WASHINGTON (AP) – Taiwan has learned important lessons from the war in Ukraine that would help it repel any attack by China or defend itself in the event of an invasion, the top envoy of the self-governing island to the US said in an interview on Friday with The Associated Press.
One of the lessons: do more to prepare military reservists, as well as civilians, for the societal struggle that Ukrainians are waging against Russia.
“All we are doing now is to prevent the pain and suffering of the tragedy in Ukraine from being repeated in our Taiwan scenario,” said Bikhim Hsiao, Taiwan’s representative in Washington.
“So ultimately we are trying to prevent the use of military force. But in the worst case, we understand that we need to be better prepared,” Hsiao said.
Hsiao spoke at the quiet, more than 130-year-old hilltop mansion that Taiwan uses for official events in Washington. She spoke about a series of military, diplomatic and trade relations between Taiwan and the US, which have been marked by increasing rivalries with China.
No Taiwanese flag flew over the building, reflecting Taiwan’s interim status as a US ally, yet lacking full US diplomatic recognition. The US withdrew this in 1979, the same day it recognized Beijing as China’s sole government.
The interview comes after a year of heightened tensions with China, including the Chinese firing ballistic missiles over Taiwan and the temporary halt to most talks with the US after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August.
Asked whether the new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy should make good on his earlier promise to also visit Taiwan, Hsaio said. “That will be his decision. But I think ultimately the people of Taiwan have welcomed visitors from all over the world.”
Beijing’s leaders, she added, “have no right to decide or define how we deal with the world.”
Taiwan, which split from the mainland during a civil war in 1949, is claimed by China. The decades-old threat of a Chinese invasion of the self-governing island has intensified since China cut communications with the island’s government in 2016. That was after Taiwan voters elected a government that Beijing suspected wanted to take Taiwan out of self-government with full independence.
In Washington, Taiwan’s self-government is an issue strongly supported by both parties.
US governments have for decades had a policy of leaving unsaid whether the US military would support Taiwan’s defenses if China invaded. China’s military displays of might after Pelosi’s visit led some in Congress to suggest that it was time for the US to abandon what has been known as “strategic ambiguity” and instead make it clear that the Americans were fighting alongside Taiwan.
When asked about those calls on Friday, Hsiao only praised the existing policy.
“She’s maintained the status quo, or I should say she’s kept the peace, for decades,” she said.
President Joe Biden has repeatedly voluntarily stated in public comments that the US would come to the defense of Taiwan, only to return it with assurances that strategic ambiguities still exist.
Meanwhile, after observing Ukrainians’ successful defenses against invading Russian forces, Taiwan realizes it needs to load up javelins, stingers, HIMARS and other small, mobile weapon systems, Hsiao said. The Taiwanese and Americans have agreed on some of them, she said.
Some security think tanks have accused the US — and the defense industry — of over-focusing on advanced, expensive aircraft and naval vessels in its multi-billion-dollar arms deals with Taiwan. One might expect China’s more powerful military to destroy these major targets at the outset of any attack on Taiwan, say some security analysts.
Taiwan is urging ensuring that a switch to tougher, lower-tech arms supplies for Taiwan’s ground forces “happens as soon as possible,” Hsaio said. Even as the US and other allies pump billions of dollars worth of such weapons into Ukraine for active fighting and draining the world’s arms stockpile, “our friends in the United States assure us that Taiwan is a very important priority,” she said .
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen announced at home last month that the government is extending conscription for men from four months to one year and Taiwan is increasing defense spending. Not wanting to directly address a Nikkei Asia report Friday that US National Guard members had started labor training in Taiwan, Hsiao said Taiwan was looking at ways to work with US Guard members to improve the training to improve.
Ukraine’s experience has also been a lesson for the US and other allies, she said, including the importance of a united stance by allies behind threatened democracies.
“It is crucial to send authoritarian leaders a consistent message that violence is never an option… Violence will be met with a strong international response, including consequences,” Hsiao said.
Hsiao also spoke about the United States’ push under the Biden administration to boost US production of computer chips. Supply chain disruptions during the coronavirus pandemic have underscored the critical importance of semiconductors to the U.S. economy and military — and the extent of the U.S.’s reliance on chip imports.
Greater US production will push the nation into more direct trade competition with Taiwan, which is a world leader, particularly for advanced semiconductors. Fears that China could disrupt shipments of semiconductors across the Taiwan Strait have helped spur the United States’ new manufacturing effort.
Noting that Taiwan’s computer chip industry has taken decades to develop, Hsiao expressed confidence that it “will continue to be an indispensable and irreplaceable contributor to global supply chains for decades to come.”
She pointed to Taiwan’s $40 billion investment in a new semiconductor plant in Arizona, a project big enough for Biden to visit the site last month, and expressed frustration at what she sees as continued US financial punishment for referred to Taiwanese companies doing business in the United States.
The United States’ diplomatic non-recognition of Taiwan as a country means that, unlike China and other top US trading partners, Taiwan does not have a tax treaty with the US and therefore pays additional taxes.
Overcoming hurdles that need to be addressed would make US-Taiwan business investment “much more prosperous and sustainable in the long run,” she said.