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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
Nation States: Taiwan, China & the Policy Nobody Understands
00:28:50
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
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- [01:04]
Steve Yates
welcome to Nation States with Yates. News comes at you fast, whether you're in the White House or at your house. We try to take you behind the headlines and beyond the talking points to serve as your personal national security advisor, to take a look at what's happening in this wild world, but help it make sense in a Main street kind of way. Today I want to talk a little bit about Taiwan again, because it stays in the headlines, it's at the front lines. It seems to be in the middle of what is the greatest challenge between the US And China after President Trump's summit in Beijing with leader Xi Jinping of China. I was just in Taiwan for a week of meetings, consultations and a little bit of speechifying, but came back with a few takeaways about key questions that maybe real Americans might have about what exactly is our policy towards Taiwan and why is our policy the way it is? Because some of the answers might surprise you. So after this brief break, we're going to come back and take a deep dive into what exactly is America's approach to Taiwan, what should be America's approach to Taiwan? And and should our leaders even be talking to each other? Might surprise you that they haven't been talking directly to each other. So after a brief break, come back to join us with Nation States with Yates.
- [02:28]
Inner Balance Advertiser
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- [02:58]
Redfin Advertiser
That's innerbalance.com let's talk about modern home shopping. It's sort of become a fun side hobby, right? Scrolling listings at night, dreaming about kitchens you've never seen or backyards you haven't even stepped foot in. Or all from the comfort of pretty much anywhere. Redfin knows a lot of people like you want to own but are stuck in this browsing mode loop. That's where Redfin flips the script. With listings that update within minutes and tours you can book right from the Redfin app, you can see your dream home the moment it appears. Now, liking a listing is easy, but actually landing it? That's where Redfin comes in. Redfin has over 2,200 agents with local expertise and Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. That means they want to help you win. Not just window shop. Redfin is built to help you go from just looking to wait. This could actually be home. So become the newest neighbor on the block. Visit redfin.com to start finding and start owning. That's redfin.com
- [04:03]
Steve Yates
welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Taiwan. You might have heard of it. Island 100 miles off the coast of mainland China. There's some dispute about exactly how far it away it is from the United States. The president and when he was talking on the plane back from China, made mention of it being 9500 miles away. Well, it's probably 9500 kilometers from the West coast, but really only 400 miles from the nearest US base where there are significant US capabilities, including troops, and only about 1700 miles from the nearest US territories where citizens vote in our elections and have representation in our government. And so of course, there are some targets far away from the US west coast that matter to US Interests. The waterways around Taiwan strategically significant. We've talked about that before, but as I spent the last week in Taiwan, sometimes I refer to it as Fantasy island, where all of your dreams come true. A few basic questions crossed my mind as we thought about what exactly is America's policy towards Taiwan. Well, to specialists, a lot of it will begin with a civil war on the Chinese mainland. What they leave out of that story is there were already people on the island of Taiwan at that time. There were natives that had been there for centuries that Cultures resembled more of Polynesia, even Native American culture than they did any kind of mainland Asian culture. But over the centuries, there would be traders, people who were fleeing from other jurisdictions that might end up in the island of Taiwan. And then there were faraway European traders that would come. There are Portuguese, Spanish, others would come and they would settle, create some form of governments in a localized part of Taiwan. But all of this was going on before the Chinese Civil War. Also before the Chinese Civil War, a small nation called Japan we're going to talk about in the next episode or two. They came to Taiwan by way of the Sino Japanese War that ended in 1895, result of which was Japan won, China lost. Now, that was China under what we call the Qing Dynasty. That was a minority group known as the people in Manchuria, northeastern part of China. They had their own script and language and culture that was distinct from what had been traditionally Chinese. But they took over and ran the Qing Empire for hundreds of years. They lost to the Japanese. And one of the takeaways by Japan after that loss was Taiwan. It was ceded to Japan in perpetuity, which is a fancy way of saying forever. Forever turned out to be 50 years. But I digress. The civil war ends between the Chinese mainland and the Republic of China. That was led by Chiang Kai Shek. It was the Nationalist Party or Kuomintang, that lost the civil war, retreated from the mainland and went to Taiwan. Now that Taiwan had been given by Japan to China after the. After Japan lost World War II. So you have Sino Japanese War 1895. Taiwan ceded to Japan forever. Forever goes until 1945 when Japan loses World War II. The Republic of China nominally takes control of of Taiwan, but really they weren't paying that much attention to that jurisdiction at that time. It was when the civil war on the mainland went badly and Chiang Kai Shek and his forces retreated far out of range for the Communists at that time. And so the Republic of China went to Taiwan thinking maybe Uncle Sam, others would come back to their aid and one day they would retake the mainland. When I, many decades