As the US and Chinese economies decouple, Taiwan is navigating challenges posed by strategic competition between two great powers. In an increasingly fragmented global economy, Taiwan shares democratic values and strategic goals with the US. However, US policies aiming to retain technological supremacy over China, especially in the semiconductor sector, lack coordination with Taiwanese and international stakeholders and are hurting Taiwan, whose growth depends on global economic integration, particularly with the Chinese market. This has raised doubts about US leadership within Taiwanese society, which is grappling with domestic challenges to economic resilience amid deepening political polarization. How the US engages with Taiwan will not only shape perceptions of the US but also influence Taiwan’s ability to support US strategic goals in competing with China.
This Strategic Asia 2023 chapter is a follow-on to research published by Syaru Shirley Lin in Strategic Asia 2020: U.S.-China Competition for Global Influence. Her 2020 chapter, “How Taiwan’s High-Income Trap Shapes Its Options in the U.S.-China Competition,” analyzed how Taiwan is in a double bind of trying to preserve Taiwanese identity against increasing Chinese pressure while integrating with the Chinese market to address the severe socioeconomic problems of Taiwan’s high-income trap, namely slow growth, increasing inequality, demographic decline, unsustainable entitlements, and political polarization. Other developed countries in the Asia Pacific face similar challenges. Innovative solutions emerging from international mindsets, interdisciplinary research, and close public–private collaboration are needed for Taiwan and the region to overcome these challenges to build resilience.
Watch Syaru Shirley Lin of CAPRI, author of the chapter “Taiwan: Walking the Tightrope between the United States and China” in the book “Strategic Asia: Reshaping Economic Interdependence in the Indo-Pacific” (The National Bureau of Asian Research, November 2023) shares her research findings at the Strategic Asia 2023 launch event.
Read more about the book Strategic Asia 2023: Reshaping Economic Interdependence in the Indo-Pacific
亞太堅韌研究基金會創辦人暨董事長