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J. Michael Cole, "The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Centre of the New Cold War" (Polity, 2025)
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hey everyone, I'm Anthony Kao, your host for this episode on the New Books Network. Today I'll be chatting with J. Michael Cole. Michael is a Taipei based security analyst and writer who has spent over 20 years documenting Taiwan's political and security landscape. Michael is a former analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and holds various fellowships and advisory positions at institutions including the Global Taiwan institute in Washington D.C. the McDonald Lawyer Institute in Ottawa, Prospect foundation in Taipei, and the University of Nottingham's Taiwan Hub. In short, if you follow English language geopolitical commentary about Taiwan, you will probably recognize Michael as one of the most tenured and established experts on the topic. In this episode of the New Books Network, we chat with Michael about his latest book, the Taiwan Tinderbox. The island nation at the center of the New Cold War. The book provides a view into the historical, psychological and societal factors that have made the Taiwan Strait one of the most concerning but also resilient flashpoints in the world today. Thank you, Michael for coming on the New Books Network.
- [01:16]
B
Well, thank you Anthony for having me and for the very generous introduction.
- [01:20]
A
Oh, the pleasure is all mine. You're originally from Quebec and as I mentioned in the intro, you started your career at Canada's intelligence agency and, and if the Internet is to be trusted, you were initially focused on the Middle East. Can you share a bit about how you first moved to Taiwan in 2005 and eventually ended up centering your entire professional career around Taiwan?
- [01:47]
B
Well, you're absolutely right. The Internet was, was indeed correct in the information. I joined the intelligence service in Canada after the September 11 terrorist attacks in, in the United States. And that was a period during which intelligence agencies started hiring a bunch of new analysts after years of downsizing following the end of the Cold War. So a few years I focused on groups like Al Qaeda, did threat assessments and all that. At the same time I was in graduate school at Military College of Canada studying war studies. And after a few years of doing this, I realized that probably wasn't the best career choice for me at least working for that type of agency in, in government, and decided that it was probably time to try something different. And then an opportunity arose for me to come to what is now my part of the world. Coming to Taiwan. It was pretty clear given my background as an intelligence officer that it might not be the best idea to go to China. But from the vantage point of Taiwan, a country that has, you know, several reasons to, to, to be paying attention to developments in China, I decided to come to Taiwan for a few years and really start looking at the implications for regional and global security of the rise of China, both in terms of its economy, but also in terms of its. Of its diplomatic footprint, the size of its armed forces. So that was initially supposed to be only for a few years, but I fell in love with Taiwan, with its people. And then my career took off and it became one of life's many surprises where you thought you had it all planned out and it turns out that something different emerges and it becomes who you are and becomes a project and it starts defining you. So it became my home. I became involved in different things and that's the reason why I'm still here more than 20 years after relocating to Taiwan.
- [03:56]
A
Among the things that you've been involved with are a fair number of English language publications based in Taiwan, like the Taipei Times, Newslens, Taiwan Sentinel, and you've also published commentary about Taiwan in many English language publications. I'm curious about how you've seen Anglophone journalism, either in Taiwan or about Taiwan evolve over the last 20 years. Are there some pleasant changes, maybe some less pleasant changes? Would like to hear your perspective.
