How Taiwan Conquered U.S. Politics — and Showed Europe How It’s Done
The island democracy off the coast of China has wooed friends in every U.S. faction and region — and that’s its greatest source of strength and protection.
Then-Representative of Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States Hsiao Bi-khim speaks during the opening ceremony of the first ever Taiwan Expo on Oct. 12, 2022, in Washington. | Alex Wong/Getty Images
07/06/2024
Alexander Burns is head of news at POLITICO. He has covered elections and political power across the U.S. for over a decade and co-wrote a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden. His reported column Tomorrow explores the future of politics and policy debates that cross international borders.
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan remembers a few things about the reception he attended at Twin Oaks, the Washington estate owned by the government of Taiwan, in the winter of 2022.
The ice cubes were stamped with the design of the Maryland flag. The officials there knew all about Hogan’s record, including his forceful condemnation of anti-Asian hate crimes. And Taiwan’s top diplomatic representative at the time, Hsiao Bi-khim, wanted to know if Hogan intended to run for president.
Hogan said he deflected her inquiry — “Well, a lot of people are encouraging me, I have to make a decision” — but Hsiao kept trying to draw him out.
Hogan paraphrased her prodding him: “It seems like you’d be a great candidate in a general election, you could appeal to a wider audience like you did in Maryland, but it seems like it would be tough to get through the primary.”
Partly because of the same calculus, Hogan chose not to seek the White House. Instead, he is the Republican nominee for Senate in Maryland and one of his party’s most prized recruits of 2024.
Hsiao is now vice president of Taiwan.
The conversation at Twin Oaks was more than an incidental encounter between two ambitious leaders who are still on the rise. It was a moment that captured the sophistication of Taiwan’s political outreach in the United States — a determined, yearslong campaign to win over American officials at every level and cement the island’s political standing. Though it is not even recognized as a country, Taiwan holds the status of an all-but-official ally in much of Washington.
Europe has much to learn from Taiwan.
As the leaders of NATO nations prepare to gather in Washington for a summit marking the 75th anniversary of the alliance, the specter of a new Trump presidency hangs over their deliberations. Fearful that the United States will back down from confronting Russia, they are reassessing their own defense policies, pleading with Republicans not to embrace isolationism and, in many cases, girding for a more dangerous world.
Taiwan’s example shows that sometimes the best defense against an expansionist, nuclear-armed neighbor is a vigorous program of Washington cocktail receptions, upbeat economic development events and relentless consular hopscotching through America’s unglamorous state capitals.
Years of painstaking retail politics across the U.S. political spectrum have built an expansive network of pro-Taiwan elected officials in both parties and throughout the American government. If China attacked Taiwan, there would be an outcry echoing from precincts far beyond the Beltway.
Then-Representative to the United States Hsiao Bi-khim and Asia Society Policy Institute Vice President Daniel Russel speak during the 2023 Concordia Annual Summit on Sept. 20, 2023, in New York City. | Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit
In Congress, there is no meaningful partisan divide over support for Taiwan — a monumental achievement in America’s fractured political culture. There are pro-Taiwan caucuses in more than a dozen state legislatures, in left-leaning territory like Connecticut and in MAGA bastions like West Virginia and Kentucky. Pro-Taiwan resolutions have passed in states as conservative as Utah and as progressive as Hawaii.
How many state legislatures have a Lithuania friendship caucus?
Taiwan has strategic advantages that some of Europe’s frontline states do not. A wealthy country with a powerhouse tech sector, Taiwan has money to burn and economic benefits to dangle that the countries in Russia’s shadow do not possess. Pro-Taiwan legislative resolutions often specify, in hefty dollar figures, how much commerce a state does with the island. There is no Baltic version of TSMC, the Taiwanese semiconductor goliath, to promise thousands of jobs to swing state governors.
But the gap is not merely a matter of cash and microchips. Taiwan has a different strategy, anchored in a keen read on what makes American politicians tick and an apparently boundless appetite for personal diplomacy.
Hsiao, 52, who was sworn in as vice president in May, is a central character in this story. Deployed to Washington by Taiwan’s previous president, Tsai Ing-wen, Hsiao was in some ways uniquely equipped for the mission: With an American mother, an Oberlin degree and a youth spent partly in New Jersey, Hsiao was surely better prepared than most diplomats to engage Larry Hogan and his peers.
