Will the US Come to Taiwan's Defense? Public Opinion from both Taiwan and the US

• In Event: China-Taiwan Relations and World Politics

Abstract

If a conflict arises in the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China, will the United States send its troops to assist Taiwan? This decades-old question has again drawn vast media and scholarly interest of late, largely in part due to two significant broad trends: a) the ever-heightening tensions between the two political entities across the Taiwan Strait since 2016, and b) the increasing show of support for the island democracy from Washington, just as America’s bilateral relationship with Beijing had turned more tumultuous and confrontational under the Trump administration. In this contribution, we revisit this longstanding question by taking advantage of two recent surveys conducted in Taiwan and the United States, respectively. In the first survey, implemented in the fall of 2019, the Taiwanese public was asked whether and why they believe the United States will assist Taiwan in a direct clash with China. The second survey, implemented in the aftermath of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, asked the American public whether they support a U.S. intervention in the Taiwan Strait and what they think would be the best course of action if the island comes under military threat from Chinese forces. Empirical results from the two surveys add to existing knowledge about the Taiwanese and American publics' evolving views toward a potential conflict with China and further increase our understanding of the strategic interaction between Taiwan and the U.S. from the perspective of the masses. Policy implications of the study for the present thorny state of U.S.-China-Taiwan relations will be discussed.

Authors

• Chung-li Wu, Academia Sinica

• Alex Min-Wei Lin, National Chengchi University

• Chingching Chang, Academia Sinica