- [04:31]
B
Right. Well, I have to admit that the first few years that I worked in that environment in Taiwan and my first job in Taiwan was I started at the very bottom. I was a copy editor at. At the Taipei Times, which is the largest English language newspaper in Taiwan. Eventually became deputy news news editor and started writing articles and. And all that. You have to remember that the. The context at the time was markedly different from what it is today. It was a period where there was not a lot of knowledge about Taiwan internationally. The world was focused heavily on the global war on terrorism. A couple of years before I moved to Taiwan, United States had decided to invade Iraq and they would get bogged down in that country for several years. So there was not a lot of interest in learning. Learning about Taiwan. I mean, every once in a while you would get a little bit of attention when they were putting presidential elections in Taiwan or if there were developments in the Taiwan straight that suggested that there was a higher risk of armed conflict and all that. So it felt quite lonely as, as I learned more about Taiwan. The first few years, I would not publish about Taiwan because I felt my responsibility was to learn enough so that I could start making commentary on. On the very complex issues here. But once I started doing that, I was fortunate to have the Taipei Times because of course, if your main audience is English speakers in Taiwan, there is a desire for that kind of attention and granularity if you will. But overseas, not so much. It was very difficult to get published in the world's newspapers or even most think tanks if you were focused specifically on Taiwan. So, ironically, the first few articles that I published in major newspapers were about China. And then, if I was lucky, I was able to slip in a couple of paragraphs about. About Taiwan and all that. That has changed markedly for several reasons. The main. The main one was following the election in 2016 of Tsai Ing Wen to the presidency and the return to Taiwan in Taiwan of a Democratic Progressive Party government that coincided with the period where many governments worldwide, and to a certain extent, the public, were reevaluating their perspective on China, particularly under Xi Jinping. Initially, there had been hopes that he could be a reformer. There were some people who thought that he could be the Chinese equivalent of Mikhail Gorbachev. And when it turned out that that was not the case, that China became more, in many ways, more belligerent, more assertive, a lot of people started asking, reassessing the view that if you engage China, if you include it in the global system, World Trade Organization and all that, that it would eventually liberalize and perhaps democratize once people realized that that was not happening and that in many, you know, by many yardsticks, China was moving in the opposite direction. That created a desire to learn more about Taiwan at a time when you had a government here that was redoubling its efforts to reach out to the international community, reaching out to countries that had been ignored by Taiwanese government for so many years, possibly because they did not have official diplomatic relations. But under the Tsai government, what they decided to explore is everything that was possible and permissible within those countries were in China policy. So we started seeing engagement between Taiwan and countries like the Czech Republic, the Baltic States, you know, countries that hitherto had not figured in the concept of Taiwan having interactions with other countries. A lot of that was at the level of civil society. And then, little by little, as countries became acclimatized to doing things with Taiwan, you started seeing a little bit more government to government engagement as well. There were major developments in Taiwan, like the Sunflower Movement, occupation of Parliament in 2014, that garnered quite a bit of international attention as well, because it was seen as a project that was arresting Chinese ambitions vis a vis Taiwan at a time when people thought that the whole conflict of the Taiwan Strait had been resolved. So that's. That's one aspect that I think has had a major impact on shifting perceptions of Taiwan and growing interest in Taiwan. The Other one that occurred a few years subsequent to that was the decision by Beijing to expel or not renew visas for a sizable number of foreign journalists who were based in China, many of whom initially temporarily relocated to Taiwan to continue their work, but ultimately ended up staying here for many years. So you saw a growing foreign correspondence group of correspondents in Taiwan. And that also has a major impact because prior to that there were very few foreign correspondents based in Taiwan. Most of them were based in Beijing or Shanghai. So all, all the writing in major international media about Taiwan was written by journalists who were based in China. And oftentimes regarding Taiwan, through the lens of how Beijing wants to frame the narrative, you could be the best journalist on the face of the planet. If you're not based in the country that you're writing about, you're going to miss, miss out on a number of, of nuances and all that. You have to be physically based somewhere. So by virtue of a large number of them now being based in Taiwan, you have one, what I would argue is much better quality, much more insightful reporting and analysis on what's going on in, in the Taiwan Strait and certainly within Taiwan, which as I maintain, I underscore it's not a big place, but it's a very complex place. So that's been the major, the two major change changes that I've seen in my, in my 20 years or so being based in, in Taiwan.
- [11:09]
A
As you mentioned, there's a lot more people from Western publications, academia, et cetera in Taiwan these days and also a flurry of English language books that people have published over the past couple years. I'm curious how you feel Taiwan Tinderbox complements or contrasts with all these accounts and if you had a particular goal or target audience in mind as you wrote the book.
