While the tariff issue alone does not appear to pose any instability to US-Taiwan ties, it provides an opportunity for Taiwan to have a re-look at its macroeconomic policies.
To tackle the China threat, Taiwan has imported significant amounts of defence equipment from the US, among other countries, while also strengthening its domestic defence industrial base.
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio gave a resolute call for pursuing “realism diplomacy for a new era” in his Diet deliberations. How strategically innovative and politically effective will it prove in pursuing Tokyo’s national interests in the US–China–Japan calculus?
Japan is manifesting refreshing confidence drawing from its resolve to push the envelope of positive pacifism while determining the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific.
On October 6, 2020, Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (parliament) passed two important Resolutions, moved by the main opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). These sought to ensure ‘US military aid in combating aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’ and ‘a resumption of diplomatic relations between the US and Taiwan.’1 The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supported the Resolutions. Such a bipartisan consensus is rare in Taiwan’s deeply divided politics.
