Taiwan’s doubts about America are growing
The U.S. tries to balance the relationship without provoking China
TAINAN, TAIWAN >> The collection of American memorabilia, vast and well-lit in a busy area of City Hall in the southern Taiwanese city of Tainan, reflected decades of eager courtship. Maps highlighted sister cities in Ohio and Arizona.
There was a celebration of baseball, an American flag laid out on a table. And in the middle of it all, a card sent to the United States that seemed to reveal the thinking of Tainan, a metropolis of 1.8 million, and nearly all of Taiwan.
“Together, stronger,” it said. “Solidarity conquers all.”
The message was aspirational — a graphic illustration of profound insecurity. Taiwan is a democratic not-quite nation of 23 million, threatened by a covetous China, with a future dependent on how the United States responds to the ultimate request: to fight the world’s other superpower if it attacks and endangers the island’s self-rule.
Now more than ever, the fraught psychology of that predicament is showing signs of wear. With China asserting its claim to the island with greater force, and the United States increasingly divided over how active it should be in global affairs, Taiwan is a bundle of contradictions and doubts — less about its own government’s plans or even Beijing’s than the intentions of Washington.
Vice President Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party won Taiwan’s
presidential election this month in part because he looked like the candidate most likely to keep America close.
Preelection polling showed that most people in Taiwan want stronger relations despite the risk of provoking China. They support the recent rise in weapons sales from the United States. They believe President Joe Biden is committed to defending the island — but they worry it is not enough.
As they watch Washington deadlock on military aid for Ukraine and Israel and try to imagine what the United States would actually do for Taiwan in a crisis, faith in America is plummeting. The same Taiwanese poll showing support for the U.S.’ approach found that only 34% of respondents saw the United States as a trustworthy country, down from 45% in 2021.
The risk for Taiwan — and those who see it as a first line of defense that, if lost to Beijing, would give China greater power to dominate Asia — is that distrust toward the United States could make it easier for the island to be swallowed up.
“It’s really important that they believe the United States is coming to intervene on their behalf because there are a lot of studies showing that can influence how well they hold out,” said Oriana Skylar Mastro, a fellow in international studies at Stanford University and the American Enterprise Institute. “And we’d need them to hold on long enough for us to get there.”
The origins of Taiwan’s distrust can be glimpsed in a row of mildewing houses in the mountains above the skyscrapers of Taipei, the island’s vibrant capital. Starting around 1950, U.S. soldiers occupied these bungalows, with their speckled floors and large yards.
The troops’ presence seemed permanent. There were about 9,000 U.S. soldiers in Taiwan in 1971 when a treaty ensured that the United States would defend Taiwan against any attacker. Then, rapidly, they were gone.
When the United States established diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China in 1979, after President Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972, it sped the departure of American personnel. Neighbors recalled friends disappearing with toys, and kitchen utensils left behind to rust.
Eva Wang worked as a legal adviser for the U.S. military in the 1960s. She said she cried the day in 1979 when U.S. officials lowered the American flag for the last time, learning a powerful lesson: “Our destiny was out of our control.”
Her husband, Wayne Chen, a retired prosecutor, concluded — as did many others — that the Americans could not be trusted.
“If a war really breaks out, and the CCP comes over,” he said, referring to the Chinese Communist Party, “then of course the U.S. military will not defend us.”
Researchers in Taiwan have found that 1979 continues to shape Taiwanese views. Even for those not alive at the time, the U.S.’ reversal stings, like a parent’s adulterous affair, endlessly discussed.
“If you look at the skepticism generated from within Taiwan today, it’s mainly about the U.S. abandoning Taiwan,” said Jasmine Lee, the editor of US-Taiwan Watch, a think tank that recently contributed to a report on doubts about the United States. “It’s reasonable because we’ve been abandoned before.”