- [11:35]
B
Well, as with publishing in media, I won't hide the fact that it was also. It used to be very difficult to publish books about Taiwan internationally. Most trade publishers were not interest, interested in that. They did not see this as a, as an issue that would sell enough, enough books. So for the longest time Taiwan remained a very academic subject. So you had an audience within governments that did, you know, focused on, on this part of the world and you had an audience within academia. So people focus on China and Taiwan. But for main, main publishing houses, this is not large enough a market to warrant publishing a book specifically on Taiwan or even on the Taiwan Strait. So you had books by Brookings Institution, for example, Routledge had a Taiwan series and all that. And I did publish a Number of at least two books with Routledge which were, I think, were well received within academia. But the problem is the books were so expensive that if you're trying to reach a different audience, maybe an audience that doesn't know much about Taiwan, the cost is simply too prohibitive. So you will never reach the audience. What has happened amidst the growing interest that I was, I was describing earlier is the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, which made people worldwide rethink the notion that major warfare was no longer conceivable in the 21st century. This hearkened back to the major land wars from the 20th century. And we thought that was a thing of the past. It made people realize that now, if certain despotic regimes can do the unthinkable and initiate major wars that have consequences for the international community and certainly for the global economy. So developments in Ukraine, in Europe, made a lot of people then ask the question, what if something similar were to happen in the Taiwan Strait? Another unthinkable. So with that, but also the impact of the COVID pandemic and the role that Taiwan played, more and more attention being played to the, the, the, you know, the key role that Taiwan plays in these, you know, semiconductors that fuel the global economy. You have all these things coming together where now, plus the fact that there is a large number of foreign correspondents based in Taiwan. There is now growing interest even among publishers who in the past would not have looked at Taiwan as an issue to have manuscripts being published on that subject. And it is now regarded as a viable market. So this was the reason why sometime in 2024, I was thinking, okay, my last book about Taiwan came out with Routledge in 2020 and had come out the previous year in Chinese language in Taiwan. So it was like four years is probably long enough a period for new things to have happened that would be of interest to readers. I mean, key among those was the invasion of Ukraine, but also a post Covid world in a much more assertive China in that international structure. So it was a time to write something new. But I also wanted a publisher that had a greater ability to reach a larger audience because I think it's important for the international community to be better informed about what Taiwan is all about, what the stakes are in the Taiwan Strait, and ultimately what will be the consequences if deterrence failed. And we ended up with a situation similar to Russia vis a vis Ukraine, but here in the Taiwan Strait.
- [15:49]
A
What was the thinking behind titling the book Taiwan Tinderbox? And I'm recalling the There was this infamous Economist title story in May 2021 that described Taiwan as the most dangerous place on earth. And that got some mixed reactions in Taiwan. Is the word tinderbox meant to evoke similar sentiments? Something different? How would you describe the relationship and thinking?
- [16:16]
B
Right. I was actually among those being based here. I was among those who was not particularly impressed with that title that the economists gave to. To their issue. I mean, living here, we live under a constant threat, obviously, but to call it the most dangerous place. Knowing a little bit about places like, like Somalia and Iraq and Afghanistan or Gaza Strip nowadays, I think there's many more, more dangerous places around the world than Taiwan at the moment. Back to my book, Taiwan Tinderbox was my, My editor back in London wanted something. Obviously they wanted something catchy. They like the idea of having an alliterative title. So Taiwan Tinderbox. It. It grabs your attention. Was that my original title? Admittedly it was not, but I think it's. In some ways it is alarmist, but I think it can be interpreted in different ways. And if you read the book, it's not something that says that war is inevitable in the Taiwan Strait, but that if things went from bad to worse, it could be a tinderbox that sparks a major conflagration in this part of the world with catastrophic repercussions for the region and the international community. So I can live with that title. And I think having something catchy is also useful when you're trying to reach new audiences.
- [17:57]
A
Yeah, let us hope the title helps sell many books. And for those who want to pick it up, the tone and content is definitely quite a departure from that Economist article, which is a convenient transition to then start talking about the content of the book itself to give our listeners a taste. So I want to discuss the first two chapters to begin with, where you touch upon two individuals who have shaped recent history with regard to Taiwan. There's Ma Yingzhou, who is President of Taiwan, or roc, as he would probably call it from the kmt. And then there's also Xi Jinping, who I think many folks are probably familiar with. So I would love to hear more about how you thought about and selected this pair of leaders and how they ended up contributing to this tinderbox situation that you describe.