later, would first go to Taiwan in 1987, I could see carvings on the sides of hills that would talk about restoring or liberating the mainland, meaning that the Republic of China would go back to the Chinese mainland. Well, we fast forward from the Communists winning on the mainland. Obviously, America didn't recognize the Communists right away. We were in the middle of a cold war with the Soviet Union. There was a question of whether this Republic of China could go back and take over. And maybe we needed to wait out the final disposition of that. There was in the 1950s, an exchange of missiles from some offshore islands that were closer to the mainland but belonged to the Republic of China. And. And we came plausibly to the brink of nuclear war or a war with a nuclear power by the time those late 50s came around. Well, that was an uncomfortable disposition for the United States, but it was a firm position of the Cold War. We get into the Vietnam conflict, as it was called, and after many years, we're looking for a way to gracefully wind down that conflict or even better, win during the Nixon administration. But one of the key strategies that President Nixon was following was looking at where was the population of China. And there was hundreds of millions on the Chinese mainland. And looked at the country that we recognized, the Republic of China, still claiming jurisdiction over all of the mainland. And that was the formal US Diplomatic partner and ally of the United States. From World War II. Continuing onward into the Cold War and the Vietnam conflict seemed to open a way for the grand strategist Henry Kissinger, to balance China, maybe against the Soviet Union, by making an opening to communist China and looking to get on the path of diplomatic recognition of China may be distinct from Taiwan. Now, the dictator that ran China, Mao Zedong, pretty bloody guy, killed many tens of millions of Chinese people during that conflict. But the guy that was running Taiwan, Chiang Kai Shek, wasn't any kind of wilting lily when it came to putting down the hammer on people. He. He had established martial law on Taiwan. So in some ways we called it free China, but it was a free China run by a dictator under martial law. But it was one aligned with us in the Cold War. So in this muddle, the United States adopted a policy that would be called One China, where we moved towards recognizing that the People's Republic of China as that one China. And we had unofficial relations with Taiwan, which was the Republic of China. In 1979, we made the formal switch. We ended a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. But we passed in the US Congress a Taiwan Relations act that said that the United States considered the peaceful approach to resolution of differences in this, what we would now call the Indo Pacific region or Asia Pacific region, as fundamental to American national security interests. And any move to change that by force would be considered a grave national security concern for the United States. That was Cold War code language for we would go to war potentially, or at least militarily intervene on behalf of our allies if hostile powers took that course. Well, in the midst of all of this, we never really answered some basic questions about how are we going to deal with the government in Taiwan in the long term, we had a very short term focus. The short term focus we thought, well, little Taiwan doesn't really stand a chance next to big China. It was an Asian tiger economy. But this was what would soon be a billion people on the Chinese mainland. And when we moved to recognize the People's Republic of China, so did the rest of the world. Some before us, many after us. And China got the permanent seat on the UN Security Council away from the Republic of China. Makes some sense in the way that China was big and by the 1970s it had acquired nuclear weapons. And so the rationale for the permanent five later became those that had nuclear weapons. And we wanted to keep that a small club. And hopefully those permanent 5 wouldn't go to war with each other. This is our thinking. But in the midst of that, would we talk to the government of Taiwan? How would we talk to the government of Taiwan? Well, in the 70s and 80s and for much of the 90s, there was a risk that there would be conflict coming from China to Taiwan. In other words, that the mainland might try to take Taiwan. But during that time, China's economy was going from absolute destruction from its great leap forward, which was actually a great leap into poverty, and its great proletariat Cultural Revolution, which destroyed the civil society of China and along the way took it deeper into poverty. And so for much of the 70s, 80s and 90s, China was recovering and trying to build out from that. And during that period, there seemed to be less of a risk that China would try to challenge the United States alliance system, including the partnership with Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations act to provide for defensive self defense needs. Well, during the course of that, we also decided that the President of the United States wouldn't talk directly with the President of Taiwan because in the minds of people in Foggy Bottom or the State Department, that's not what we do with countries. We don't have diplomatic relations. Now that's not, in fact true. When we look at what presidents do in a number of other conflicts, there are competing conflicts around the world where the United States has an ally and we actually will talk to the leader that opposes that ally if we're engaged in peacemaking or trying to deescalate a conflict. And in many other situations we have actually talked with both parties with disputed sovereignty. But we kept this exception largely because of the imperative of economic engagement with China, which grew by leaps and bounds over the decades. But Also, he thought we had this fancy way of dealing with things that was working okay. But the mid-1990s, we had an election open up in Taiwan. We had a new president who had succeeded the Chiang Dynasty, the Chiang Kai Shek, and his son Jiang Jinguo, passing away. Li Donghui, a new leader, had emerged.
