Comment by tristanj
4 hours ago
Switch allies, to whom? The PRC? Do you realize PRC (Mainland China) and Taiwan are in a civil war? Taiwan switching allies to the PRC literally means admitting defeat.
Recall that Taiwan only exists because during the Chinese civil war, the United States provided the KMT with billions of dollars of military and financial aid. The KMT lost the mainland to the CCP (supported by the Soviets) and fled to Taiwan. The U.S. provided $4 billion dollars of aid, worth approximately $50 billion today.
The PRC would have retaken Taiwan decades ago if not for the U.S. guaranteeing Taiwan.
So continue in this line of reasoning - what happens as a currency strapped US turns inward and is more globally eschewed while making more common outright projections of regional power in the hemisphere of the Americas (while showing logistical failures in demonstrating cross globe power projection). Meanwhile China climbs the semi-fab ladder and Intel and even TSMC (re)builds its fabs in the US. KMT seems to maintain an intentionally ambiguous one-China policy. What are possible outcomes in the new state of geopolitics?
Moving the goalposts to a generic U.S.-decline narrative does not answer the question:
How does Taiwan "switch allies" to the adversary that's trying to annex them?
It's not changing the goalposts to recognize that the deterrents to China just stepping in to Taiwan are being undermined by US actions (some nothing to do with Taiwan). The value of Taiwan to the US as a counter to China's advancement seems in the latter stages of it's practical utility.
To answer your question perhaps one way could be for China to put forward a long term map to recognize the KMT as a party and unify as one China may years in the future. I would guess it would take a generation or even two to pass before that might happen and China would have to make the case that the people of Taiwan would be better off with the mainland rather than independent of it.