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Lawrence Chung

Taiwan’s representative office is among a list of entities US President Donald Trump has threatened to sue as part of his crusade against a progressive American think tank, triggering debate about the island’s US policy ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington later this month.
Trump named the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Tecro) in a social media post on Monday attacking the Centre for American Progress, a prominent left-leaning Washington think tank, over a report disputing his claims about the effect of National Guard deployments on violent crime.
Trump called the think tank a “radical left scam” and threatened to seek US$5 billion in damages, adding that he was “strongly considering” including some of its donors in the lawsuit.
He named Tecro – Taiwan’s de facto embassy in the US – alongside the Japanese embassy, the Korea Foundation and the embassy of the United Arab Emirates as foreign supporters of the think tank.
The remarks have raised questions in Taiwan about whether Taipei’s funding of US think tanks has become a political liability under Trump, particularly ahead of his expected summit with Xi.
Chen I-hsin, head of the culture and communications committee of the Kuomintang, Taiwan’s main opposition party, described Trump’s remarks as an “unusual diplomatic warning”.
He questioned the value of using taxpayers’ money to support an institution strongly critical of the US leader, only for Taiwan to be singled out by Trump.
“[Taiwan’s] foreign ministry must immediately explain how much taxpayer money is still being provided to CAP since Trump returned to the White House,” Chen said.
He acknowledged that Taipei’s cooperation with US think tanks across the political spectrum predated the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) return to power in 2016, but said “diplomacy required adjusting to political changes”.
Chen said that if the DPP government continued providing substantial funding to institutions closely associated with US Democrats and strongly critical of Trump, it raised questions about whether Taipei’s diplomatic strategy had become unbalanced.
“Taiwan-US relations must not pay the price for the DPP’s misguided political bet,” he said, adding that the government should explain the situation to the public.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry defended the practice, saying it and its overseas missions had long worked with major US think tanks and academic institutions across the political spectrum.
It said the cooperation supported research into Indo-Pacific security, supply-chain resilience and critical technologies, while improving Americans’ understanding of Taiwan and the island’s ties with the US.
“Such cooperation does not involve Taiwan in US local politics and should not be turned into an issue for political manipulation in Taiwan,” it said.
The ministry added that Taipei would continue deepening cooperation with the Trump administration on the basis of mutual respect and mutual benefit.
Taiwan has funded prominent Washington think tanks for years as part of efforts to build support in the United States.
A 2020 investigation by The American Prospect magazine identified the Centre for American Progress, Brookings Institution, Centre for a New American Security, Centre for Strategic and International Studies and Hudson Institute as recipients of Taiwanese funding.
The report questioned whether researchers adequately disclosed their institutions’ Taiwanese funding when advocating stronger security and economic ties between Washington and Taipei.
Taipei later rejected suggestions that its funding influenced research, saying it respected academic freedom and that such programmes promoted scholarly exchanges and expert discussion.
Data from the Washington-based Think Tank Funding Tracker showed Taiwanese entities provided about US$6.77 million to 25 American think tanks between 2019 and 2024.
International relations and strategic studies scholar James Yifan Chen said Taipei still needed relationships with US think tanks given its reliance on Washington’s support, but should ensure its outreach was politically balanced.
“For over a decade, the DPP has relied heavily on US support … and often seeks partnerships with American think tanks that share similar values,” Chen said, adding that such an approach risked unsettling Trump and his Republican allies.
“Without formal ties, Taiwan must adopt a more balanced approach, building bipartisan relationships to avoid future embarrassments,” he said.
Chen added that Taiwan should cultivate ties across the US political spectrum and allocate its resources more strategically.
“Taiwan must avoid actions that could complicate the situation in the lead-up to the Trump-Xi summit,” he said.
Chen said he believed the planned September 24 meeting in Washington was “unlikely to provide much room for transactional bargaining” between Trump and Xi.
Instead, Xi was likely to seek to stabilise relations and offer incentives that aligned with Trump’s desire to strengthen the US economy ahead of the midterm elections, he said.
Dennis Lu-chung Weng, an associate professor of political science at Sam Houston State University in Texas, said Taipei should focus less on whether funding the Centre for American Progress was right or wrong and more on whether the broader political atmosphere in Washington was shifting ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting.
He said Trump’s decision to name Tecro was “not a positive development” because the US leader appeared to be ramping up the pressure from attacking the think tank’s work to drawing attention to those supporting the institution.
“For Trump, negotiations often begin well before anyone sits down at the negotiating table,” Weng said. “Public statements, legal threats and even naming the other side’s supporters can themselves form part of the negotiating process.”
There was no evidence Trump would take action against Tecro, Weng stressed, but if the list was not random, being named could be a political signal that Taiwan had entered his field of vision.
The real concern would be if the island were incorporated into Trump’s broader political calculations over US-China relations, Weng said.
“That would not be something that could simply be resolved with money.”
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China and has not ruled out the use of force to reunite it with the mainland. The United States, like most nations, does not recognise Taiwan as an independent state but is opposed to any forcible change to the status quo and is committed to providing arms for its defence.


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Ahead of expected Xi-Trump summit, some in Taiwan question whether Taipei’s funding of American think tanks has become a political liability


Ahead of expected Xi-Trump summit, some in Taiwan question whether Taipei’s funding of American think tanks has become a political liability.


Trump threatens Taiwan’s representative office, sparking debate over island’s US policy

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Ahead of expected Xi-Trump summit, some in Taiwan question whether Taipei’s funding of American think tanks has become a political liability

Ahead of expected Xi-Trump summit, some in Taiwan question whether Taipei’s funding of American think tanks has become a political liability