Stop waiting for US to save Taiwan

The most important lesson for Taiwan from last week’s summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping (習近平) is not found in any formal agreement. It is in the way Taiwan was treated — as an issue to be managed between Washington and Beijing.

Xi pressed Trump to adhere to what China called the “correct position” of opposing Taiwan independence — a stronger formulation than Washington’s traditional position that it does not support Taiwanese independence.

For six months, China has been watching the US fight Iran. Beijing is not simply observing the battlefield. According to Taiwan’s own 2026 defense assessment, China is studying the lessons of that war: the US’ rapid ammunition consumption, pressure on air-defense systems, the demands of industrial mobilization and what the Ministry of National Defense called the “fragility of allied cooperation.”

The Iran conflict, launched with US and Israeli strikes in February, was initially presented by Trump as a war that could be won quickly. Instead, it has hardened into a costly stalemate. Iran, vastly weaker militarily than China, has nevertheless threatened US bases, disrupted energy flows, forced the US to expend expensive defensive missiles and used regional partners to widen the conflict.

Trump has repeatedly threatened escalation while also leaving the door open to negotiations. Meanwhile, most European and Asian allies have refused his demands to join a war they say was launched without adequate consultation.

We cannot know precisely what conclusions Xi has drawn, but Taiwan would be reckless to assume he has drawn none.

China does not need to believe it can defeat the US everywhere. It needs only to believe it can make intervention in the Taiwan Strait so militarily costly, economically disruptive and politically divisive that a US president ultimately chooses negotiation over escalation.

China would be a far more formidable adversary than Iran: a much larger and more sophisticated military, an enormous industrial base, nuclear weapons and the advantage of fighting close to its own shores.

That gives new significance to Xi’s decision to press Trump on Taiwan.

Trump’s response should concern Taipei. A roughly US$14 billion US arms package for Taiwan remains on hold, and Trump has previously described it as a “very good negotiating chip.”

The US remains Taiwan’s most important security partner and weapons supplier, and congressional support remains substantial, but Taiwan must distinguish between US support and a US guarantee.

There is no treaty obligating the US to send its forces into a war with China. Strategic ambiguity might have helped preserve peace, but ambiguity is a dangerous foundation on which to stake the survival of 23 million people.

The lesson from Iran is diplomatic as well as military. The war has shown that even Washington cannot automatically assemble an international coalition behind its military actions. Trump has struggled to persuade longstanding allies to follow him, while also searching for a negotiated way out of a conflict in which US military power has not ended.

Taiwan’s response must not be anti-Americanism. It must be diversification.

Taiwan should undertake a sustained diplomatic, economic and security campaign across Europe — particularly in the UK, France, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania and other democracies willing to resist coercion. It should deepen semiconductor partnerships, cybersecurity cooperation, intelligence relationships, parliamentary ties and critical-infrastructure collaboration.

Europe does not need to recognize Taiwan diplomatically tomorrow or promise troops. The objective should be to create relationships so extensive that any Chinese blockade or attack would immediately carry political, technological and economic consequences across Europe.

The same strategy should reach farther: Japan, Australia, India, Canada, the Philippines and other democracies.

Taiwan is not merely a small nation asking larger countries for protection, it is a successful democracy at the center of the global technology economy. Its semiconductor industry is essential to economies worldwide. Taiwan must convert that importance into durable international relationships before a crisis begins.

The central question after the Trump-Xi summit is whether Taiwan can safely assume that, when the decisive moment comes, a US president would risk direct war with nuclear-armed China to save it. Iran should have taught Taiwan that it cannot afford to make that assumption.

Hope is not a defense policy. Friendship is not a treaty. No democracy should entrust its survival to the decisions of one president in one capital.

Taiwan still needs the US, but the time has come for Taipei to build a world in which it no longer needs the US alone.

M. Dane Waters is an international political strategist, author and democracy advocate who has worked on political and governance initiatives in more than 100 countries. He is the founder of the Initiative and Referendum Institute and hosts Around the World with Dane Waters, a weekly international affairs program broadcast in Africa and heard globally.