Polling on China, Parliament Taiwan briefings, AI Summit and China
A Beijing to Britain bonus briefing
Hello,
In futurism, there exists an adage known as Amara’s Law. This sets out the following: “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” Arguably, this is an adage that can be applied to many moments in geopolitics and geoeconomics. With that in mind…
“Xi Jinping should not mess with Taiwan until we have achieved semiconductor independence, until the end of my first term when I will lead us there. And after that, our commitments to Taiwan, our commitments to be willing to go to military conflict, will change…because that’s rationally in our self-interest.” That’s a quote from Vivek Ramaswamy, a potential candidate to be the Republican nominee for the next election in the United States. Declared this week by The Times as “the future of the Republican Party,” he made the comments during a discussion around national security matters with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. Ramaswamy currently polls third, sitting at a short distance behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. In first place? Former President Donald Trump, who is polling higher than every other Republican candidate combined.
In recent interviews, Trump has accused Taiwan of “taking all of our chip business”, and argued Washington should have imposed tariffs on the island. He avoided answering directly when asked if he would defend the island, saying it would give away his position. This has led some pockets of Taiwanese media, such as the Tapai Times, to conclude that “the resurgence of Trumpism…would be a detriment to Taiwan and the democratic front against authoritarian regimes.” To what extent do Trump and Ramaswamy’s comments speak for the direction of travel in the Republican party? That’s hard to know at this stage, but worth monitoring as we head closer to the election next year. Certainly we can still see some influential figures on the right expressing why Taiwan matters to America beyond semiconductors, and second place Ron DeSantis has doubled down on his China hawkishness over the last couple of months, and is reported to be making a major speech on the issue soon. The Republican candidates are set to go head-to-head next week in a debate hosted by Fox News.
How does this impact the UK’s relationship with Taiwan, if at all? Very little at this stage. No major political party is in line to change the current approach, and high-level UK-China trade and energy meetings will take place this year. However, take note of comments from former Downing Street brain Dominic Cummings, who, as The Spectator picked up, recently mused to his thousands of readers about what a new British political party should run on. When it came to foreign policy, there should be “no war over Taiwan”:
“If China invades Taiwan it will provoke huge defensive moves against itself across Asia. We should be considering where realistic and credible red lines really are — they certainly don’t run through an island visible from China’s shore full of millions of Chinese people with cousins in the PLA. The One China (but peaceful unification) policy was a good one. We should return to the Lee Kuan Yew approach that Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama stuck to. And be tougher on China’s infiltration at home. The combination of weakness viz Chinese intel operations and aggression viz Taiwan is the wrong way around.”
As Parliament is still in recess, this week’s briefing is shorter, rounding up key stories and strategies from around the world that should matter to British policymakers and FTSE100 leaders.
— Sam Hogg, Editor