- [19:02]
B
Right. Well, Ma Yingou became president in 2008, so that was about a little bit less than three years after I moved to Taiwan. So I still experience the last two and a half, three years under the first DPP president in Taiwan, Chen. That was a period where we saw increasing tensions in the Taiwan Strait, but also Taiwan saw its ability to navigate the international system severely constrained because of the geopolitical context. And again, that was the global war on terrorism. That was American forces embroiled in conflicts in Afghanistan, in Iraq. So you had an international community that did not want to see another major contingency at a time when they were very busy in South Asia and the Middle East. So I could see and all that played into a narrative that Taiwan was somehow a troublemaker. By seeking recognition, by emphasizing official diplomatic relations, Beijing was able to package that, if you will, and convince a lot of world leaders that the unreasonable side in the Taiwan Strait was the Chen Shui Bian administration. So that also contributed to perceptions in Taiwan that, okay, we have this fairly stagnant economy. There is tensions in the Taiwan Strait that are probably contributing to an economy that is not growing as fast as it should. So maybe it's time to try something different. And this is what Ma Yingjou of the Kuomintang was proposing. He said, we're going to try to reduce tensions, we're going to reach out to Beijing, we're going to seek to increase cross strait tourism. We're going to sign a bunch of cross trade agreements that address a number of, of, of issues from trade to culture to, to tourism and whatnot. And by doing so we will successfully revive Taiwan's economy. So there was quite a bit of appeal to that idea back in, you know, 2007, 2008. Emaar was elected fairly easily. Not only did did he have a strong mandate, but they secured majority of seats and, and Legislative Yuan as well. So we saw in the first few years several cross trade agreements were signed that to a certain extent normalized relations in the Taiwan Strait and achieved things that just made sense from, from, from an economic perspective. It made sense and things like joint crime fighting agreements and all that. It made sense as well for two societies where you saw lots of exchanges, you know, business exchanges and all that. MA ran into greater difficulties when they started exploring agreements that people in Taiwan feared would have an impact on their, on their freedoms, on their liberties and on their way of life. So you had a cross trade economic agreement, you had a cross trade services trade agreement. This is what sparked the whole Sunflower movement occupation. And you started seeing fairly high level CCP delegations coming to Taiwan, which then raised fears that maybe the government was, you know, giving away a little bit too much when it came to the sovereignty of, you know, whether you call it Taiwan or Republic of China. So and the other problem for President Ma is that it became clear after a number of years that even if you sign all these agreements with China, the economy was simply not reviving. And there were also issues of distribution. So even if some sectors were benefiting from, you know, growing cross strike tourism and investment, ordinary people were not seeing the benefits of that. And wages remain stagnant and the economy remains stagnant. So the MA experiment was unable to to yield all those benefits. And as that contact, that's proximity to China became more and more problematic for people who want to maintain Taiwan's freedoms and liberties and defend their sovereignty, the MA ministration ran into serious trouble with civil society. And that is some one area of Taiwan's democracy that I was arguing at the time and continue to argue was usually was not explored sufficiently was the role that civil society plays in the democracy. Basically what happens not only on election, but between elections and whether the government is good enough at responding to public demands and apprehensions. And what we saw in Taiwan is civil society. You had a coming together of a constellation of groups that were very active over a number of issues that came together in 2011, over acquisition of media operators by pro Beijing individuals and then over the services trade agreement in 2014. And you saw the power of civil society that can actually undermine and in some areas stop the ambitions of a government. And by the end of 2014, Ma was for all intents and purposes negated as a president. He was no longer able to deliver what Beijing probably was hoping for in the closer engagement with his administration. And that also created the environment in which the Tsai Ing Wen could be elected in 2016 and for the first time in Taiwan's history, the DPP having a majority of seats in, in parliament. So that is the Moss story. It was an experiment that was tried and I would argue that also made it clear at the time, even at a, during a period when you had a more Beijing amenable government in Taipei, that the differences between the two