What Trump’s Taiwan Comments Tell China

China will be pleased former President Donald Trump’s remark suggest he’s not hot on the idea of defending Taiwan, a China watcher says, but this won’t alter Beijing’s calculus for any future invasion.

Now the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, Trump’s comment caused a stir after a July interview with host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News‘ Sunday Morning Futures resurfaced recently on X, formerly Twitter.

“If I answer that question, it will put me in a very bad negotiating position,” Trump said—a position aligning with Washington’s longstanding “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan‘s defense. But he then pivoted and accused the island of making off with the U.S. semiconductor industry: “We used to make all of our own chips, now they’re made in Taiwan, 90 percent of [them]…Remember this, Taiwan took—smart, brilliant—they took our business away.”

The comment drew criticism from both sides of the political aisle. Many pointed out the inaccuracy of the allegation, while others saw his remark as throwing Taiwan under the bus.

“President Trump’s comments will be received happily in Beijing,” Brian Hart, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project, told Newsweek. “Chinese actors have been using social media and other means to spread doubt about U.S. reliability among Taiwan’s public.”

Taiwan’s government says China-based social media accounts frequently conduct mass disinformation campaigns. This interference soared to new heights in the lead-up to Taiwan’s January 13 presidential and legislative elections, ranging from fake news to alleged AI-assisted fake porn videos featuring politicians.

The Chinese Communist Party government in Beijing claims self-ruled Taiwan is its territory, despite never having governed there. Chinese officials framed the island’s recent election, which handed the China-skeptic Democratic People’s Party an unprecedented third term, as a choice between peace or war.

“The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests and the most important and sensitive issue in China-U.S. relations,” Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., told Newsweek, but declined to address Trump’s comments directly.

Liu advised the U.S. to follow the existing framework for Sino-American relations and to “prudently and properly handle the Taiwan-related issues.”

While Trump’s Taiwan comments may play into the Chinese authorities’ hands in terms of messaging, Hart said they are not likely to convince Chinese leader Xi Jinping a second Trump administration would stand idly by in a Taiwan Strait crisis.

“Many in Beijing are convinced that the U.S. would intervene to some extent in a conflict, and they have to bake in those assumptions if they decide to use force against Taiwan,” he said.

Trump is viewed as a wild card by both sides of the Taiwan Strait, he added: “If he wins, they will assume that instability will grow when it comes to U.S.-China-Taiwan dynamics.”

Regarding Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, Taiwanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jeff Liu told Newsweek it’s “a culmination of supply chain cooperation among the world’s major democracies.”

Liu said the U.S. and Taiwan enjoy a “mutually beneficial and cooperative relationship” that has garnered bilateral support through successive administrations and is “continually deepening in the realms of “security, economy, science and technology, education and even global issues.”

Hart pointed out that Taiwan built up its tech prowess on its own through heavy investment and ambitious industrial policies.

“They didn’t ‘take’ our chip business, they outcompeted us in certain areas, and it has paid off for them,” he said. “Taiwan is a crucial economic partner for the United States, and an indispensable node in electronics supply chains. An attack on Taiwan would be devastating for the global economy, so the U.S. has material interests in Taiwan’s security.”

Newsweek reached out to a Trump spokesperson via a written request for comment.