Taiwan’s MAGA problem
Shared values are the cornerstone of U.S.-Taiwan relations. But what happens if the U.S. is run by people who don’t share those values?
In the first part of this series, I made a case for a coming alignment between the MAGA movement and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), based on commonalities of strongman rule and social and cultural conservatism. In this post, I argue why this development would put at risk the U.S. relationship with (and support for) Taiwan.
MAGA: squishy on Taiwan
No shortage of digital ink has been spent on the implications for Taiwan of a withdrawal of U.S. support for Ukraine against the Russian invaders. A U.S. signal of unwillingness to defend a friend against a big, aggressive neighbor would be the most serious consequence for Taiwan if isolationist, pro-Putin MAGA voices were to take over U.S. foreign policy.
Also drawing attention are Donald Trump’s comments made by Donald Trump this year that cast doubt on whether, as president again, he would bring the U.S. to Taiwan’s defense, as well as his transactional politics and the question of whether he would sell out Taiwan for a trade deal with Xi Jinping. It is also notable that the 2024 Republican Party platform omits any mention of Taiwan, the first time the GOP has failed to do so since before Ronald Reagan.
Shared values, for now…
The historic democratization of Taiwan in the 1990s created a new basis for the American relationship with the nation and its people. Out: the binary Cold War-era lens through which policymakers viewed the island, when America backed Taipei’s dictator against Beijing’s dictator. In: shared values -- democracy, rule of law, freedoms of expression, press, association.
The relationship has only deepened since. As the People’s Republic of China became a less welcoming, less desirable, and more dangerous place to visit, Taiwan emerged as the destination of choice where Americans can immerse themselves in Chinese language and (what they may see as) culture.[1]
But ‘shared values’ exist only as long as they are shared. And that could soon change.
MAGA flipping the script
Following Trump’s impulses, MAGA adherents embrace positions that upended or reverse long-standing positions of the Party that gives them a home -- notably support for Russian (post-Soviet) dictatorship and rejection of free trade. Backing Taiwan (Republic of China) is another long-standing GOP position, as the non-communist alternative to the CCP. How long will that last?
As the MAGA movement embraced Trump’s strongman leadership style here, it has done the same elsewhere. Viktor Orbán’s illiberal theme park in Hungary is now a go-to destination for MAGA influencers. In Budapest, CPAC participants lauded it as a Christian nationalist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-immigrant promised land. Putin’s Russia has become an idealized “anti-woke” utopia for MAGA conservatives and a welcoming home for MAGA expats who want to “escape LGBT ideology” and see Russia as “positive vision of 1950s America.”
Taiwan is very unlike either of those places. Let’s look at the divergent values between Taiwan and MAGA.
The contrasts:
Democracy
Note Taiwan’s democracy scores: Second freest place in Asia, per Freedom House. Second highest democracy score in Asia and Australasia, per the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index. The only ranked "open" country in the Asia-Pacific (along with New Zealand), per CIVICUS. By contrast, MAGA is disdainful, if not openly hostile, to democratic governance, from affinity for authoritarian governance in places like Russia and Hungary, to election denialism in the United States.
LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage
Taiwan is best country in East Asia for LGBTQ equality. In 2019, it became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, following a court ruling that the constitutional right to equality and freedom of marriage extend to all. Its law bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Following her success in being the first East Asian to win RuPaul's Drag Race in 2024, Nymphia Wind was celebrated by Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen. By contrast, antipathy toward LGBTQ persons and opposition to same-sex marriage is core to the MAGA social and political agenda.
Gender roles and equality
Taiwan ranks as one of the most gender-equal countries in Asia; one estimate put it as 7th in the world and first in Asia per the metrics of the UNDP 2021 Gender Inequality Index. Its current vice president and most recent past president were women. While traditional patriarchal structures remain, Taiwan’s open society has enabled feminist views to be aired and debated, leading to shifts in attitudes and laws. Key MAGA voices have favored keeping men and women in traditional gender roles, even using the power of the state to do so. JD Vance, for example, said that professional women "choose a path to misery" when they prioritize careers over having children. Project 2025, the MAGA playbook, promises to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children,” to “even use government power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family,” and to "maintain a biblically based, social-science-reinforced definition of marriage and family.”
