Last month, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping strolled through the lush gardens of a grand California mansion and engaged in a frank and intimate conversation.
It was their first in-person summit in a year and the Chinese president was blunt: Taiwan, Xi told his American counterpart, was the most important and dangerous issue in the strained relations between the two countries.
Beijing’s policies toward the self-governing island it claims as its own will again be in the spotlight when Taiwan’s voters go to the polls on Jan. 13 to choose a new president and parliament, and the United States will follow closely.
For now, William Lai Ching-te, incumbent vice president and candidate of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is expected to emerge victorious.
The outcome would likely anger Beijing, which describes Lai as a “separatist” bent on independence, and would ensure continued tension across the narrow strait that separates the island from China.
“Washington is well prepared to face whatever choice the Taiwanese electorate makes, but there will certainly be different opportunities and challenges depending on the outcome of the election,” said Rorry Daniels, executive director of the Asia Society Policy Institute. ” told Al Jazeera, adding that the US would consider strategies based on “appropriate political signals” to deter any Chinese military response.

Beijing has increased pressure on Taiwan since voters first elected the DPP’s Tsai Ing-wen as president in 2016, cutting off all official dialogue, carrying out military activities around the island and encouraging the few official diplomatic allies remaining from Taipei to transfer recognition to Beijing.
The United States, which maintains official ties with China, is however Taiwan’s most important international supporter and is required by law to provide Taipei with the means to defend itself. In August, he approved the sale of millions dollars worth of military equipment and weapons to the island.
Potential results
Opinion polls put Lai just ahead of Hou Yu-ih of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party.
Although the KMT is seen as friendlier toward Beijing, neither candidate supports the unification that is the cornerstone of Beijing’s policy toward the island. All candidates want, to varying degrees, to continue cooperation with the United States and keep China’s influence at bay.
Since taking office, Tsai, who maintains that the people of Taiwan must choose their future, has strengthened cooperation with Washington, welcoming dozens of American politiciansincluding former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and meeting with key representatives during stops in the United States, despite the furore in China.
“She is now, I would say, the best Taiwanese president that the United States will ever have,” said Kharis Templeman, head of the Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific program at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
A victory for Lai of the DPP, who also visited the United Statescould further distance Taiwan from Beijing, which has accused Lai of calling for independence and risking war.
When Pelosi visited Taipei in August 2022, Beijing launched unprecedented war games on and around the island and cut military communication channels with Washington.
“Lai will be very focused in the absence of open channels of dialogue with Beijing, making sure that his relationship with the United States is really strong,” Daniels said.

If the KMT’s Hou were to win, Daniels says the United States would have to find a way to counter Beijing’s likely increased influence, but analysts say a Hou victory could also potentially benefit U.S.-China relations by lowering the temperature in bilateral relations. close relationships.
“This would allow the United States and China to move Taiwan from the center of the relationship to the side,” noted Stanford’s Templeman.
One caveat is that parliamentary elections will also be held on January 13 and, although Lai leads the polls for the presidential election, experts say the DPP could lose its majority in Parliament.
In this kind of scenario, the U.S. government will monitor candidates to see how they handle negotiations between and within parties.
Questions have already been raised about the ability of opposition parties to work together after the KMT and Taiwan People’s Party attempted to put forward a unity bid and mount a concerted challenge to the DPP. collapsed in disarray. Hou and Ko Wen-je of the TPP found themselves in an embarrassing public debacle, unable to agree on which candidate would run for president.
Policy and principle
Whatever the outcome, the United States will continue to emphasize the need for dialogue and to avoid military confrontation, especially as military dialogue which was a victim of Pelosi’s visit was revived last month.
In recent years, the United States has increased transits through the Taiwan Strait and Daniels believes this risks being misinterpreted.
“We’re going to see these minor surges that each side sees as having a defensive purpose and which are perceived as so aggressive by the other side, that they trigger a cycle of escalation,” Daniels told Al Jazeera.
Instead of high-level diplomatic visits that have raised the political and military temperature, Daniels suggests that the United States could move forward with more substantial commitments.
“A free trade agreement between the United States and Taiwan would send a very strong signal of support for the relationship. And the United States can ensure its military sales to Taiwan,” Daniels said. “Taiwan has purchased a lot of equipment and, from what I understand, it has not been delivered yet.”

While Washington supports deterrence against Taiwan, it has for years maintained a deliberately vague policy of “strategic ambiguity” over Taiwan’s status, characterized by its “one China” approach.
For the United States, One China is a policy that formally recognizes Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China and recognizes, but does not accept, Beijing’s position that Taiwan is part of China.
For Beijing, on the other hand, one China is a principle that forms the basis of its claim to sovereignty over Taiwan.
Since Biden came to power in 2021, however, there have been questions about whether the United States could have changed its approach.
On several occasions, the president has stated that The United States would defend Taiwan in the event of a military conflict with Beijing, which led the White House to qualify its remarks and reiterate that the status quo remained.
“There is something of a contradiction at the heart of U.S. policy toward Taiwan — it leads to some general skepticism toward the United States,” Templeman said.
‘Beyond our control’
Among those questioning the US commitment to Taiwan is documentary filmmaker S Leo Chiang, who closely follows US politicians’ statements on Taiwan.
“Biden says one thing but the administration says another. It’s just endless uncertainties,” Chiang told Al Jazeera.
Chiang is not the only one to question American involvement.
A September survey by the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s top research institution, showed that Taiwanese trust in the United States had declined from 45.3 percent. in 2021 to 34% this year.
Nearly a third said they did not think the United States would use force to help Taiwan in the event Beijing uses force to achieve its goal of taking control of the island.
A US and Taiwanese passport holder, Chiang has lived in both countries. As a Taiwanese resident planning to vote, he said he has seen Congress split and Republicans block ballots. additional aid to Ukraine last month was a worrying sign.
“My biggest fear is the politicization of Ukraine, as will happen in Taiwan,” Chiang said. “They tell the world that we are the defenders of democracy, but at the end of the day, that’s not always the case.”
But experts warn against making direct comparisons between Taiwan and Ukraine. Taiwan is the 10th largest trading partner of the United States and a key source of advanced semiconductor chips, Templeman notes, emphasizing the close economic relationship between the two countries.

Taiwan’s more than 23 million citizens are in the crosshairs of two superpowers.
Chiang grew up in the 1970s, when Taiwan was under martial law and his grandmother’s basement was designated as a bomb shelter for the neighborhood during military exercises.
Today, Taiwan is one of the region’s strongest democracies and the underground rooms are living and storage spaces.
“We’ve lived with this for so long and we feel like it’s beyond our control,” Chiang said. “I want Taiwan to have the right to self-determination. And that’s unfortunately not going to happen any time soon – it’s a major source of frustration.”