societies made it very difficult to reconcile them to such a point that you could start sitting down and talking about unification or reunification as Beijing calls it. The other element, the other individual is Xi Jinping, as you mentioned. And ultimately I would argue that he was his own worst enemy because his behavior, the type of government that he set up, and his ultra personalistic authoritarian way of governing China, leading to what we know happened in places like Hong Kong, for example, made it all the more difficult for anyone in Taiwan to argue that Taiwan's future lies with China. At Least as long as Beijing is run by the Chinese Communist Party. And Xi likes to think of himself as, as a bit of an expert on Taiwan by virtue having being, you know, Fujian governor across the Taiwan Strait. But I think what gets in the way of, is of better judgment is that he has, and this is something that, that you know, authoritarians throughout history have faced, is that the stronger they become, they tend to be feared by their society and their own advisors to a point where people are afraid to contradict him and they will only feed him information that they believe reaffirms, underscores his own preconceived ideas on any subject. And oftentimes that can lead to catastrophic decisions. As we saw for example, with Vladimir Putin with regards to Ukraine. His advisers should have told him that it would not be easy to seize control of Kyiv, let alone the whole of Ukraine. And yet he was convinced that within a matter of days they could occupy the Ukrainian capital and all that. What we've seen with President Xi, he has not made that kind of major decision, which I think is good for everybody. But what we have observed is that he oftentimes, he is an advisor, as I would argue, were incapable of understanding developments in Taiwan. They would constantly misread the outcome of an election or a referendum in Taiwan as support for unification when the issues had probably nothing to do with cross strait relations. They oftentimes regarded moments of what they thought was weakness in Taipei as an opportunity to exert more pressure on Taiwan or make new demands on Taiwan. And that would inevitably end up backfiring and rather than creating opportunities for Beijing would end up strengthening and consolidating resistance within Taiwan to annexation by, by China. So again, as I said, Xi's authoritarian rule probably made it impossible for him to achieve the so called peaceful unification that he seeks with Taiwan.
- [28:34]
A
Well, if there's peaceful unification, then there's non peaceful unification. And that is a topic that you definitely address as well in Taiwan Tinderbox and certainly is quite a topic of discussion amongst people in Anglophone media these days. Can you share more of your take on the probability of a Taiwan Strait conflict, what form it might take and its broader effects? And to reference some of our previous discussions, how has the war in Ukraine affected your thinking on this?
- [29:11]
B
Right, well this is obviously, you know, for most people overseas who might not know much about Taiwan, the, the topic of war is something that, that makes them pay greater attention. And if you read most international media still today, most reporting about Taiwan is elevated risks of war. And China has been holding Large scale military maneuvers around Taiwan since, you know, 2020, 202021 ramped up following the visit by then U.S. house Speaker Nancy Pelosi. So this is obviously a subject that if you write a book about Taiwan, you, you cannot avoid it and it, it ends up taking a sizable part of my, of my book as well. At the same time, I do not want to be overly alarmist and I think the benefit of being here for many years is we, you know, we see how resilient this country is, but also come to understand that a lot of the military maneuvers that China has, has held in recent years and the, and the rhetoric and propaganda that accompanies them, it's, it's, you know, in some ways it's part of a dance that the two governments have been, have been having engaged in for, for a number of years as well. A lot of that is the CCP talking to its domestic audience and, and feeling the need to demonstrate that they're doing something to address that the quote unquote, Taiwan, Taiwan issue. I also spend quite a bit of time debunking the notion that China will invade Taiwan in 2027. So the so called Davidson window, there's been a lot of, of misapprehension of what was actually said bulk by Admiral Davidson, but also the directives that Xi Jinping gave to the People's Liberation Army. If you look at the literature, there's nowhere that says that Xi Jinping has ordered China to take action against Taiwan, military action against Taiwan in 2027. What he has said, he has called upon the PLA to have the capabilities and the training necessary so that if called upon by the Chinese leadership, it would have the ability to do that by 2027. Recent developments with the decapitation of several generals in the PLA probably have undermined China's ability to reach that, that level of