By Tom Fowdy
Over the past few years, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has dominated the internal politics of Taiwan. Emboldened by western anti-China sentiment and backing from the United States, the DPP, first under Tsai ing-wen, then second under Lai Ching-te, believed that it could make incremental moves towards establishing the formalised "independence" of Taiwan and severing its identity as a form of China. This strategy of "Salami Slicing" rapidly gained pace around 2021.
Despite the geopolitical and military tensions this caused, the ruling party seemed unphased in this agenda, and strategically believed that actively provoking Beijing would in fact advance its goals by winning international sympathy for it. Taipei rushed to spend millions on wooing and inviting western politicians to visit the island, and high-profile ones, such as US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island in 2022, only seemed to shift the needle towards a crisis, all while seeking to clamp down on domestic opposition and rewriting the history of its existence as part of China.
Fast forwards to 2025, and the mood over Taiwan has noticeably changed, at least for now. While there is no greater enthusiasm for reunification, there has arguably been signs of a pushback against the DPP and the "independence agenda" no longer seems as prominent nor as aggressive as it once was. Ironically, this is democracy, but certainly not how they envisioned it to be. First, in the 2024 Yuan elections, the DPP lost its majority, with the KMT becoming the largest party backed by the TPP.
The two parties have worked together to significantly limit the DPP's power, weakening its radical pro-independence agenda and increasing oversight of the authorities. The DPP of course responded to this by accusing its critics of being the product of Chinese interference, and attempted to weaponise their removal through the "great recall" movement which sought to petition their removal from office with recall votes. However, the campaign failed completely, with not a single legislator being removed. This strongly indicates that there is domestic momentum and pushback against the DPP's agenda, which surprised western observers who were often fed the misleading picture that Taiwan's opposition to China was unanimous.
Next, geopolitical factors have calmed down Taiwan's approach. While the DPP felt most emboldened during the Biden years, which accumulated in growing tensions, it is noticeable that Donald Trump has not touched the Taiwan issue at all, a factor which is also surprising given Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, is known for his support of Taipei. Despite this, Taiwan was not exempt from Trump's trade war and instead the President slapped tariffs on the island of 20%, including on semiconductors themselves. Although Lai Ching-te has naturally responded to this by attempting to appease the US, for the time being this has not moved the needle at all. It is worth noting that the US has made reconciliatory deals with a lot of other resigns, but not Taiwan.
Instead, Trump's general ethos has made many people in Taiwan question the orthodoxy of infinite and unconditional support from the United States. First of all, they're watching Ukraine. It crosses their mind that if the US will compromise with Russia, why might it not with China? Second, the US is pushing Taiwan repeatedly to invest more and more in semiconductor manufacturing capacity in America itself. This is giving the impression that the US is happy to absorb Taiwan's strategic industries but then just discard the rest with tariffs. Therefore, is the US truly committed to the prosperity and growth of the island? It is little surprise faced with such headwinds, that both at the grassroots level, and on the political level, the DPP has toned down its antagonism of Beijing. Once upon a time they may have assumed that it was possible to continue to "move the goalposts" and bank on US support to create a favourable political environment to push an independence agenda, but it appears that even this has limits.
Still, things can change fast in politics. One thing I understand from the experience of Donald Trump is that he will always put the "Anti-China issues" on the shelf while he is seeking trade deals from Beijing, and usually unleash them when it is more politically convenient to do so, or if China as a whole upsets him. This was the story of 2020, albeit in the extraordinarily circumstances of the COVID pandemic and the challenges it brought. This alone might elude that there are continuing benefits in attempting to negotiate with the US president, but for Taiwan itself, is that reassuring? Nope, it only affirms their worst suspicions: the island is leverage in Trump's eyes.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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