Chinese-American citizen Zhang Wanying was arrested by the FBI at Los Angeles International Airport on the 4th for allegedly spying on President Lai Ching-te's eldest son Lai Ting and his family in Seattle. (AFP file photo)
The second "Trump-Xi meeting" ended a few days ago. It is generally believed that US President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping only briefly got what they needed to cope with the US midterm elections and the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee. Therefore, there has been no major change in US-China relations. As for Taiwan-US relations, as the US reiterated, its policy has not changed. However, before the meeting between Trump and Xi, some domestic media and politicians have been hyping up the "suspicious theory of America", as if Trump will make a big deal with Xi Jinping and sacrifice Taiwan's interests. Later it turned out that this was just another old trick to undermine mutual trust between allies and alliances. Exchanges between Taiwan and the United States are not only advancing in accordance with the established agenda, but also continuing to heat up. Although the "suspicious theory of beauty" has once again been self-defeating, at every critical moment, such deliberately manipulated arguments will always appear within Taiwan, and they often come from the same group of people, cooperating with Beijing in cognitive operations. Is this for the good of Taiwan or for China?
By the end of this year, Trump and Xi may still have two opportunities to meet, including the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' meeting in China in November and the Group of 20 (G20) summit in the United States in December. However, unlike the two "Trump-Xi meetings" held in China and the United States respectively in May and September this year, the next two are multilateral international conferences. The leaders of the United States and China will only arrange side meetings, and the discussion topics and meeting time will be more limited. In the past two "Trump-Xi meetings", Beijing tried its best to influence the US policy towards Taiwan and undermined security cooperation such as arms sales. It hoped that the US would express its "anti-Taiwan independence" stance, and pro-China figures in Taiwan also followed suit. However, the Trump administration ignored it and instead incorporated elements that demonstrated the value of democracy and freedom into its reception of Xi Jinping, including arranging for the state banquet to perform "Les Misérables," the representative song of the Hong Kong anti-extradition movement. Foreign media also revealed that the United States planned for Xi Jinping to display the "San Francisco Peace Treaty" on the basis of international law on Taiwan's status when he visited the National Archives. The leaders of the two countries interacted in a friendly manner on the surface, but some observers described it as like a boxing match. The two sides were wrestling in the ring. Even though they hugged several times, they still punched each other.
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As for Taiwan-US relations, they will be advanced in accordance with the established agenda. At the military level, the first two F-16 BLK70 fighter jets Taiwan purchased from the United States arrived in Taiwan last week. It shows that the US policy towards Taiwan has not changed, especially when the supply of US military production capacity exceeds demand, it still gives priority to providing it to Taiwan. Defense Minister Gu Lixiong also confirmed that the aircraft will be delivered one after another before the end of the year. As for when a new wave of US$1.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan will be approved, US Secretary of State Rubio emphasized that foreign arms sales must take into account the global demand of the US military, existing inventories, replenishment speed and defense industry production capacity. He also specifically stated that this is not targeted at Taiwan. Although the United States has not stated it explicitly, it has conveyed that the war in the Middle East will indeed affect the timetable for the United States to supply arms to its allies. The U.S. military operation against Iran began in February this year, but the Lai government proposed a proposal to the Legislative Yuan in November last year. A special defense budget of NT$2.5 trillion. If it were not for the repeated obstruction by the blue and white parties in the Legislative Yuan, the new wave of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan would likely have been announced in the first half of this year, before global supply was tight. Blue and White controls the congressional process and delays the arms purchase process. In turn, it accuses the United States of "suspending" arms sales due to concerns about China, which is obviously another attempt to create doubtful arguments about the United States to help Beijing.
In addition, the U.S. executive branch has implemented the "National Defense Authorization Act" and other bills passed by Congress, and has recently expanded the promotion of the "Taiwan-U.S. Department of Defense Joint Cooperation Assessment Project." Expert representatives from the Office of the Under Secretary for Policy of the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Defense Think Tank "Defense Analysis Center" plan to send one person to Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense headquarters on a long-term basis. This means that U.S. personnel will be more directly involved in my country's defense policy coordination and combat capability assessment, and that Taiwan-U.S. military docking will be elevated to a higher level. This shows that security cooperation between the two countries has a multi-level structure, and arms sales are not the only indicator. At the diplomatic level, my country's 14th overseas embassy in the United States, the new Phoenix office, held an unveiling ceremony this week. Foreign Minister Lin Jialong, Arizona Governor Hao Kaiti, Phoenix Mayor Gayle Lego, as well as representatives from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and many other Taiwanese companies attended the ceremony. This also demonstrates the multi-level diplomatic and economic and trade cooperation relations between Taiwan and the United States. Former President Tsai Ing-wen, who is visiting the United States for the first time since leaving office, gave a speech at Stanford University this week, emphasizing Taiwan's indispensable importance to global democratic partners. Even though the Trump-Xi meeting has just ended, the United States obviously does not care about China’s dissatisfaction with Tsai Ing-wen’s visit to the United States.
It is worth noting that after the FBI recently uncovered a Chinese-American spy case targeting President Lai Ching-te's eldest son's family, the U.S. judicial department condemned the Beijing authorities for planning a blatant "transnational suppression" and setting the tone as a "secret agent of a hostile foreign power." U.S. politicians also pointed out that the CCP is a "global threat." Also in Taiwan, prosecutors have just discovered that China used collaborators to monitor Shen Boyang, a legislator from the Democratic Progressive Party and a candidate for mayor of Taipei, proving that this is a common tactic used by Beijing. Some representatives of the Blue Camp previously ridiculed Shen's arrest and said it was a murderous conspiracy. Now these slanderous claims have been overturned, and they are questioned as whitewashing peace for China. In fact, these people are highly overlapped with advocating "suspicious beauty theory". Taiwan and the United States continue to advance issues at all levels, and simultaneously smash the Chinese Communist Party's "transnational suppression" plot. The argument of attacking the relationship between the two countries is self-defeating. Chinese people should now be more vigilant about those people who have been speaking for China, and these people will continue to use their same tactics to cause trouble in the future.
