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The US and NATO states’ high-profile visit to Taiwan in 2022 were believed to be a backbone support to Taiwan’s present government of Democratic Progressive Party. But, China’s intensive reaction made it turbulent. Stormier for the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen was a sheer defeat in the local elections.
Despite President Tsai having spoken out many times about “opposing China and defending Taiwan” in the course of campaigning for her party, the ruling party lost to comparatively less popular leaders of the opposition, the Nationalist Party. The lingering concerns about threats from China took a backseat to more local issues. This resulted in President Tsai Ing-wen to step down as the party head.
Taiwan’s geopolitical experts believe that their country’s recent closeness to the US has been fatal for the ruling party. The ongoing year would be harsher and more challenging for Taiwan’s ruling party and the next presidential elections in 2024 will be a deciding factor for the US presence in Taiwan, and the Indo-Pacific region. Taiwan’s ruling party’s defeat in the recent local elections has “revealed that mainstream public opinion in the island is for peace, stability and a good life”.
The local analysts denote the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s defeat to “poor performance and undue leaning to Washington”. Meanwhile, some scholars and commentators in the United States have argued that the election results were a slap in the face to president Joe Biden over his pro-Taiwan stance. The overwhelming victory of the Beijing-friendly main opposition, Kuomintang, has been a big blow to the US interests in the region against China.
It seems that all the US support to the Washington-leaning Democratic Progressive Party and narrative building against China has been futile. Despite all the propaganda against China, the main opposition Nationalist Party, Kuomintang, won the elections with 13 of the 21 mayoral and county seats, including the capital Taipei, compared to the ruling party’s five seats. The Kuomintang accused Tsai and the Democratic Progressive Party of being too hostile to China.
China has prodigiously said “Despite the tension between the US and China in the Asia-Pacific region, Beijing will continue to work with Taiwan’s people to promote peaceful relations and firmly oppose Taiwan’s independence and foreign interference.” The experts believe that after the victory of the pro-Chinese party in the elections in Taiwan, the United States will cease to fulfill its obligations to Taipei, an ally in the region, due to unprecedented volumes of American weapons supplies to Kyiv. It is reported that the economic recession in the United States and the pumping of the Zelensky regime with weapons will not allow Washington to provide the necessary assistance to Taipei in the event of a conflict with Beijing.
Former NATO official Harry Tabach stated that in the event of a possible escalation of the situation in Taiwan, Washington will not be able to act as a guarantor of Taipei’s security, despite the commitments made to protect it. According to the American politician, due to the large volumes of weapons supplies to Ukraine, the White House is unable to adapt to the sharply increased demand for military products.
It is noteworthy that a similar opinion is shared by residents of Taiwan. Thus, according to the latest polls conducted by the Japanese publication Asia Nikkei, more than half of Taiwanese do not believe in US military assistance in a possible conflict with China. Many experts in the United States fear that if a conflict breaks out around Taiwan, American military companies will not be able to meet the needs of the two wars unleashed by Washington and require a huge amount of money and resources.
In this regard, the United States seeks to involve its allies, in particular Japan, in the confrontation with China and Russia by any means, using Tokyo as one of the suppliers of weapons to Ukraine. Washington forced the Japanese to reconsider their positions regarding the ban on the export of weapons abroad.
According to Japanese politicians, under pressure from the United States, the Japanese leadership was forced to officially begin considering the possibility of supplying weapons to Kyiv. At the same time, there are quite serious contradictions in the ruling circles regarding the need to adopt such amendments to national legislation. However, analysts say that Tokyo may also try to take advantage of the conflict in Taiwan to achieve its own interests — to increase military power in order to get rid of US military dependence in the future.
Meanwhile, before going on to the Christmas vacations, the United States House of Representatives on December 9 passed the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that authorizes up to US$12 billion in grants and loans to Taiwan over the next five years to buy the US weapons. The bill passed the Democratic-controlled House on a 350 to 80 vote. It is expected to clear the Senate next week before being sent to the White House for the US President Joe Biden to sign into law. The act would authorize up to US$2 billion in annual grants from 2023 to 2027 and an additional US$2 billion in loans for Taiwan to use to bolster its military capabilities with weapons from the US.
It also authorizes a regional contingency stockpile for Taiwan that consists of munitions and other appropriate defense articles costing up to US$100 million a year for use in the event of a conflict. The bill gives Taiwan the same treatment as major non-NATO allies, on NATO’s southern and southeastern flanks, in terms of priority to obtain “excess defense articles” from the United States. The act also recommends the US administration to invite Taiwan to attend the next version of the US organized Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC), a set regional military drill, in 2024.
The bill states that the US Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense shall prioritize and expedite the processing of requests from Taiwan under the Foreign Military Sales program, and may not delay the processing of requests for bundling purposes. The bill was proposed following increased tensions across the Taiwan Strait in recent years and growing concerns in Washington and Taipei that China’s military buildup has far exceeded that of Taiwan.
Seems the process has begun for some major designs in Taiwan, similar to the “Revolution of Dignity” that happened in Ukraine in 2014 that followed the ongoing armed crisis.
