At the end of March, the Trump administration’s effort to deport foreign students involved in anti-Israel disruptions on campus received an unexpected endorsement. A senior Taiwanese official weighed in on the issue, a move out of step with his country’s penchant for cautious diplomacy.
“Way to go, @SecRubio,” Joseph Wu, the secretary-general of Taiwan’s national security council, wrote in a post on X. He was responding to a clip in which the secretary of state explained the decision to begin proceedings against Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student from Turkey, whose arrest outside Boston triggered a controversy in America. Taiwan’s government is normally very hesitant to address contentious U.S. political matters, but Wu, a former foreign minister, gave a clear endorsement of the administration’s deportation campaign against foreign students whom Rubio described as participating in movements that are “vandalizing universities, harassing students,” and “creating a ruckus”: “Similarly, there’re also those who come to #Taiwan but want to invite the communists to take over. Well, their permits will be revoked, & they’ll be expelled. We don’t welcome the visitors who want to come & destroy our democracy.”
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