Taiwan Is Not a Bargaining Chip With China
Betraying a longtime ally would have disastrous effects in the region and beyond.
No red stars there.
Photographer: Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images
I first visited Taiwan in the 1970s as a young officer serving in an American destroyer assigned to the Pacific Fleet. A small, dynamic nation at the northern edge of the strategically crucial South China Sea, the Republic of China (as Taiwan prefers to be known) was locked in a Cold War duel of geopolitics with its vastly larger cousin across the Taiwan Strait, the People’s Republic of China.
I returned to Taiwan this week for meetings with senior officials — President Tsai Ing-wen, Foreign Minister Joseph Wu and the national security adviser, David Lee — and enjoyed seeing the extraordinary progress.