“Sen. Dan Sullivan stood beside the newly elected Taiwanese vice president in an orchid-draped room of the island’s presidential palace, making a promise that wasn’t wholly within his power to keep,” wrote the Wall Street Journal.
“’This is the message our bipartisan delegation wants to send to the people of Taiwan: You can count on the United States of America,’ said the Alaska Republican, a silver-haired former Marine.”
So begins a the feature that ran in the Journal on Monday, June 3, about the bipartisan congressional trip that Alaska U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan led with three other senators to Taiwan, where he was able to look the newly inaugurated President Lai Ching-te in the eye and tell him that America is standing with Taiwan.
Purple prose aside, Alaska’s senator is somewhat silver-haired now, but he is not a “former Marine.” He is a Marine Corps veteran, recently retired as a colonel after 30 years.
“There truly is no such thing as a former Marine, as after service our Marine Veterans are just as dedicated to advancing our Nation and defending its ideals. If you become one of us, the fight in you will always be a part of our Nation’s moral cause,” according to the U.S. Marine Corps.
The distinction is often lost on civilians and is a common mistake.
The WSJ writer, Molly Ball, was an invited member of the press on a trip she described as being against a backdrop of a U.S. election “that has the world on edge. The prospect of former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has Washington diplomats chattering and foreign leaders on tenterhooks. The unpredictable ex-president has sent mixed signals about some of America’s most pressing foreign-policy challenges, including hinting that the U.S. might not defend Taiwan if China attacks the island.”
She described Sullivan as a leading national security voice in the Senate.
“Caught in the middle of these political and geopolitical currents is Sullivan, a leading voice in his party on national security who has sought to maintain the GOP’s traditional Reaganite posture in the face of his party’s rising isolationism,” the reporter observed. She then side-eyed Sullivan over his statement condemning the conviction of Donald Trump on all 34 felony counts against him last week, which he called “a sad day for America … that sets a dangerous precedent and pushes our great nation even further into banana republic territory.”
The entire Wall Street Journal feature on Sullivan’s trip can be read is at this link, which as of this writing is not behind a paywall, so is available to non-subscribers.
While the meeting may have been against the backdrop of a U.S. election, it is also against the backdrop of increased Chinese aggression toward Taiwan, which asserts its independence. As the eighth president of Taiwan, Lai would be treated harshly by the Chinese if there was an invasion of the island by the mainland communist military.
Contrary to its commitment to pursue a peaceful solution, the People’s Republic of China has increasingly turned to military intimidation in an attempt to coerce Taiwan into submitting to Beijing. This includes an unprecedented number of air incursions, threatening propaganda, and exercises simulating attacks on Taiwan, according to the U.S. State Department.
At Asia’s largest security conference last week, China’s Defense Minister Dong Jun called Taiwan’s build up of defense capabilities “aggressive,” and said that President Lai is outgunned:
“Facing the strong military of the big motherland, such armed conspiracies will be futile … will only lead to their own destruction more rapidly,” Dong told the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
Although Sullivan was not in that meeting with the Chinese Defense minister, Sullivan was present at the conference in Singapore after his trip to Taiwan.
Dong Jun has served as the 14th Minister of National Defense since December 2023. Prior to the appointment, he was the commander of the People’s Liberation Army Navy from September 2021 to December 2023. His remarks at the international conference showed China’s naked aggression.
“Driven by China’s escalating military intimidation campaign since Lai’s Democratic Progressive party took power in 2016, Taipei has increased defense spending and started reforming its armed forces, including compulsory military service and more rigorous training,” he said.
“We always strive for peaceful unification. But the prospects for that are currently being eroded by the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists and external forces,” Dong said, in reference to American support for Taiwan, which includes providing weapons to the Taiwan democratic government, which Dong said sends “very wrong signals to ‘Taiwan independence’ forces and embolden them to become very aggressive.”
Dong continued: “I call on the ‘Taiwan independence’ forces to wake up and return on the path to unification. Diligently study the relevant laws and don’t touch upon the red lines of the Anti-Secession Law.”
He was referring to a People’s Republic law passed in 2005 that says China may use “non-peaceful means” if anyone causes Taiwan’s secession or if “prospects for peaceful unification [are] completely exhausted.”
