US President Donald Trump holds a news conference with TSMC chief executive C.C. Wei, left, at the White House in March. Photo / Annabelle Gordon, for The Washington Post
Just after announcing a plan to buy billions of dollars’ worth of American weapons, Taiwanese President Lai Ching Te dined with the top American diplomat in Taipei and toasted to United States-Taiwan “friendship, co-operation and a stronger more prosperous world”.
The new leader of Taiwan’s main opposition party, Cheng Li Wun, was on a very different type of charm offensive.
Since her surprise ascension to head of the Kuomintang (KMT) in October, Cheng has said she is willing to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping, encouraged Taiwanese people to think of themselves as Chinese, and slammed the new defence budget plan.
She’s already having some success, with the KMT blocking the defence Bill at its first hurdle.
The split screen between the two politicians reveals an increasingly sharp division in Taiwan.
As Lai’s ruling party attempts to secure the Trump Administration’s backing in the face of increasing Chinese military threats, politicians such as Cheng are promoting stronger ties with Beijing amid growing concern that Lai is inviting conflict and deepening scepticism about whether Taiwan can count on the US to support it.
“Although Lai Ching Te appears to be pleasing the US, none of that has resulted in benefits or respect for Taiwan,” Cheng said in an interview at the KMT headquarters in Taipei.
“Many Taiwanese are anxious - they fear we provoke first, the US uses the ‘Taiwan card’ to deal with Beijing, and then we get sold out afterward.”
Xi has made it clear that he wants to achieve “reunification” with Taiwan, a self-governing democracy just 160km off China’s coast that has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party and has threatened to take the island by force if necessary.
China routinely sends warplanes and ships around Taiwan to intimidate politicians and citizens alike.
Tensions in the region further escalated last month after Japan’s prime minister suggested that Japan could intervene militarily in the event of a war over Taiwan - prompting Beijing’s fury.
Amid this pressure, Taiwan relies on unofficial support from the US Government.
Washington sells Taiwan arms to bolster defences under its long-standing stance of “strategic ambiguity”, which does not make clear whether the US would intervene in the case of a military conflict with Beijing.
President Donald Trump’s second term, however, has introduced more uncertainty into Taipei’s delicate balancing act between the two superpowers - and is sowing doubt in Taiwan.
Trump has slapped tariffs on exports from Taiwan and successfully pushed Taiwanese chip giant TSMC to move manufacturing to the US.
His efforts to convince Ukraine to accept a peace deal favourable to Russia has prompted disquiet in Taiwan as many see parallels with a potential Chinese landgrab, experts here say.
Others worry that he may downgrade support for the island in exchange for a trade deal with Beijing.
Nearly 45% of the Taiwanese public thinks that Trump would be unwilling to prevent a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan, according to an October poll by the Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation.
Within the first few months of the second Trump Administration, the proportion of Taiwanese who view the US as an untrustworthy ally rose from 24% in July 2024 to 38% as of April, according to a Brookings Institution survey.
The combination of tariffs, TSMC’s move to the US and the Ukraine war “gives [anti-]US scepticism more fuel to become a bonfire,” said Wei Ting Yen, a political scientist at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s national academy.
Cheng, as the KMT leader, may reflect some of that scepticism, Yen said.
Supporters of the KMT - and people aged over 45 - are more likely to doubt Trump’s willingness to defend Taiwan, according to the October poll.
A political upstart who studied in the US and Britain, Cheng, 56, entered politics in the 1990s as a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) before swapping sides and rising through the KMT ranks.
She is now tasked with injecting fresh momentum into a party that has struggled to attract young voters and lost the last three presidential elections.
Though the KMT is known for its more China-friendly positions, Cheng is particularly outspoken, analysts say, and her unexpected ascent to power - she defeated five men for the role - is a loss for the old guard, which has been more supportive of defence budget increases.
