How US Allies Approach Taiwan – and Influence US Taiwan Policy

Дата публикации: 11-02-2026 15:10:00

Insights from Adam P. Liff.

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The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Adam P. Liff – professor of East Asian International Relations at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and author of “U.S. Allies and the Taiwan Strait” (Cambridge 2025) – is the 495th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”

Identify U.S. allies in strategic geographies and their key shared interests with the U.S. regarding China’s sovereignty claims over Taiwan.

My goals with this project, which I launched before COVID-19, were inspired by the case of Japan, arguably the United States’ most important treaty ally – especially when it comes to Taiwan. In my first article, I sought to draw attention to the excessively U.S.-centric framing of so many discussions about Taiwan, its international space, and cross-strait deterrence. Japan offered a prime example of the agency and creativity U.S. allies have exercised toward Taiwan, in a couple key instances even charting courses that the U.S. would later follow. 

In the second article, I wanted to highlight the crucial importance of Japan – and the U.S.-Japan alliance – for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, while also explaining the evolution and nuances of Tokyo’s positions and policies as it relates to a potential contingency. 

In both cases, strategic geography – Japanese territory is only around 70 miles from Taiwan, after all – loomed very large. Japan’s intentionally ambiguous “non-position” on Taiwan’s legal status and its longstanding insistence on “peaceful resolution,” both of which roughly align with the U.S., did, too. 

After 2020, there was a noticeable uptick in U.S. treaty allies emphasizing “the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” at the same time as many were also engaging with Taipei more extensively. Drawing on lessons from the Japan case, I expanded my research to include South Korea, Australia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the EU and, for good measure, NATO. Canada also makes a very important cameo in chapter 2 of the book. 

Strategic geography figured prominently in other allies’ perspectives, too, but in different ways and to widely varying degrees. For instance, Seoul’s longstanding focus on North Korea had left the Taiwan Strait as something of an afterthought in its foreign policy discourse – at least until quite recently. Even so, South Korea’s government also carefully avoided endorsing Beijing’s sovereignty claim and has quietly maintained some important ties with Taipei. 

Strategic geography is hardly the only consideration for most allies, though. Beijing’s increasingly brazen coercion and large-scale military exercises today have made clear the stakes – not only for the people in democratic Taiwan, but also for regional peace and stability and the globalized economy on which even the United States’ most geographically distant allies in Europe depend. 

The fact that all these governments decades ago adopted an intentionally ambiguous position on the sovereignty question is a key enabler of their incrementally deepening – if still officially “unofficial” – ties with Taiwan. Regardless of the nuances of their particular approaches, the U.S. and its major allies’ interests today converge on support for peace and stability and ensuring that any potential resolution of the cross-Strait dispute is peaceful and uncoerced. 

Examine how U.S. allies interpret the “One China” framework in their respective policies vis-à-vis China and Taiwan.

Though much of the analysis in my book focuses on more recent developments (full disclosure: the manuscript text was effectively locked in 2024, before President Trump took office), one of the major takeaways from the historical analysis is that America’s major democratic allies have played a more important role in enabling Taiwan’s international space than the largely U.S.-centered discussions typically give them credit for. At key moments, not only Japan but a few other allies also even “blazed a trail” that Washington would later follow.

What’s fundamental here is the fact that, widespread dis/misinformation to the contrary, upon recognizing the PRC neither the United States nor any of its major democratic treaty allies endorsed Beijing’s “One China principle,” an essential component of which is its assertion that Taiwan is part of the PRC. In this context it is important to recall that, with one exception – South Korea in 1992 – all major democratic U.S. treaty allies also recognized Beijing years before Washington did. So, they weren’t just following the U.S. lead. 

Now, the specific phrasing and the subtle nuances of each position on “One China” depends on the government – and, in a few cases, time period. But this intentional ambiguity has since allowed for significant flexibility in how they approach Taiwan and cross-strait issues.

Explain how the approach of “practically flexible ambiguity” is reflected in U.S. allies’ engagement with Taipei.

Adopting a position on Taiwan’s status that neither explicitly challenges nor endorses Beijing’s sovereignty claim left significant space for political leaders in U.S. allies to interpret their government’s official and relatively static position in policy terms how they see fit – within limits, of course. The U.S. is the best-known example of this: Washington’s ambiguous official position on Taiwan’s status is decades old, yet the extent and nature of the United States’ practical engagement with its partner in Taipei is significantly greater today that it was in, say, 2000, or 1980. 

But the U.S. is not alone in this. As I point out in the book, in uncharacteristically blunt remarks at a 2022 conference, a German Foreign Office official told an international audience, “We steadfastly reject [Beijing’s term “One China principle”] and the notion behind that. [sic] We have our One China policy… But, it is us who have devised this policy and it is us who interpret this policy – no one else.”

