Time to Start Worrying about Taiwan

Michael Casey

Politics, Asia

After years of stability, U.S. policymakers must prepare for a crisis.

As newly elected President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan wraps up her first month in office, the United States should expect substantial changes to Taiwan’s relationship with the People’s Republic of China that may complicate relations between the two sides and the United States. While President Tsai does not have carte blanche to drastically revise the status quo, the magnitude of her and her party’s victory affords her significant political capital and freedom of action. Worrisomely, President Tsai and her colleagues appear to be taking advantage of that capital to revise cross-Strait relations. After years on the backburner, Taiwan has returned to the forefront of the U.S. policymaking agenda.

In January 2016, Taiwanese voters elected Tsai to be the Republic of China’s first female president, while handing a legislative majority to her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in a sweeping victory against the incumbent Kuomintang (KMT). Unlike the KMT, which favors closer relations with mainland China, the DPP rejects the 1992 Consensus that established the “One China Principle” and officially calls for independence in its party charter. (The principle broadly states that mainland China and Taiwan belong to the same China and that both sides interpret the meaning of China according to their own definitions.)