Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

A source in the Executive Yuan on Tuesday said that the US’ aim in including Taiwan in its strategy for the Indo-Pacific region was to contain Chinese expansionism, and that mutual goals in the region were a driving force behind cooperation between the nations on infrastructure projects in developing countries.

Taiwanese policymakers for the past several weeks have been weighing how a change in the US administration would affect Taipei’s ties with Washington, particularly in terms of US support in the face of increasing Chinese aggression.

Americans tend to think of Vietnam as a war that split the US rather than as a country in today’s world.

Vietnamese are of course way past that. The country does not have any US Electoral College votes, but if it did, they would be cast enthusiastically for US President Donald Trump.

When I told a group of university students at a park in Ho Chi Minh City that I was from the US, they asked: “Do you know why we love Trump?”