- [15:42]
Bethenny Frankel
He.
- [15:43]
Steve Yates
And he was intent on moving Taiwan away from martial law, which had been lifted in 1986, and toward democracy, where all leaders from the legislature on up were directly elected by their constituents. Fine idea, good American idea, but one good for the Chinese people, too. Interesting example that Chinese people, ethnically Chinese people in an Asian society are. Are good with having elections and moving toward democracy, something the Communist Party has disputed. And sometimes commentators in Asia would say that there were Asian values at odds with moving towards what we see as a free and open democracy. But nonetheless, Taiwan went on that course. Lee Dong Hui was elected by a landslide in 1996. But before that election, China decided to test missiles that splashed down near the two major ports of Taiwan, kind of disrupting trade flows and sending a shock through the political system. But the shock actually turned out to the benefit of President Lee in that he had a runaway election. And by 2000, President Lee decided that after 12 years in office, he wanted Taiwan to have a competitive party system. And even though he could have stood for election in 2000, he. He decided not to and allowed for the Democratic Progressive Party, the Nationalist Party, and even a third independent party to compete for the presidency in 2000. That ended up being won by a plurality, mean not a majority vote, but still winning by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party. It was an historic transition. In all of this, Presidents of the United States were still not talking to the president of Taiwan. Well, in a way, we had these tests that were provocative, but we were still doing business with China. We still were making a bet that bringing China into the World Trade Organization meant that we were going to try to peacefully evolve China, where development, the Internet prosperity would narrow our differences and expand areas of cooperation. And China would grow out of the problems of communism and animus toward the United States and our allies. And so maybe peace would bloom across Asia. We've had a couple of challenges along the way since 2000 that should be sobriety checkpoints in that regard. But most of all has been in recent years. China has vastly increased its investment in its military, has vastly increased the number and nature of the firepower it has to deploy by air, by sea and undersea, and cyber and some other means, whether directed at Taiwan, but also at our Treaty allies, Japan, the Philippines and some others, making clear that economic prosperity didn't lessen the risk of conflict. The money that China made by investment from Taiwan, from the United States, from our allies, was actually turned against all of us, the United States, our allies, and Taiwan, with greater coercive means than we had ever seen before coming from the People's Republic. So in all of this, in 2026, we face a little bit of a confusion when it comes to dealing with war and peace. And make no mistake, the Communist Party of China has threatened that if the United States doesn't handle its dealings with Taiwan properly, that there would be grave consequences and we would risk direct conflict. That is a pretty direct threat of war that was delivered very, very recently by Xi Jinping to Donald Trump when he visited Beijing. So this is a serious situation. When President Trump has faced similar situations, say with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the president would speak to leaders on both sides and try to talk about how to have an off ramp to wind down a conflict and maybe establish a better path to peace. After October 7, when Israel suffered a grave injury within its own country by terrorists backed by Iran, but also others from within its own territory in Gaza, which within Israeli sovereign territory, there was a breakout of war, military was used to put down that movement. And President Trump, even though Israel is an ally of the United States, one of the more reliable ones, one we will stand side by side with in military action in Iran, we still talked to both sides to talk about how to deescalate and maybe chart a better path to peace and prosperity that would get away from conflict and maybe free the United States and those countries involved to do better things with their neighborhood and the wider world. Well, somehow there is a point that ceases to function the same way when our leaders think about China. And what do you think about that? Do you think that the United States ought to call Taiwan by the name the Communist Chinese use to refer to it, which is Taiwan? Well, if so, you and I would agree. But you know who wouldn't agree? Our government. Our government tends to refer to Taiwan as authorities and the people on Taiwan and sometimes will make do of calling Taiwan Chinese Taipei because they want to avoid provoking Chinese sensibilities about sovereignty, when really we're all talking about the same place, which has a government, has a military, has a currency, and actually has been an amazingly big investor in the United States in times past, has been an amazingly big investor in China. But the thanks that the people of Taiwan and its elected government get is diplomatic isolation. Where we dare not even say their name. Now, do you think if we take seriously the threat from China, that we should go ahead and talk to Beijing about how to avoid that threat? Do you think we should talk to the leader of Taiwan about how we intend to avoid that threat? Should