Diversity and multiculturalism
“Taiwan stands out as Asia’s most progressive society in terms of recognizing its diversity, the complexity of its historical legacy, and also promoting democratic values that allow people to criticize their government when necessary,” in the assessment of one Taipei-based professor. Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, once subject to repression and forced assimilation in the one-party KMT era, are striving to seek respect and preservation of their identity, culture and language. By contrast, MAGA politics reject notions of diversity and multiculturalism, explicitly vilifying anything labelled “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI). MAGA legislators act to stop policies to address structural racism and even prevent the teaching of history that doesn’t conform to their preferred narrative.
Internationalism
Given its unique status as a non-recognized, non-UN member nation, Taiwan has sought legitimacy and stature by joining as many international organizations as it can, and by backing the concept of a rules-based order based on international institutions. By contrast, MAGA is definitively isolationist in outlook, deriding “globalism” and the notion of multilateral cooperation, as evidenced by President Trump’s withdrawal from several international agreements and treaties.
Self-determination
The people of Taiwan, especially the younger generations, see their national identity through the lens of autonomy and self-determination. They see themselves as Taiwanese rather than the other Chinese. They refuse to be defined by external powers, either as a wayward province by the CCP or as the “free China” by U.S. politicians. By contrast, MAGA voices value hierarchy over equality, tending to favor the views of powerful line-drawers over the people whose lives are actually affected by where the lines are drawn. Examples include those calling for a deal with Putin over Ukrainian land (regardless of what Ukrainians think), favoring Netanyahu’s claims over the West Bank (regardless of what Palestinians think), buying Greenland (regardless of what Greenlanders think), or rejecting the notion of structural racism (regardless of what African-Americans think).
What does this mean for Taiwan?
In a nutshell, Taiwan is “woke.” MAGA is defiantly “anti-woke.” How long until MAGA voices figure this out?
“Anti-communism” has been a traditional pillar of support for Taiwan and remains so among the Regime Changers, at least rhetorically. I say “rhetorically” because, by an objective measurement of behavior, the CCP has become a conservative party. But these voices still use “communist” out of habit and to weaponize it against their domestic political opponents, as Trump is doing with Harris now.
How long can MAGA people sustain the cognitive dissonance between their Party’s traditional position on China/Taiwan and their social and political impulses?
On one side of the Taiwan Strait is a country under strongman governance that promotes traditional gender roles and hierarchies. On the other side is a country with an open democracy that respects equality and diversity. Which side will MAGA values draw its adherents to?
I am NOT suggesting that the people of Taiwan calibrate their self-governance based on what might happen with America’s far-right. They own their own sovereignty. And it’s not their problem to fix.
My interest, as always, is about U.S. foreign policy. I would hope that policymakers, especially those who care about Taiwan and its people, reflect on the challenges and changes that may be in store following a MAGA-ward shift in our domestic politics. The metrics of American support for Taiwan aren’t just in our arms sales, our chips purchases, our chest-thumping rhetoric. It’s also in our shared values. And when MAGA policymakers figure out that their base’s values have more in common with the strongmen in Beijing, where will that leave Taiwan? And how do we guard against that?
This is third in a series on the MAGA effect on China policy. Part 1, The coming MAGA-CCP alignment, looked at indicators suggesting the MAGA movement is on track to align with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Part 2, Are “anti-CCP” politics a new form of Orientalism?, looks at how political discourse in the U.S. continues to “otherize” and dehumanize the people of China, leading to bad policies based on bigotry.
[1] I make a caveat here to note that many people in Taiwan see themselves as Taiwanese and would chafe at having their society and culture be called Chinese. Importantly, among these are many indigenous peoples of Taiwan, on whom Chinese language and culture was imposed by different waves of foreign migrants from China.