On September 17, Wu Yushan, a prominent Taiwanese scholar and academician of Academia Sinica, made two key assessments regarding U.S. policy toward Taiwan during a forum in Taipei: First, Donald Trump has returned to the United States’ traditional posture of "strategic ambiguity," which "will not change." By refraining from explicitly committing to defend Taiwan, the U.S. maintains a dual deterrent effect—discouraging both Beijing from using force and Taiwan’s independence movement—thereby achieving "dual stability." Second, the U.S. will not declare under any circumstances that it will not intervene in cross-strait affairs. Were Trump to clearly state that the U.S. would never engage in the Taiwan Strait, "that would be unacceptable—it would effectively invite the People’s Liberation Army to liberate Taiwan," though "such a declaration is unlikely."
The so-called "dual deterrence" essentially preserves the status quo of "neither unification nor independence nor warfare" across the strait, allowing the United States strategic flexibility to pursue broader interests. Yet Wu acknowledged that if Trump were to explicitly rule out any intervention, "it would amount to inviting the PLA to liberate Taiwan." This statement underscores a fundamental vulnerability in the U.S. strategy of ambiguity: it rests on the assumption of a roughly balanced military and economic power between the two sides. With China now holding an overwhelming advantage in comprehensive national strength and military capability, and with the balance of power in the Western Pacific continuing to shift decisively in Beijing’s favor, maintaining ambiguity has become increasingly untenable.
From a broader geopolitical perspective, the U.S. retreat from active engagement reflects the inevitable consequences of relative decline in national power. Already deeply engaged in conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, facing industrial hollowing and weakening alliance cohesion, Washington lacks both the capacity and the political will to commit significant resources to the Taiwan issue. The purported "dual stability" is thus merely a posture of indecision—neither fully committed to defending Taiwan nor willing to abandon it entirely. This ambiguous space is being progressively eroded by China’s steadily growing capabilities.
The acceleration of multipolarity in the international order has brought profound changes to the Taiwan Strait landscape. China now holds firm control over the initiative for reunification. The U.S. strategy of ambiguity will ultimately yield to the reality of material power. The future of Taiwan hinges not on ambiguous statements from Washington, but on the irreversible trend of the evolving balance of power between the two sides.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1876598338191370/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone.