The headline is that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is gone. But the story for Taiwan is that his deputy Alex Wong is out, too.
Wong was one of the Trump appointments that was treated with genuine optimism in a Taiwan trying to understand the direction of the new administration. He visited Taipei in 2018 during the first Trump administration, then became an advocate for supporting Taiwan after 2020.
U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that Waltz will be appointed as ambassador to the U.N. What next for Wong is unknown.
Wong and Waltz’s departures appear to have been precipitated by right-wing online influencer Laura Loomer. In early April, Loomer visited the White House and “reported” national security officials to Trump. Several were fired a day later.
Loomer had been attacking Wong on X since late March over his involvement in the Signalgate scandal, where a journalist was added to a group chat on the messaging app Signal involving many senior administration officials discussing classified information.
Loomer also called Wong “Chinese” (he is American) and accuses him, his wife and his family of acting under Chinese Communist Party influence. After it was reported that Wong would leave the principal deputy national security advisor role, Loomer posted on X “Alex Wong is gone. I’m kind of shocked it took an entire month.”
Then she aimed her sights to another target: Ivan Kanapathy.
Analysis
During the Biden administration, U.S. policy towards China and Taiwan was much more stable. Indeed, the “disruption” came from Biden himself saying that the U.S. had a “commitment” to defend Taiwan, in apparent contravention of the U.S.’s strategic ambiguity policy.
It’s true that during the Biden period the confidence of the Taiwanese people in the U.S. went down due to Afghanistan and Ukraine, but anecdotally Taiwanese decision makers were much less concerned.
In contrast, the new Trump administration has seemed “unprepared” on China, and Trump himself has been downright ambivalent towards Taiwan, accusing the country of “stealing America’s semiconductor industry.”
When there is a lack of clarity on policy, the focus turns to the individual personalities in the administration and their own preferences. Taiwan ended up having a very good four years during Trump’s firm term, and a lot of that can be put at the feet of Matthew Pottinger, who ran a very effective “China shop” from inside the administration.
For these reasons, Taipei has paid great attention to the appointments of officials into Trump’s team. Marco Rubio was greeted with a huge sigh of relief, as firmly in the China hawk camp. The confirmation of Elbridge Colby, a figure who has been extremely critical of Taiwan’s preparations to defend itself, was more concerning.
Until yesterday, Wong and Kanapathy were both National Security Council members. Both are also known personally to Taiwanese leaders, having visited Taipei in and out of office. They are in effect “friends of Taiwan,” people who believe that the U.S. should support and aid its defense. The idea that they were formulating policy inside the new administration was a reassurance to Taipei.
Wong was the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs when he visited Taipei in 2018. He had previously advised presidential candidate Mitt Romney and, more recently, Senator Tom Cotton.
Kanapathy is the senior director for Asia at the National Security Council. In Trump’s first term he was director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia and deputy senior director for Asian affairs. He is co-author of the book “The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan.”
Waking up this morning to find that not only is Wong out of a job, but that Loomer, who seemingly ousted him, is also gunning for Kanapathy is going to alarm foreign policy decision makers and thinkers here, who frankly have had little positive news from the U.S. since January 20.
There does not appear to be any unifying anti-Taiwan element to Loomer’s targeting of Wong and now Kanapathy. On the contrary, Loomer is vehemently anti-Chinese Communist Party and seats at least some of her dislike of Wong in his ethnicity.
Waltz is being replaced, at least temporarily, by Rubio, who will be double-hatted as national security advisor and secretary of state. Loomer hasn’t shown any inclination to target Rubio, yet. But her new track record of fixating on pro-Taiwan figures in Washington should not go unnoticed.
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