DPP fears being neglected piece on US game board

Nobody should doubt that the secessionist-minded Democratic Progressive Party authorities of Taiwan have closely followed the Ukraine crisis since its outbreak three years ago.

When the West's support for Kyiv, along with its harsh sanctions on Russia, seemed to tilt the balance in favor of Ukraine, the previous Tsai Ing-wen authorities of Taiwan hastily compared the island to the Eastern European country, trying to cast a "politically correct" light on their separatist cause and smear Beijing's endeavors to realize national reunification as a threat to "democracy".

However, the United States' about-face in its foreign policy under the Donald Trump administration has in effect divided the West on the Ukraine crisis, which has resulted in the situation developing in a direction that Tsai's successor, Lai Chingte, increasingly finds unfavorable to his secessionist cause.

In the past two weeks, Trump has claimed Ukraine "should have never started the war", and Ukraine "may be Russian someday". He has questioned the legitimacy of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government, and upended the long-standing US position of isolating Russia over the Ukraine crisis by engaging in direct talks with Moscow and voicing positions sounding remarkably like the Kremlin's own.

Although the Lai authorities have tried their best to woo the new US administration, their disappointment with, if not worries about, Trump's abrupt change of US policy on Ukraine, is evident.

Most of the US allies and partners in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan, Australia and the Republic of Korea, now take a balanced stance when it comes to dealing with relations with the US and China, which has further isolated the Lai authorities.

Lai's anxiety was made clear when he said recently that the island is not a piece on the chessboard of major countries but a chess player at the table along with other parties. But that only served the opposite purpose of exposing his authorities are struggling with the reality that they are losing control of their own fate as the US proves an unreliable backer.

The US and their regional allies and partners are well aware the Ukraine crisis and the Taiwan question are of different nature, with the latter being China's internal affair that brooks no external interference. They are also well aware the DPP authorities' secessionist cause is doomed to failure, as they are nothing but a deserted piece on the board.