Embracing Russian talking points is not likely to improve our prospects in the Indo-Pacific.
Setting aside the question of honor — and dishonor — in regard to President Trump’s negotiations with Russia, his administration’s rhetoric regarding Ukraine, and our diplomatic strategy at the United Nations this past week, it’s important to realize that America’s support, or lack thereof, for an embattled nation struggling to defend itself against the invasion of a neighboring imperial behemoth is being watched closely in East Asia.
My friend Noah Rothman is undoubtedly correct when he writes so eloquently on the uncounted moral costs of the Trump negotiations:
Even if there is a political “win” available to Trump’s acolytes, it will not be worth the sacrifice. The deal they are hammering out will not be a just peace. It will, therefore, not be an enduring peace. The legacy that will emerge from this process is the memory of how easily America cast off its hard-earned heritage as a standard bearer for the free peoples of the world who are willing to suffer to cast off the shackles of tyranny and oppression.
I agree wholeheartedly. But the so-called foreign policy realists reject all that, of course. They say they care about the facts on the ground, not anything so ephemeral as ideology or friendship among nations. Our interests, they say, lie in the ports and boomtowns of Asia, not the sclerotic backwaters of Eastern Europe. Anything that diverts us from a focus on confronting China is a distraction.
Well, then, taking them at their word and engaging their arguments directly: Should the realists not care about what the Trump administration’s stunning rhetorical turn is communicating to the island democracy of Taiwan, a nation that sits ever under the shadow of the cruel and tyrannical designs of the Chinese Communist Party?
The New York Times’ Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien, reporting from Taipei, describe this depressing dynamic, which should sober the realists:
In Taiwan, Mr. Trump’s stinging comments about Ukraine could feed a current of public opinion arguing that the island has been repeatedly abandoned by Washington and cannot trust its promises.
“The prospect of the United States trying to make a deal with Russia over Ukraine, without actually giving Ukraine a seat at the table, will reinforce the sense of American skepticism in Taiwan,” said Marcin Jerzewski, the head of the Taiwan office of the European Values Center for Security Policy, which tries to foster cooperation between European and Asian democracies.
Some anxiety has surfaced on social media, with a few Taiwanese commentators suggesting that if war between China and Taiwan should erupt, Mr. Trump might take a similarly transactional approach. (Taiwanese officials have said that the Chinese government covertly amplifies skeptical online talk about Washington in Taiwan.)
At a protest outside the Russian embassy in support of the Ukrainian people, the Times reported on citizens’ growing unease.
“If today he could abandon Ukraine — and I don’t know if he’s really going to abandon Ukraine — then could he also abandon Taiwan?” said Huang Yu-hsiang, a 23-year-old technician who was at the protest. “If they don’t care about values, that means they could abandon Taiwan, a consistent supporter of democracy.”
If the realists in the Trump administration had explained that their position is an emphasis not on abandoning Ukraine (an exaggeration, they would say) but on supporting Taiwan, then a shift away from European affairs and a focusing on the Indo-Pacific would be understandable. It’s one I would support.
But calling Ukraine’s president a dictator, refusing to call Vladimir Putin a dictator, and claiming that it was Ukraine that started the war in the first place? That’s just not reality.
It needs to be understood that the U.S. military cannot defend the democracies of East Asia alone. In our strategy to prevent Chinese Communist hegemony in the east, our entire effort is built on not just the sympathetic help, but an active military commitment on the part of our allies to defend themselves: Japan and Australia, South Korea and the Philippines, and, most significantly, Taiwan.
These nations, constantly harassed by Beijing, know that they stand no chance of defeating hostile Chinese intentions without the aid and assistance of the United States. We, of course, know that the best chance for success requires a very serious and purposeful build-up of hard power on the part of our allies. (Read The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan, edited by former Trump National Security Council official Matt Pottinger, on what exactly we need our allies to do. There are sections helpfully titled “Taiwan’s Job Now,” “America’s Job Now,” “Japan’s Job Now,” and “Australia and Europe’s Job Now.”)
But what message is the Trump administration actually sending to the Taiwanese now? To the Japanese? To the Filipinos?
Are we really to believe that we are more likely to push these allies to get into top gear in their own defense by so publicly abandoning a European ally that’s currently in similar straits? We are supposed to believe that our Pacific allies are going to have more confidence in America’s word when the rubber meets the road?
This isn’t a strategy. It’s self-defeating foolishness.
At this point, I couldn’t blame the Taiwanese government for worrying that, if the Communists attempt to invade, Donald Trump will declare that President Lai Ching-te is a dictator and that Taiwan foolishly “started” such a war.
A simple question for the realists: Is that worry likely to cause Taiwan to redouble its efforts, as we should want them to, or to hedge its bets?
The realists in the Trump administration may not care about national honor. But they should at least care about the practical and totally foreseeable results of their policies and rhetoric.