we talk directly? So elect a leader to elected leader? Well, if you, like me, think that that would be normal and common sense, guess what? We are at odds with what American policy has been since 1979. Presidents haven't talked directly with the elected leader of Taiwan. We have cut out organizations where we pretend that somehow Beijing's feelings, which seem to be very, very sensitive for someone that claims to be a power, that these sensitive feelings mean that we should have intermediaries carry messages between the presidents. And maybe we shouldn't have very senior leaders from the United States government, say, like a secretary of state or a national security advisor, go to a place like Taiwan to talk to their elected leadership directly. Or we also shouldn't allow those elected leaders to freely visit the United States even though they buy billions of dollars in defensive arms from us, even though they invest billions and billions and billions of dollars in manufacturing in the United States and purchase billions of dollars in agricultural and other products from the United States. And despite being freely elected Democrats in the small d sense, we say, no, you can't, as president of Taiwan, visit the United States freely. And if you should visit, you should only have what is called a transit, which means you can stop over for your comfort. But you shouldn't have an official visit. You shouldn't go to Congress and address our elected leaders there. You definitely shouldn't be allowed to visit the District of Columbia, which is where our nation's capital rests. Maybe you can find a nice spot to visit in California or Texas or Florida occasionally, maybe New York, but be on your way. And that's the way we've treated Taiwan. Now, aside from Taiwan's feelings, do you think this is the way that we will get their attention, to get their cooperation, to maybe hear directly from the side that is on our side, how we might avoid a conflict without selling out the people that have invested billions in us and purchased billions from us, and also our friends and collaborators with our important treaty allies to their north in Japan and to their south in the Philippines? Well, again, common sense has been set aside in American policy, and we have these other ways that I guess allegedly educated and smarter people have followed. But in following their way, we seem to be still at risk of a conflict. And so in my assessment here at Nation states. We don't think that this old way of doing things makes a lot of sense in 2026, and that if we really want to avoid a conflict, we should be talking directly with the parties involved. And we should be clear that we want the parties, if we have the side that is on America's interest and our allies interest, they should be free to buy what defense needs. They need to deter the conflict on their own without us having to intervene necessarily. But if there's a conflict, is there really a question of where America should come down? Do we want the Communist Chinese to feel as if they can take a free and democratic territory that's vital to the global economy without any kind of a meaningful response? Do you think we can have an alliance with, with Japan or the Philippines if a territory that is right between them, just a few hundred miles from each, is territorial waters? Do you think we can have a system of alliances in East Asia if that were to occur? And if we didn't have a system of alliances in East Asia, do you think that China wouldn't be looking to walk across the Pacific the way the Japanese did in the march to World War II coming toward America? That's what China has been doing all along, planning this breakout from that first island chain into the blue water of the Pacific in order to push America out of Asia. Now, a lot of people in the United States might think, well, America doesn't need to be in Asia. We should be paying attention to our own homeland. And I definitely support making our homeland a priority. It should be the priority. But the best way for us to stay safe and prosperous in doing so is, is to keep the most modern, developed economies of Asia that are our allies on board, able to defend themselves and working together with us to keep those malign influences at home in Asia contained there, rather than having to deal with them coming across the Pacific to our shores and challenging us here. Now, that's your humble correspondent's point of view on these kinds of things. But I hope you maybe were surprised to learn that it's American policy not to talk directly to the democratically elected leader of Taiwan, even though we supposedly face a potential military conflict. I hope you have some shock at the notion that even though the Chinese Communist Party calls Taiwan by the name of Taiwan in its own proceedings, that we don't call Taiwan by its name. And we think somehow that's going to help. And that despite being a major customer on defense and commercial side of things, that we aren't more clear that it's completely at odds with American interests for China to change this status quo by force, that it should have to do so peacefully and by negotiation, if at all. And these are kind of the core foundations of what I think a sensible approach to what is Taiwan, what is American policy and how do we best avoid conflict? Might be I'm curious what you think on those things, but after we come back from this brief break, we'll do a little sum up of the key takeaways from this episode and tease what comes next in our ongoing conversations here at Nation States with Yates.