preparedness. They have some issues as well with developments of modernization of some of their systems and all that. So I think it was important to debunk that, that, that issue in my book. I also spend a good amount of time discussing deterrence because ultimately the very existence of the Taiwanese or ROC armed forces and engagement by countries like United States is not so much to be able to defeat the PLA if China decides to do the unthinkable, but to continue to present a threat such that the Chinese leadership would think that the cost would simply be too high to try to annex Taiwan by force. So this is very much focused on deterrence, both military but political and increasingly economic as well. And there's more and more of a role for the international community to contribute to that deterrence. Because as I make it very clear and I do provide numbers in the book, if there were to be an amphibious assault against Taiwan, the results would be catastrophic for Taiwan. Obviously they would be hugely costly for China and the repercussions on the global economy would be far worse than the war in Ukraine and the COVID pandemic combined. So this is, this is a very, very serious contingency that we're talking about here. So then that leads me to again I did look at Xi Jinping psychology as much as an outsider can try to read Xi Jinping's thoughts. But I also explore other perhaps more likely scenarios by which China would move away from a non kinetic option and try to compel the Taiwanese leadership and public to make choices that are beneficial to Beijing. So I explore issues of a blockade or naval quarantine around Taiwan, the gray zone operations that we are currently living, that seek to erode Taiwan's ability to, to operate within its own immediate region, but also in doing so, waging psychological warfare on the public and hoping perhaps convince them that resistance is, is futile and that they have no choice but to capitulate and elect individuals who are more amenable, more willing to sign agreements with, with China. So far that strategy has not worked and in, in fact continues to consolidate the, you know, the unwillingness of the people in Taiwan to sit down and negotiate what would amount to a surrender. I also emphasize, and this is earlier in the book and that's something else that does not oftentimes is not acknowledged is, you know, if you read international media, it looks like there is the pro Taiwan, pro independence movement that we call Taidu and then there's the supposedly pro China kmt. I think it's, it's very important to present a more nuanced take on what those two parties are about, what they've actually said and the, the people who compose their, their parties as well. And it's very clear, it's become very clear to me over the years that the KMT is not a monolithic party. And that's to this day the majority of people within the kmt, while being against a declaration of Taiwan independence, are also opposed to unification with China. You know, their parents, their grandparents fought the communists in the Chinese Civil War. And their attachment, they might even identify as ethnically Chinese, but their attachment is to the Republic of China, not the People's Republic of China. And the Republic of China is, has become a vibrant democracy. So that's why I, I think it's very important to emphasize that there is both the taidu and the, what is, you know, referred to as the huadu. So basically the defense of the Republic of China against annexation. And if you put these two together that accounts for a large majority of the, of the public in Taiwan. And if those two forces were able to work more closely together that would also contribute to a much more formidable deterrent against attempts by China to, to annex Taiwan. So this is something that does not get mentioned often enough in my opinion. It's not necessarily a popular view particularly with the pro Taiwan independence groups, but argue that if Taiwan is to have or the Republic of China is to have a shot at survival, they will have to acknowledge some of their differences but also to recognize all the things that unite them and that is the defense of their, of their way of life. So going back to military affairs, I do talk quite a bit about the geopolitical context as well the role that United States plays in helping, you know, maintaining deterrence against a Chinese attack. But if there is, there were to be war in the Taiwan Strait, you know, the role that it would possibly play within its own strategic ambiguity approach to the whole issue. And I do address my main fear being the possibility that United States military would be overstretched or distracted by major contingencies worldwide. And I did mention a large war in the Middle East. And this is what we're going through right now. We're already starting to see the effects on the redeployment of forces that were traditionally committed to the Indo Pacific are now those capabilities are being transferred to Middle East. Marine deployed in Okinawa are being shifted to Middle east depletion of air defense missiles and cruise missiles because they're using so many of them in that war against Iran. My fear is that all of this, if that were to be sustained over a number of years would weaken the Americans ability to play role of ensuring stability and contributing to deterrence in this part of the world. And then that could at some point lead the leadership in Beijing to conclude that they now have a window of opportunity to try to use more forceful means by which to annex Taiwan. So it's, it's a whole thing that needs to be kept in, in balance and certain equilibrium. And I do, I do fear that at some point decisions could be made that would quickly spin out of control and could have catastrophic ramifications. So that is the, the darker a connotation of tinderbox in the title of