In short, how to operationalize their government’s vague official position in terms of practical policy, rhetoric, and the extent and nature of engagement with Taipei is fundamentally up to political leaders to decide. Put more simply, U.S. and allied leaders, not Beijing, are the ones who decide what they “can” and “cannot” do or say vis-à-vis Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait, and where the bounds of “official” engagement are. 

Needless to say, the potential for backlash from Beijing almost always factors in. But it is not determinative. In short, the real-world consequences of this “practically flexible ambiguity” for Taiwan are significant. 

For example, over the past half-decade or so, leaders in many allies have used this ambiguity to pursue deeper “unofficial” or “non-governmental” ties, such as more frequent and higher level legislative exchanges, visits by Cabinet ministers, the signing of agreements, or other efforts – some of which are not officially acknowledged. 

All but one of the national governments examined in the book has recently conducted a naval transit through the Taiwan Strait. All have noted concern about peace and stability across the Strait, and most have expressed public support for Taiwan’s participation in international organizations for which statehood is not a requirement. 

Analyze the strategic interests of the EU and NATO regarding the Taiwan issue.

Even before China and Russia announced their “no limits partnership” on the eve of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, European views of China had already been on a downward ebb. In 2019, the EU famously identified China as not only a “partner” but also a “competitor” and “rival.” Although the drivers of this shift in perception are multifaceted and not primarily about Taiwan, there is now significantly greater awareness across the EU and its individual member states of the economic and other interests they have in cross-strait peace and stability. After all, the EU has an extraordinary amount of trade with and investment in China, Taiwan, and throughout East Asia. No wonder, then, that its 2021 Indo-Pacific Strategy linked cross-strait stability to European security and prosperity. 

The EU also has significant indirect stakes through Europe’s extensive political, economic, and security ties with the United States, as well as its deepening connections with Japan and other East Asian partners. Nor should we forget that the EU has long placed democracy and values at the center of its identity and definition of foreign policy interests. (In recent years, Taiwan is regularly ranked as the most liberal democracy in Asia.)

As for NATO, although the organization has no official position on “One China,” its leaders have also become more outspoken about China and East Asia. For instance, its 2022 Strategic Concept identified PRC “ambitions and coercive policies” as a “challenge” to member states’ “interests, security and values” and stressed that the allies would “stand up for our shared values and the rules-based international order, including freedom of navigation.” It has also designated Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan as “Indo-Pacific partners,” while its leaders have also emphasized the linkages between security in the Indo-Pacific and Europe. Perhaps most striking was a series of Taiwan-specific statements in 2023 by NATO’s then secretary-general, who spoke openly about the importance of the cross-strait status quo. 

To be sure, none of this is to suggest that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is considering a direct role in the event of a potential conflict in the western Pacific. But it is clear that China and to some extent even the Taiwan Strait are now a topic of conversation in Brussels, even as NATO’s primary attention remains elsewhere. 

Especially given that Taiwan’s most important external partner – the U.S. – is a member of NATO, it is not difficult to imagine a cross-strait conflict triggering at least an Article 4 discussion. And even if NATO was not directly involved, it could still offer indirect support, such as by backfilling for member state(s)’ military assets deployed to the Indo-Pacific.

Assess the effectiveness of U.S. allies’ strategic narrative on the Taiwan factor in the broader context of China-U.S. strategic competition.

A remarkable development after 2020 was the proliferation of statements from U.S. allies expressing concern about “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and Taiwan’s international space. There was also some subtle signaling, both publicly and privately, to Beijing that acting against democratic and self-governed Taiwan could result in a coordinated, global response. 

By normalizing emphasis on the importance of the Taiwan Strait and/or Taiwan’s de facto autonomy into parliamentary resolutions, leaders’ speeches, official strategic documents, bilateral and multilateral (e.g., G-7) statements, and the like, the U.S. and its allies have sent important signals to both Beijing and Taipei. This effort has also undermined the widespread, if demonstrably false and cynical, narrative that “only the U.S. cares about Taiwan” or that Washington supports Taiwan only to “contain China.” 

Such coordinated messaging and signaling from allies about Taiwan’s international space and the cross-strait status quo is an important but, of course, far from sufficient condition to ensure the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. It should also be noted that the messaging itself is inconsistent, and its effectiveness is actively undermined by widespread dis/misinformation – and not only from Beijing. 

Needless to say, its ultimate impact will hinge on the U.S. and its major allies, as well as potentially others, backing rhetoric with practical policy measures. 

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