Former US VP Mike Pence: Like Israel, the US should give Taiwan 'the ability to defend herself by herself'

Ask any American on the street about China these days, and you're likely to hear a negative opinion about the communist superpower. This sentiment has been on the rise since 2018, according to the Pew Research Center. A survey from last year showed that, for the fifth consecutive year, about eight in ten Americans held an “unfavorable view of China.”

There is no doubt that U.S. President Donald Trump played a significant role in shifting America's focus to the East, making China policy a top priority for Washington. Since his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump has been one of the few prominent figures to recognize and articulate the China threat to the United States.

“One of the things I'm probably most proud of, of the Trump administration, was that we changed the national consensus on China,” said Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence.

In Part One of an exclusive interview for THE ROSENBERG REPORT on TBN, Pence emphasized that before Trump, both Democrats and Republicans largely ignored the issue of China.

“Literally for 20 years, America had essentially taken the view on both sides of the aisle that, the more we engaged in economic exchange, the more we engaged in cultural engagement with the Chinese Communist Party, that we would see liberalization in China, we'd see the advent of religious liberty, basic freedom, private property,” he told ALL ISRAEL NEWS Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg.

“To his credit, what President Trump observed was that as we were engaging in more commerce with China, actually, the opposite happened. China became more authoritarian, investing more in its military, engaging in more military provocations in the region,” Pence continued.

In response to decades of trade abuses, intellectual property theft, and human rights violations, the Trump administration announced in 2018 that the U.S. would take a new approach toward China. This included a significant investment in rebuilding the U.S. military and strengthening strategic alliances in the Indo-Pacific region.

“We essentially said, the days of simply looking the other way to all of those provocations and abuses were over,” Pence told Rosenberg.

Shortly after the new policy was rolled out, Pence had the opportunity to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Papua New Guinea.

“Why should Americans be so concerned about where he's leading Communist China today?” asked Rosenberg.

“Xi Jinping is the authoritarian, a dictator of China,” Pence replied. “I believe that he and the Chinese Communist Party have broad ambitions to extend China's influence across the Asia-Pacific.”

As evidence, Pence pointed to China’s construction of artificial islands and military bases in the South China Sea, its disruption of freedom of navigation, and its increasing aggression toward Taiwan.

“It's all sending a message that China is interested in extending what policy leaders call ‘hegemony.’ It's their influence over the wider region,” he argued.

Pence’s visit to Taiwan

Pence had just returned from his first-ever trip to Taiwan, where he met with Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te. Rosenberg sat down with Pence in Indianapolis, Indiana, as he (Rosenberg) toured the U.S. promoting his latest book, ‘The Beijing Betrayal.’

“We have a longstanding policy of ‘One China policy.’ It's strategic ambiguity when it comes to the question of Taiwanese independence,” Pence noted. “But for decades, literally, since the end of World War Two, we have stood for the principle of a free and democratic Taiwan. I think it's an enormously important time right now, and I was pleased to see the new Trump administration recently, with Congress' support, redoubling and hastening the delivery of military resources for Taiwan.”

He added, “We should take the view of Taiwan that we've taken with Israel, which is giving Taiwan the ability to defend herself by herself.”

Why Taiwan matters

“It's important from my standpoint that people understand the importance of Taiwan,” Pence told Rosenberg. “I know that it's on the other side of the world, and many Americans might wonder why it matters, but it was General Douglas MacArthur in the aftermath of the Second World War who referred to Taiwan, then known as Formosa, as the linchpin of the Asia-Pacific.”

General MacArthur described how Japan used Taiwan as a military launching pad during World War II, allowing the empire’s influence to spread across the region.

Today, Taiwan remains a crucial strategic foothold – this time, in close proximity to a new adversary: China.

“If the United States was to abandon Taiwan, I believe that it would undermine the confidence of our allies in the region. I think it's very likely that it would initiate a nuclear arms race in the Asia-Pacific,” Pence warned.

He reflected on a key lesson from his years representing the United States abroad:

“World leaders really don't care what you say. They don't even care what you tweet. They care what you do,” he explained.

Pence: Trump is no isolationist

Despite his strained relationship with the current president, Pence does not hesitate to support Trump's current foreign policy.

“The President Trump I served with is no isolationist, but the American people deserve to know that there are many voices of a new isolationism in and around the president. In and outside of the administration, people who would have cut off our funding to the Ukrainian military. There are those that say that Taiwan is not of strategic importance to the United States. And candidly, as you well know, there are voices in and around this administration that advocate ending military support for Israel,” Pence said.

“And so, I think it's enormously important, to your point, that we send a clear message that America is the leader of the free world, that we will keep our promises, we will give President Lai and the leadership in Taiwan the support they need to serve as a deterrence to war.”

Watch Joel Rosenberg’s full conversation with former Vice President Mike Pence on the TBN website.

THE ROSENBERG REPORT airs Thursday nights at 9 p.m. EST and Saturday nights at 10 p.m. EST on the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the most-watched Christian television network in the United States.