Taiwan as the Central Issue of Donald Trump’s Visit to the People’s Republic of China

The visit of US President Donald Trump to the People’s Republic of China on 13–15 May, together with his talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, constituted a single landmark event in contemporary world politics.

On Fundamentally Different Approaches to the Taiwan Issue in the United States

This particular split first manifested itself at the turn of the 2000s and 2010s during ostensibly academic debates between “neoconservatives” and “neo-isolationists” on US foreign policy. Today, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump, whose divergences are particularly noticeable in their rhetoric regarding Taiwan, could be considered as the public representatives of these two ideologies, albeit in a very rough way.

It should be noted that during Donald Trump’s first presidential term, the interests of the “neocons” were represented by Mike Pompeo, Rubio’s predecessor as Secretary of State. Also belonging to the same camp was National Security Adviser John Bolton, although the 45th President of the United States dismissed him before the end of his tenure. Bolton openly advocated abandoning the nearly half-century-long policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding Taiwan and replacing it with “strategic clarity,” that is, giving relations with the island the character of ordinary interstate relations.

In such a case, there would be no need for informational tightrope walking during visits by American officials to Taiwan, as it was the case during Nancy Pelosi’s notorious trip, nor for constructing “workarounds” for Taiwanese leaders travelling abroad. Nor would there be any need to justify to Beijing the sale of another batch of weapons to Taiwan: “An independent state requested them, and we sold them. What exactly is the issue?”

Such a hypothetical approach by Washington to the Taiwan question would........

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