She also has a penchant for controversial remarks. Asked about her comments that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was democratically elected and therefore is not a dictator, she told the Washington Post that she shouldn’t critique world leaders and said that “Lai Ching Te has dictatorial tendencies, too”.
Cheng said that communication and co-operation with Beijing is the best way to defuse tensions between China and Taiwan - tensions for which she largely blames the DPP. Xi already sent a message of congratulations to Cheng.
“For me, the most important thing is to reduce the malicious spiralling of cross-strait tensions and guide it towards a new direction - one of reconciliation and peace,” she said.
“I hope we can rebuild mutual trust, rebuild dialogue and rebuild exchanges.”
Still, Cheng said that the KMT “cherishes” and hopes to maintain a relationship “built on shared values” with Washington and that she doesn’t see any evidence that Trump is currently trading Taiwan away in his tariff talks with Xi.
Cheng’s leadership sets up a showdown over the defence budget, which Trump has prodded Taipei to increase.
Lai last month introduced the supplementary US$40 billion budget, which includes purchases of American-made weapons, after pledging to increase defence spending to 5% of gross domestic product.
The budget faces a tough fight in the KMT-controlled legislature - opposition politicians have twice blocked it from discussion this month.
Though Cheng said the KMT has long been a strong supporter of defence spending, she declined to state what specific increase she could support now. Lai’s budget is unaffordable and “provokes tensions” while creating “an environment for conflict”.
“How can we write a blank cheque to the US that we cannot cash?” she asked.
Kharis Templeman, a Taiwan expert at Stanford University, said that this rhetoric reveals “naivete” about Taiwan’s relationship with Washington, which wants Taiwan to invest in defending itself. “The crux of the matter is, this is about US-Taiwan relations,” he said.
Trump’s National Security Strategy underscored Washington’s focus on pushing places such as Taiwan to “spend more on their own defence”.
Washington’s moves in the chip industry have also led to wariness. After Trump criticised Taiwan for “stealing” the US semiconductor business, TSMC said it would invest US$100 billion in manufacturing in the US over the next four years.
“From Taiwan’s perspective, we worked so hard to build TSMC, and now you basically hand it away - this is extremely irresponsible [of Lai]” Cheng said.
“If geopolitically you can’t protect TSMC, then what is Taiwan’s ‘silicon shield’?” she asked, referring to the theory that the island’s chip prowess deters a Chinese attack.
A spokesperson for Lai’s presidential office told the Post that the defence budget hikes are “investing in security and peace,” and the TSMC expansion promotes “prosperity and progress” for Taiwan and the world.
Though Cheng has become a polarising figure, she is attracting some support even across party lines.
Kuo Li Hsin, an adjunct professor at Taipei’s National Chengchi University, said he has been a DPP voter for decades, but he is attracted to Cheng’s attempts to tamp down tensions and prioritise peace over buying weapons from the US.
“Taiwanese people, influenced by government propaganda … and various forms of pop culture, perceive that America is friendly, benevolent and a defender of democracy worldwide,” he said. Now, however, “more and more Taiwanese people are starting to have doubts”.
The mounting anti-US sentiment may not all be organic. Disinformation experts claim that Beijing is pushing these narratives in Taiwanese social media.
A report from the Taiwan Information Environment Research Centre found that Chinese state media has amplified existing sceptical narratives about the US online, including about TSMC’s US expansion and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
If Taiwan’s population is pushed to believe they have no future other than one that is part of China, that could be dangerous, said Bonnie Glaser, managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Programme.
“There is a risk that Taiwan is pressed into having talks with Beijing on terms that are unfavourable to Taiwan,” she said.
Cheng, for her part, dismissed the question of Chinese interference in Taiwan’s domestic politics - and the accusations levelled by some KMT politicians that Beijing was involved in helping her win election.
“China’s political influence in Taiwan is very limited. It’s nowhere near as severe as outside observers claim,” she said. “The US is far more involved - the US influence is deep and comprehensive.”
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