Trump will not abandon Taiwan because of its semiconductor skills: Taiwan’s vice-foreign minister

Taiwan: Taiwan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Francois Wu said that Washington, under Trump’s leadership, would not desert Taiwan because of its semiconductor prowess after Trump won the US presidential election, according to Taiwan News.

“Trump wants to make America great again,” Wu said in the Globe and Mail interview. I don’t believe he can restore America’s greatness without Taiwan. Wu said, “He needs the semiconductors made here.” Taiwan manufactures over 60% of the world’s semiconductor chips and over 90% of the most sophisticated processors, he said.

Wu said Taiwan had almost quadrupled its defense budget in the last eight years, in response to Trump’s earlier comments about making Taiwan pay more for US military help. The deputy foreign minister said that Taiwan still hasn’t received the backlog of US weaponry that it had previously bought.

According to Taiwan News, Wu said that if the US made more sophisticated weaponry accessible, Taiwan would be willing to purchase them, including the F-35 fighter plane. He thinks that in the event of a war in the Taiwan Strait, the US under Trump will still take action to safeguard its interests.

Taiwan’s approach, according to Wu, might be characterized as a “not today” policy. For Chinese leader Xi Jinping, this strategy maintains him thinking “every day when he wakes up that today is not the day to invade Taiwan.”

According to the Taipei Times, US Commander of Pacific Air Forces General Kevin Schneider said that China has escalated its provocative intrusions surrounding Taiwan by 300 percent since May. He also added that the region’s problems might challenge the administration of US President-elect Donald Trump.

According to the Taipei Times, the General said that China’s strategies are simply not exclusive to China but rather demonstrate to the rest of the world that China succeeds.

“Whether it’s coming into the air defence identification zone [ADIZ] or crossing the centre line within the Taiwan Strait, since the inauguration [of president William Lai], we have seen a 300 percent increase in those air activities,” Schneider was cited by NBC News.

According to statistics from the Ministry of National Defense, 335 Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s ADIZ between May and November of last year. According to the Taipei Times, China entered the airspace at least 1,085 times over the same period this year.