Helicopters fly with the Taiwan national flag during an inauguration celebration of President Lai Ching-te in Taipei on May 20, 2024. (Chiang Ying-ying/AP)
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan is reassured that the Trump administration has made deterring a Chinese seizure of the island a military priority, former officials and analysts said Monday, after months of mounting concern that the president would abandon U.S. support.
A secret interim internal guidance memo, which outlined in detail President Donald Trump’s vision to prepare for and win a potential war against China, surprised analysts in Taiwan, who have watched with concern as Trump has adopted an “America First” foreign policy and suspended U.S. military assistance for Ukraine.
“Taiwan has not seen such a clear statement from the United States until now,” said Jun-ji Shih, a former vice premier who was an advisory member of Taiwan’s National Security Council until 2020.
Like Ukraine, Taiwan lives in the shadow of its much larger neighbor and has long depended on U.S. support to check Beijing’s territorial ambitions. That position has become more precarious as Chinese leader Xi Jinping ramps up intimidation by launching military exercises and sending almost daily sorties of fighter jets and naval vessels near Taiwan’s islands.
Beijing claims Taiwan, home to 23 million people and the world’s most advanced chip manufacturers, is part of China and has promised to use force if necessary to take control of it. While the U.S. has pledged to protect Taiwan, Washington has always been deliberately vague about whether it would militarily intervene if Beijing attacked.
That uncertainty has grown under Trump, as the president and his allies have called on Taiwan to do and pay more for its own defense. Trump, who has shown a fondness for strongman leaders, has said he is ready to meet with Xi and repeatedly called the Chinese leader his “good friend.”
But the memo, which was signed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and distributed throughout the Pentagon this month, called for the U.S. military to prioritize deterring a Chinese takeover of Taiwan.
“China is the Department’s sole pacing threat, and denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan — while simultaneously defending the U.S. homeland is the Department’s sole pacing scenario,” Hegseth wrote in the document.
“I am personally very surprised. This memo makes Taiwan the focus of U.S. global defense strategy as never before,” said William Chung, who studies U.S., China and Taiwan relations at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taiwanese military-backed think tank.
“What we were afraid of is that the Trump administration will ignore Taiwan just like Ukraine and make a deal with China. From the look of things now, that’s not going to happen,” he said.
The presidential office in Taiwan and its Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the memo.
Taiwan appears to be focused on appealing to Trump’s dealmaking sensibilities. Its deputy defense minister, Alex Po, attended a ceremony in South Carolina to mark his military’s $8 billion purchase of F-16V fighter jets on Friday. Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) visited Taiwan this month, holding meetings to discuss Taipei buying Alaskan liquefied natural gas.
Alongside Trump, C.C. Wei, the head of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the world’s leading producer of semiconductors, said this month that his company would invest $100 billion in U.S. chips manufacturing.
Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has also adopted a harder line toward China and moved to crack down more on Chinese espionage in what analysts say is an effort to appeal to China hawks in the Trump administration.
Lai has also promised to raise his country’s defense spending to 3 percent of its GDP in response to Trump’s calls that U.S. partners do more to beef up their own militaries.
During the first Trump administration and the Biden administration, China was characterized as the greatest threat to the United States. President Joe Biden said on several occasions that Washington would come to Taiwan’s aid if attacked, pushing the limits of the long-standing U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity.
According to Shih, Hegseth’s memo went even further than Biden did by detailing what that military intervention would look like and how the U.S. would fight a war with Beijing.
“Trump has never said what the U.S. would do if China sent troops. This Department of Defense memo makes it very clear. It puts Taiwan’s importance in the highest position and clearly says what should be done,” Shih said, referring to the memo’s call to increase submarines, bombers, unmanned ships and specialty units from the Army and Marine Corps.
Other analysts pointed out that hardening the U.S. position toward China could make things worse for Taiwan, which already faces economic sanctions, Chinese misinformation and a range of gray zone tactics — aggressive measures that stop short of open conflict.
“If the People’s Liberation Army sees that the United States has such an attitude, it will in theory take measures to make the United States feel like it is not dealing with soft tofu but a piece of iron,” said Huang Kwei-bo, professor of diplomacy at National Chengchi University in Taipei, referring to the Chinese military.
China could escalate military exercises against Taiwan or the PLA could increase its military presence in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, Huang said. “In this case, we will be the ones who suffer in the end.”