Keith Krach, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and Environment, made a three-day whirlwind trip to Taiwan this week. No one knows the exact objective of his trip. Initially it was said that he would be coming for a Taiwan-U.S. Economic and Commercial Dialogue. Later the key reason cited was changed to the memorial service of the late Taiwanese president Lee Teng-hui that Krach would attend. Eventually, the government confirmed that Krach was to attend a high-level economic dialogue.

Regardless, Krach did complete the trip. For the U.S., it does not matter whether the trip has led to the creation of some project or some dialogue mechanism. What is important is that Krach made it. The completion of the trip, the media coverage of it, the way things had been kept under wraps and the way China’s nerve was touched are what the Americans want to see.

Why? It is because America is now actively taking actions against China. It is trying to contain China and decouple from it. To this end, Taiwan is an indispensable key factor for the U.S. to carry out this anti-China plan. Krach’s trip and the previous visits of some other officials are Washington’s way of demonstrating to the Chinese Communist Party its principles and resolve.

Since U.S. President Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act in 2018, a number of U.S. government officials have visited Taiwan. In late March 2018, Alex Wong, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the U.S. State Department, attended the Hsieh Nien Fan banquet of the American Chamber of Commerce in Taiwan. In early April 2019, David Meale, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, flew to the island to attend celebration events marking the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act. Then came Scott Busby, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, who in early September 2019 attended

the first Indo-Pacific Democratic Governance Consultations. In early October 2019, Sandra Oudkirk, a senior official for APEC of the State Department and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands, led a delegation to Taiwan. So far this year, two U.S. officials have visited Taiwan, Krach being one and the other Health Secretary Alex Azar, who flew to the island in August.

In light of all these visits, the U.S. has thus far unilaterally implemented the Taiwan Travel Act without having invited any Taiwan’s high-level officials, such as the president, vice president, Executive Yuan officials, and officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense, to the U.S.. But just because it has not done so does not mean it will not in the future.

More and more U.S. officials are visiting Taiwan and the trips are made on an increasingly frequent basis. Besides, a lack of specific purpose for an American official’s visit to the island has become somewhat of a norm. This suggests the U.S. has the intention to normalize Taiwan-U.S. official exchanges. In other words, the timing of U.S. officials going to Taiwan is now less restricted by the “one-China principle”. Washington’s “one-China policy” represents at best its acknowledgement of the cross-strait status quo proposed by China. Besides, it is just a policy statement made by past U.S. administrations. Washington’s acknowledgement is very much in a similar vein as the Taiwanese government’s acknowledgement of the historical fact concerning the “1992 consensus”. The U.S. is of the view that China has been using the “one-China principle” to encroach upon the diplomatic autonomy of the U.S. as a sovereign country, and so the tendency of refusing to back down, deeply rooted in the American culture, has been brought to the fore.

Meanwhile, according to many specialists and scholars, the recent positive development in Taiwan-U.S. relations - from the quantities and types of U.S. arms sold to the island to the visits of U.S. officials to the legislations proposed and passed by U.S. Congress - has something to do with the pressure Trump is feeling in the lead-up to the election, if not America’s economic and trade interests. Both views are not wrong. When it comes to international politics, all countries are selfish and want to maximize their own national interests. That is all the more important for the world’s superpower that is the U.S..

However, the threat posed by China’s rise to the U.S. transcends competition on a materialistic level. There is also a conflict of value between the two countries. The U.S. believes it has to decouple from China in order to compete successfully with the latter materialistically. Yet in terms of conflict of value, it takes like-minded countries to come together as an alliance to win the rival. Taiwan, as with other Asian countries, can join both competitions. For the materialistic competition, it has stepped up efforts to push the New Southbound Policy and the so-called “non-red supply chain”. For the other competition, it has formed a military alliance with the U.S..

While attending a think tank forum on September 16, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper mentioned the “Asian NATO” plan, either deliberately or casually. The idea of such a plan is to reinforce America’s bilateral framework under its Indo-Pacific strategy and to create a multilateral security system similar to NATO. NATO was founded not solely on the basis of the putting together of arms, personnel and budgets but also on members' shared values. During the Cold War, the values were about safeguarding the free world. Today, they are about cherishing freedom, democracy and human rights, and the source of menace today is the People’s Republic of China instead of the Soviet Union. It is on the basis of such beliefs that Taiwan, deemed the best model in Asia, has been working relentlessly.

America’s determination to stick to its beliefs was not so clear in the early days of Trump’s presidency, not only because of his businessman background and his unpredictable attitude towards China. But after several years of adjustment, it is now clear that it is the American elite’s consensus that the U.S. despises China and that it adheres to its traditional beliefs. Such a consensus will last beyond the U.S. presidential election on November 3, regardless of whether it is the Democratic Party or the Republican Party that will take over the White House.

Taiwan-U.S. relations are now at their best since the severing of their diplomatic ties. From a broader perspective, Taiwan is playing a crucial role in America’s regional strategic planning. In terms of its strategic location in the Asia-Pacific region, Taiwan enjoys natural advantages. Besides, the island has long been cultivating a specific set of values, so that it is a country that has to be protected by and to cooperate with the America on the latter’s anti-China front.

(Wang Hung-jen, assistant professor of the Department of Political Science, National Cheng Kung University)

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