- [38:59]
A
my Book I do want to talk about the US and broader geopolitical role and landscape, but I actually before that want to drill a little bit into the Huadu and Taidu overlap that you had mentioned because that's a fairly interesting point and I think speaks to some of your on the ground experience. For those who maybe have been paying a little bit more attention to Taiwan right now the legislature is pretty divided. It's controlled by the KMT and the tpp, which is a smaller party that is aligning itself with the kmt and there's some trouble passing defense spending. So to your point around resilience, I am curious how this hypothesis around the overlap and the different factions that are at play stands up to the situation and how you look at the prospects for Taiwan's resilience with this sort of political polarization in mind.
- [39:58]
B
Yeah, well, one thing that the Chinese Communist Party does well is to reach out to political parties worldwide and try to find ways to influence them. And for obvious reasons, the CCP has been very, very actively, actively trying to recruit individuals in Taiwan to achieve its, its political warfare and use, in many ways use Taiwan's democracy against itself to undermine its ability to, to resist China. What we are seeing now is a, it's a hugely problematic situation because I would argue that you have a fairly small number of politicians in the opposition right now who have successfully co opted their parties and in doing so making them adopt certain policies or make vote in certain ways in parliament that are usually detrimental to Taiwan's ability to do what is necessary to bolster its defense. Not only delays to central government budget, but also watering down budgets in critical areas such as countering disinformation and all that. But also what's in the news nowadays is blocking the Taiwan government's bill for, you know, special defense budget for the acquisition of weapons systems that the government argues are necessary for Taiwan's defense, but also for developing the kind of asymmetrical capabilities, so unmanned vehicles and drones and systems and whatnot that are necessary for the kind of war that we are experiencing in Ukraine right now and to a lesser extent in Iran as well. I do not believe that the majority of opposition lawmakers agree with that. And if you look at opinion polls in Taiwan, the majority of people, including people who vote for the opposition, support a strong defense and would want to see greater investment in Taiwan national security apparatus. But the small number of individuals in the opposition who I would argue have questionable allegiance right now are extremely influential and powerful and so much so that they are making it impossible for the loyal or semi loyal members of that opposition to act in ways that are beneficial to Taiwan. Dr. O.C. so that that capture of the opposition right now, I don't know how long that can be sustained because that could be easily corrected in the next elections. And that is again the retributive power of democracy is that if the general public sees that your politicians are not acting in the national interest, they can get rid of you. Right. That does not mean, however, that in the four years between elections, those politicians who might not have the best intentions will not have the ability to cause serious damage to Taiwan. And I think this is what we're seeing right now. And it also contributes to perceptions in Washington D.C. that maybe Taiwan is not serious about its own national defense and therefore why should the United States come to Taiwan's defense? I hope that there is enough understanding in Washington D.C. that there is an opposition right now that is causing trouble and that does not necessarily mean that Taiwan as a whole is keen on defending itself. I just don't know if President Trump and his advisors have that kind of granular understanding of domestic politics in Taiwan. I hope they do. So this is, this is the, the, the issue that, that we're seeing right now with, with parliament. I, I hope that eventually the loyal opposition will decide that enough is enough and that they will themselves try to rid the party of those individual, usually problematic individuals who are probably taking Taiwan in the wrong direction when it comes to, to national defense.
