be quantified in terms of protection money. If Taiwan is of little consequence to U.S. strategic interests, then the U.S. may not come to protect Taiwan even if the full amount of protection money is paid — and the U.S. is not so poor that it needs to barter the lives of its own soldiers for the sake of some foreign exchange.

If the above analyses are borne out, then Taiwan-U.S. relations will not come to such a pass. Even if Taiwan were not to pay any protection money, the U.S. wouldn’t sit idly by if war broke out between the two sides of the strait because the loss of Taiwan would be an irreparable loss for the U.S.

Taiwan-U.S. relations will only continue to improve, with very little chance of them deteriorating. In recent years, the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives have been introducing Taiwan-friendly bills, and Taiwan’s international status has made great strides in the past two years in particular. The improvement of U.S.-Taiwan relations depends on the deterioration of U.S.-China relations, and as long as U.S.-China enmity escalates, the U.S.-Taiwan friendship will surely escalate as well.

Trump is known as a strong president. When he gets hot-headed, he’s capable of all sorts of over-the-top statements, and the Taiwanese people will have to get used to his little idiosyncrasies. He’ll get under your skin, alarm and scare you, but it’s very unlikely that he’ll single-handedly destroy Taiwan-U.S. relations to ingratiate himself with the CCP. After all, he’ll be president of the United States, but he cannot do whatever he wants, no matter how powerful a president of the United States may be. He’ll have to contend with the supervision and checks and balances of Congress, and he’ll also be subject to the sway of U.S. public opinion.

Taiwan’s troubles are internal, not external. The Democratic Progressive Party has lost its majority in the Legislative Yuan and come under attack from both the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party; the CCP has been employing double-faced tactics of threats and inducements to destroy the Taiwanese people’s unity and break their fighting spirit; and the DPP may lose its ruling position in the next election if it neglects its grassroots work. And once the KMT comes to power, the CCP will be able to win without a fight.

Although a war in the Taiwan Strait won’t occur in the short term, in the long term, a war between the U.S. and China is inevitable. The basic reason for this is that the fundamental ideological opposition between China and the U.S. — the conflict between Eastern autocracy and Western democracy — is the root cause of world wars. In other words, as long as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran exist, confrontation with the West is unavoidable. This kind of confrontation may sometimes take the form of proxy wars, such as those going on today between Russia and Ukraine or between Israel and Hamas, but if the conflicts intensify beyond a certain point, there’s also a possibility of direct confrontation between the U.S. and China.

From the perspective of Taiwan’s own interests, the island should, of course, expand its international space as much as possible. Taiwan-U.S. relations ought to be working hard in a positive direction as well, and increasing military spending to purchase advanced weaponry is a necessity for Taiwan’s self-defense. Trump clings stubbornly to the goal of “America First,” but he can’t take things too far either, because damage to Taiwan is tantamount to damage to the fundamental interests of the U.S. And how can the U.S. fight for America First when its fundamental interests have been damaged?

Whether the world knows war or peace depends on the relationship between the U.S. and China — which in turn depends on changes to either side’s comprehensive national power, as well as being heavily contingent on internal unity in the two camps of democracy versus autocracy. If neither the U.S. nor China is sure of victory, neither will go to war lightly. Taiwan is caught in the crosshairs between two major international blocs — democracy and autocracy — so all it can do is to do its best, respond calmly, prepare for the worst, and strive for the best outcomes. If war doesn’t come, then Taiwan should develop its economy and livelihood; if it does, then Taiwan should stand up and fight to the death. Come war or peace, the only bottom line is that the Taiwanese people should not be slaves of the CCP.