She did not design Taiwan’s U.S. political strategy from zero, but she was a formidable field marshal in this charm offensive — wooing lawmakers in Washington, attending strategically useful conferences and chatting up officials from even the smallest of states. At a “Delaware Day” event at Twin Oaks, Hsiao made common cause with a state accustomed to living in the shadow of its own overbearing neighbor — not China, but Pennsylvania. “Like Delaware, in Taiwan we consider ourselves small but mighty,” Hsiao said, according to Delaware State Rep. Paul Baumbach, a Democrat.
The friendships Hsaio built in Washington have already been on display in Taiwan since she became vice president: During a congressional delegation visit this spring, Senator Tammy Duckworth came bearing a Washington Nationals jersey with Hsiao’s name on it.
Few U.S. political relationships are as valuable to Taiwan as its bond with the American Legislative Exchange Council, the right-leaning political network that brings together state lawmakers around conservative policy priorities. Tsai addressed ALEC as president in 2020, and Hsiao visited an ALEC conference in Salt Lake City in 2021. The group has embraced Taiwan’s cause, drafting sample text for pro-Taiwan legislation that members have advanced all over the country.
Karla Jones, ALEC’s senior director of international relations and federalism, said Taiwan was highly engaged with her group: “Definitely in the top 10 of countries that are very responsive,” she said.
“Taiwan has done an excellent job of having the diplomatic infrastructure you need to communicate not just in the Beltway, but outside of Washington,” said Jones, describing a remarkable state-level consensus around supporting Taiwan: “When I go to state legislatures, I can talk to any state lawmaker about Taiwan and 9 times out of 10 they’re going to agree with me, I’m going to agree with them.”
China has been all but impotent to counter Taiwan in this respect. The mainland government is so politically toxic in the United States and anti-China policies are now so mainstream here that Chinese diplomats can only register their disapproval for the record. Jones told me that Chinese representatives had contacted ALEC to voice displeasure when the group invited Tsai to address one of its conventions; after ALEC shrugged off that scolding, China didn’t try again when the group hosted Hsiao.
When I contacted the Chinese embassy about this column, a spokesperson sent me a general statement reiterating that China “firmly opposes the US having any form of official interaction with Taiwan and interfering in Taiwan affairs in any way or under any pretext.”
Taiwan’s government talks about its outreach in America in earnest, even flattering terms. A spokesperson for Taiwan’s office in Washington said in a statement that the U.S.-Taiwan relationship was anchored in shared values and economic interests, “forming the bedrock of unwavering partnership,” including at the state level and with groups like ALEC.
Then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy greets then-Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on arrival at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library for a bipartisan meeting on April 5, 2023, in Simi Valley, California. | Mario Tama/Getty Images
That partnership is also grounded in an unsentimental assessment of the American political character.
Many American officials — perhaps most of them — have limited interest in the rest of the world and only fuzzy familiarity with the places where a new World War is likeliest to ignite. The average state legislator today is unlikely to know any more about Taiwan than his forebears knew 110 years ago about the corner of the Austro-Hungarian empire where World War I detonated. This is equally true of the voters these lawmakers represent.
Where Europeans often seem to see this as troublesome American narrowness, Taiwan has treated it as an opportunity: After all, if lawmakers know little to nothing, that represents a chance to educate them.
Some share of those students will turn out to be helpful allies later on — either because they wind up in the House or Senate, or just by reinforcing the strength in numbers of America’s loose pro-Taiwan coalition.
Rex Rice, a state legislator in South Carolina, is emblematic of this brand of American politician. A conservative Republican who is an active member of ALEC, Rice was an author of the ALEC resolution encouraging states to back the endangered democracy.
When I asked Rice why he decided to get involved in supporting Taiwan, he offered the broadest of reasons, praising Taiwan as a “good business partner” and citing Taiwan’s “David versus Goliath” struggle with China.
“They’re in a world by themselves down there — pretty much by themselves,” Rice said. “They’ve got a struggle, and I’d like to support them.”
Rice added that he had found Taiwanese products reliable over time, including a set of impact wrenches that were a “good product.” The Taiwanese government had reached out to him, Rice said, but those conversations hadn’t gone too far.
“They’ve invited me to come visit Taiwan,” said Rice, sounding ambivalent about the idea. “I hate to say this, but I don’t know how long my seat — I’m talking about the one I’m sitting on — can tolerate an airline flight.”
Europe could use more friends like him.