WASHINGTON, June 10 -- The leader of Taiwan's largest opposition party is spending two weeks in the United States delivering a message Washington is not used to hearing from Taipei: that the island must never be played as an American chess piece, and that Donald Trump's recent words against Taiwanese independence are a step toward peace rather than a betrayal.

Cheng Li-wun, chairwoman of the Kuomintang, told the Financial Times in an interview published Tuesday that Taiwan must not be used as a pawn in the strategic contest between Washington and Beijing, the latest in a series of warnings she has framed as defense of the island's agency. Could it be that the United States is treating Taiwan as a chess piece, a pawn, to strategically pro...