Executive Vice President Matt Duss joins Christopher S. Chivvis, Stephen Wertheim, Brett Rosenberg for a conversation on geopolitical changes in Taiwan. They visited Taipei and met with Taiwan’s officials and thought leaders. In this episode of Pivotal States, they share their takeaways and delve into the United States’ policy challenge in Taiwan.
Watch the full interview on Pivotal Sates. Check out transcript excerpts below:
Christopher Chivvis:
So anyway, given all of that, we thought it would be a good idea to go to Taiwan, which is really sort of at the center of the maelstrom here, and try to get a sense of what it looked like from the island itself. There’s obviously tons of different issues that we can talk about and that we did talk about on the trip. You’ve got the state of Taiwan’s own democracy, the nature of its domestic politics. You’ve got the condition of cross-strait relations, and then finally, since it’s Taiwan, the military dimension is always really important.
But if it’s okay with you guys, I thought we might just start with domestic politics and then move to the larger strategic questions.
Matthew Duss:
I’d say, knowing kind of a little bit about Taiwan’s domestic politics, but not a lot, I think we were able to dive in at a much, much deeper level that I really appreciated. And in a way, the positions of the two parties on the various domestic versus foreign policies are almost counterintuitive. The KMT, this is the Chinese Nationalist Party that literally fought a war against the Communist party and retreated to the island of Taiwan and still nominally claims to be the rightful government of all of China, and yet they are the ones who have the ongoing conversation with the CCP. Any channels that the Taiwanese government has are basically through the KMT. The DPP is much more forward-leaning in terms of an independent Taiwanese identity separate from the Chinese mainland. And yet, even though it seems a bit more hawkish on the foreign policy side, when it comes to domestic issues, gay rights, women’s rights, a whole range of things that we associate with progressive politics here in the United States.
… I thought that was really interesting. Yeah. And I do think it’s important always to understand as much as possible the domestic drivers of any country’s politics, because ultimately, that is what, in democracies, politicians — I hate to break it to people — are mainly concerned with. How do I get re-elected? How do I stay in power? How do I manage my own political coalition? So that’s something that we have to contend with as we try to come to our own decisions about U.S. policy.
Brett Rosenberg:
And I was struck as well by, there’s obviously this polarization between the two parties, but there was an understanding that the public I think is much closer to where the DPP’s view is on the cross-strait approach, not necessarily in terms of a hawkish approach, but in terms of, we’re already an independent sovereign nation.
Matthew Duss:
Yeah, I mean, I think it was not that this person was charged with activities, like they were ideas that were expressed, that were deemed so harmful to the security of Taiwan. And obviously that is a huge problem. The same with the recall effort. It’s a foundational principle of democracies that you respect outcomes of elections when they don’t go your way and you try again next time. Obviously we see echoes of all these problems here in our country. We should be humble about that. But it does really show the increasingly zero-sum nature of their politics. That’s the phrase that kept ringing around in my head as we heard both sides describing the other.
Christopher Chivvis:
Bunch of unreasonable radicals was sort of the impression that you got from talking to the KMT.
Brett Rosenberg:
We had one person refer to the DPP as the DEI party, clearly importing in some American…
Matthew Duss:
I think that’s really important to understand the domestic side, but also the strategic impact of it on Taiwan’s security and its relationship with the U.S.
Christopher Chivvis:
And I think it was really clear when we were there, and I completely agree that that’s a really excellent summary of the strategic situation. We often think about the defense side of it, getting Taiwan to do more for its defense. Obviously that’s what we’ve been asking of our European allies. There’s good reasons for that. But in this case, as you pointed out, there’s a flip side to it, which is Taiwan also needs to be demonstrating that diplomatically, it’s willing to go out of its way in order to ensure that we avoid having to come to its rescue, that we avoid having to get into that war with China that would be so destructive.
But, you know, so we asked several times our interlocutors, especially on the DPP side, you know, how they felt about cross-strait dialogue. This would be trying to return to the constructive discussions that were going on between Beijing and Taipei from the early 1990s up until around 2016. And just I’ll say off the bat, it’s clear that China bears a lot of the responsibility for why these fell apart, but we were in Taiwan, so we were trying to get their sense of it.
Matthew Duss:
I think it’s a bit more concern, and just as Brett said, they had clearly heard that line, but they were a bit more, I guess, sanguine about the fact that, no Taiwan does have cards that Ukraine does not. TSMC being the most obvious example. But there’s two sides to that. They need to be able to deter an invasion and if necessary withstand it, fight back, things like that. But two, they need to be able to prove to the United States that they have cards so as to then bring the US in.
Brett Rosenberg:
Exactly. And the question of whether Taiwan can prove its worth to the United States in a way that convinces them to commit fully.
Matthew Duss:
Yeah, I mean, I think there are definitely elements of what Stephen and Jennifer wrote in their piece, stronger investments in Taiwan’s defense, certainly investments in its own resilience. One of the things we haven’t mentioned yet is there’s apparently an effort now to extend the amount of time that is required for national service for all young Taiwanese. Right now it’s about four months, which one person referred to as just a kind of summer camp where they go and hang out and do drills, and that’s their-
Christopher Chivvis:
Shot a rifle once or twice.
Matthew Duss:
Right, right. Exactly. And to extend that to one or two years as a lot of other countries do. But also it’s just understanding that, I mean, given the various scenarios, the kind of least bad scenario is what we have now with a few changes as we just mentioned. Also having a president of Taiwan who is really willing to try harder to have engagement with Beijing, which Taiwan does not have now, unfortunately. I think that would be good, that opens possibilities in talks with Beijing, but also I think that would have benefits in terms of US public opinion and global opinion as well. And I do think that matters, but I think coming from a DC perspective, the idea of just there’s not much we can do and we should keep this unsatisfying status quo is not a very attractive argument either there or here. And yet, that is I think probably the best option.
Stephen Wertheim:
Actually, when you poll Americans, only thirty-some percent say that they would support coming to the direct defense of Taiwan against a Chinese attack. That’s a fairly low number if you compare that to the number that say that they would support defending a NATO ally, including the Baltic States.
Matthew Duss:
Yeah, it’s a significant gap in perception. So from Taiwan’s perspective, I think they believe they have more support from the U.S. than might actually exist, and that’s concerning.
Matthew Duss:
Right. No, it’s ripe for political actors on either side to disturb that status quo and political actors from the United States as we’ve seen in the recent past. But I was really struck by one conversation we had with a kind of progressive left DPP-affiliated journalist and activist.
Christopher Chivvis:
This was in that bar. The Home Run Bar. That was fun.
Matthew Duss:
Right, exactly. Who clearly was pro-independence. And then we asked, “Okay, so what’s the pathway?” And he said, “Well, there’s no path right now to achieving this.” So there’s at least a pragmatic-
Christopher Chivvis:
Which was surprisingly realistic for someone who was so aspirational about it.
Matthew Duss:
Right. A level of pragmatism to say, “Well, at the moment, there’s no path to this.” And that was one of the most interesting things I think we heard.
Matthew Duss:
The announcement of a rise in the defense budget is definitely a part of that. The announcement, all the things that Brett talked about, I think is a part of that. So again, I wouldn’t overstate the amount of alarm, but I do think some people were perhaps a bit too relaxed and placing a bit too much stock in this kind of idea that, “Oh, Americans will always support Taiwan because maybe Americans when you poll them. But the question is will they punish a politician or a president who changes that?”
