China’s signing of the largest trade pact in the world last month with other Asia-Pacific countries is aimed at isolating Taiwan politically and economically, according to international relations scholars on the self-ruled island.

Fifteen governments including Beijing signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, leaving out Taipei. Subsequently, Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party held a forum on domestic security and geopolitics on Thursday, to which international relations scholars were invited.

Taiwan would face a tough challenge in being isolated after the emergence of the RCEP, said Kuo Yu-jen, professor at the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies of National Sun Yat-sen University. He believed that Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Japan right after the signing was to warn Taiwan of an integrated body that would hem the island in economically.

Taipei should make its partners, including Washington, understand Beijing’s talk about the economy was made with false intentions and that the real goal was to alienate Taiwan politically, Kuo warned.

The United States is not part of the RCEP either. Kuo expected that U.S. President-elect Joe Biden would set a new Indo-Pacific policy to unite East and Southeast Asian countries to address China’s aggression after he took office.

Another Taiwanese scholar felt that China had taken a strong stance in controlling the pandemic, and with the RCEP pact, its political and economic influence would expand.

Taiwan’s new southbound policy, to work with Southeast Asian countries to decrease reliance on a single economy, was important to its strategic survival, said Chang Kuo-cheng, professor at Taipei Medical University’s Center for General Education.

Chang said that Biden would become the American president with the longest relations with Taiwan. The incoming U.S. leader built good relations with Taiwan during his 36-year tenure as a senator, and his picks for secretary of state and national security adviser, respectively Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, also had long-term ties with the island, Chang explained. Given that Biden’s Democratic Party had removed the “one-China policy” from its platform, it would be worth observing whether the U.S. policy on Taiwan and its strategic plans would change, he added.

It was more important for Taiwan to improve defense by importing new equipment from the U.S., instead of waiting for Washington to help only when a crisis struck, Chang said. He also felt that China’s war of information was more dangerous than military threats and Taiwan must fight for international recognition.

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