Trump more of a wild card than China hawk: Former China journalist

Taipei, March 22 (CNA) A former China reporter currently based in Taiwan said Friday that former U.S. President Donald Trump is more of a "wild card" than a "China hawk," and that his re-election would not guarantee Taiwan's safety.

Bethany Allen, a former Axios reporter who lived in China from 2008-2012, was not optimistic when asked how Trump's possible re-election could impact Taiwan during a Q&A for her book published in 2023, "Beijing Rules: How China Weaponized Its Economy to Confront the World."

At the event held at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy in Taipei, Allen said: "When we look back on him we thought he was such a China hawk who forced through this pivot to a tougher China policy, but in the first year of his term he didn't even have a China policy."

It was a "coincidence" that certain factions won out over other more dovish ones, and that it was only at that point that Trump had initiated the trade war, she said.

Allen added that it was only in "October 2018, when [then] Vice President Mike Pence gave the China policy speech at the Hudson Institute" that the world saw "a cohesive and coherent China policy" from the Trump administration.

"If there's a second Trump term, it could go either way," Allen said, meaning he is not necessarily pro-Taiwan "because Trump does not care about democracy."

Allen said Trump admires Xi Jinping (習近平) and how the Chinese autocrat has so much power. So if Xi is willing to be a bit "thick-skinned during the first year of Trump's second term and give whatever Trump wishes," Trump might consider Xi a good friend and green light whatever he wants, she added.

If Joe Biden remains in the White House, there will be democratic motivation for forming a block against the authoritarian government, "but the Trump White House could be different," she said.

Allen is now based in Taipei after being banned from China in 2019. Her recently published book investigates how China employs "authoritarian economic statecraft" to project its power around the world.