- [44:33]
A
Well, to wrap together a couple of topics that we have just addressed. A value of democracy, US Involvement and relationship with Taiwan, broader geopolitical situation. One of the key framings that you conclude Taiwan tinderbox with is how Taiwan is a very important front line in a new Cold war between a US led democratic order and a authoritarian revisionist access. At the same time, some might argue that the US itself maybe is getting a little bit more in the authoritarian revisionist direction. We're seeing leaders becoming in the west more broadly, more isolationist in some cases. So to what extent do you feel it is still worthwhile while and effective for Taiwan to appeal to democratic values? How does that narrative play out in your thinking?
- [45:31]
B
Right. Well, I have to admit that the book was drafted before Trump became president again. So it was a very different, different world. You had American presidency that, that, you know, sometimes under breach. But their whole narrative was very much the defense of democracies against the emergent authoritarian regimes like, like Russia, like China, Iran and a few others. And the entire Tsai Ing wen administration. Between 2016 and 2024 made Taiwan's democracy one of the the key selling points to reach out to allies worldwide, not just by by saying that we need to defend Taiwan because it's a democracy, but also that other countries facing challenges in their own neighborhoods by authoritarians can learn from Taiwan's experience in conjugating with a large authoritarian neighbor, but in doing so, not abandoning your democratic principles and using high technology in ways that will not undermine human rights, things like surveillance and information control and monitoring and all that. And it is an experience that, you know, countries worldwide can, can learn from. Legalization of same sex marriage also showed that Taiwan can be a very progressive society and that it did not devolve into chaos once they had passed those laws. And that actually encouraged other countries in the region to learn from its experience. Having a vibrant civil society that the government can actually trust and work with and empower is something that has huge appeal across Southeast Asia and other parts of the world as well. So that was a very, very strong selling point for Taiwan. That made it very appealing and I think contributed to its being much more visible today than it was maybe just 15 years ago. The challenge now is that using that kind of language to make your case with the Trump administration and the MAGA crowd, it's not going to work. And that is why you have seen very clear the emphasis of those areas of Taiwan's experience in exchanges with United States government and much greater emphasis on non red supply chains and the investment by large Taiwanese companies like TSMC in different states across the United States, greater focus on weapons and collaboration in defense and all that. But the language has had to change because unfortunately, if you stick to the kind of rhetoric that had so much success under the Tsai presidency, you will probably alienate your allies in Washington D.C. at least in government. And I, I maintain that the MAGA crowd is not the reflection of American society overall. And there's still millions of people who like the idea of having Taiwan as a partner for promotion of democracy and all that. But in terms of government to government, you also need to, for better or worse, you need, you need to adapt to reflect the expectations and wishes of your main security guarantor. And the United States, whether it's Democrat or Republican administration, remains the largest by far security guarantor for, for Taiwan. But at the same time, it's seeing the United States seemingly abandon its role as the leader of the democratic order. Challenging authoritarian resurgence puts Taiwan in a difficult position and it's more difficult for it to make its case as to why it should be defended in terms of values. But that being said, we're seeing now a backlash against MAGA across Europe, for example, and that has also led countries to re emphasize their own attachment to democracy as a challenge to what they're seeing in the United States. So that still creates those kinds of opportunities for Taiwan to still use the democracy language to work with them. But the current environment, with a very transactional presidency in Washington and a president that does not seem to mind if some governments are usually authoritarian, creates an environment that it's more difficult for Taiwan to navigate than we've seen in many years. So we'll see where that leads us. I don't know yet. My next book.
- [50:34]
A
Yes, we'll see. Indeed. Look forward to all the writing and analysis that you'll do. And we have a Xi and Trump summit perhaps coming up as well. So many interesting things lying ahead. And if folks want to learn more about it, then they can certainly pick up Taiwan Tinderbox to get a foundational understanding. Michael, once again, congratulations on the publication of Taiwan Tinderbox listeners. If you want to read Michael's book, it is available for purchase now across all sorts of Anglophone countries, online, physical bookstores. Find it wherever you are. Thank you again, Michael, for joining us today on the New Books Network.
- [51:18]
B
Well, thank you so much, Anthony. It was a great pleasure. Sam.