- [28:16]
Inner Balance Advertiser
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- [28:46]
Redfin Advertiser
That's innerbalance.com let's talk about modern home shopping. It's sort of become a fun side hobby, right? Scrolling listings at night, dreaming about kitchens you've never seen or backyards you haven't even stepped foot in, all from the comfort of pretty much anywhere. Redfin knows a lot of people like you want to own but are stuck in this browsing mode loop. That's where Redfin flips the script with listings that update within minutes and tours you can book right from the Redfin app. You can see your dream home the moment it appears. Now, liking a listing is easy, but actually landing it? That's where Redfin comes in. Redfin has over 2200 agents with local expertise, and Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. That means they want to help you win, not just window shop. Redfin is built to help you go from just looking to wait. This could actually be home. So become the newest neighbor on the block. Visit redfin.com to start finding and start owning. That's redfin.com
- [29:51]
Steve Yates
welcome back to Nation States with Yates for another episode looking at the fun island of Taiwan and how we should avoid a conflict by maybe using some common sense about who we're talking to. And hopefully you enjoyed going through this menu of what has been the American approach to this island that makes the news when the semiconductors issue comes up or when China is testing its military muscle, maybe threatening a blockade. Maybe it helps you understand a little bit more about why the new prime minister of Japan has said, you know, this coercion that China is using against Taiwan, it threatens Japan's national interests. And the president of the Philippines has had to say somewhat the same thing recently. In other words, we, we have yet another hotspot around the world that is being destabilized not by America, not by our leader and what he's saying, but by the leader of China who's trying to change things in its favor for political and strategic reasons that we don't share. So hopefully when you run across this getting talked about with your family and friends, maybe at your church gatherings, for socials or otherwise in your engagements, you can feel confident to say, you know what common sense America says Taiwan is Taiwan. Common sense America says that the president of the United States, if he wants to avoid a conflict, should talk to the leaders of both sides of the conflict. And when it comes down to it, we prefer that our partners and allies have strong independent capabilities so that America isn't everyone's 911 Johnny on the spot, coming in to intervene when a threat comes on the horizon. We want those threats kept in their neighborhood and maybe balanced and contained by our friends and partners in that region before it comes to our desk or your home. Because I think making peace, avoiding conflict is best done through strength. And hopefully you got a taste for the strength being talking in clear, common sense, allowing those who want and need to defend themselves the means to be able to do so. But also by America being clear, we can set expectations with our adversary about what they should really expect if they were to go too far and where too far might be. So with that, I hope you've enjoyed the conversation today about Taiwan. We talked a little bit in today's episode about Japan. And Japan was in the news in the recent past in a fun and different way. And I want to take a little bit of a deep dive onto some things about Japan that maybe you haven't been thinking about because really, China has overwhelmed the headlines and the conflict with Iran has taken over the headlines. But there's an important development in Japan that's good for America that we want to talk about in our next episode. So please come back. Until next time. I'm Steve Yates, your host here at Nation States with Yates.
- [32:58]
Inner Balance Advertiser
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- [33:28]
Bethenny Frankel
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- [34:16]
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Bethenny Frankel
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Bethenny Frankel
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