Taiwan at the Centre of Twenty-first-century Global Geopolitics

Taiwan at the Centre of Twenty-first-century Global Geopolitics

Brian C. H. Fong is Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean of the College of Social Sciences, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (brian.fong@mail.nsysu.edu.tw).
Framing the special feature

Taiwan – an island in the Western Pacific with a population of 23 million – was long portrayed as the “Orphan of Asia.” As a “contested state” that exercises de facto sovereignty but falls short of de jure international legal recognition (Geldenhuys 2009), Taiwan has been marginalised in the global public sphere for many decades (Cho and Ahn 2017). However, the tide is changing. Since the intensification of US–China competition during the 2010s, Taiwan has gained unprecedented global attention, especially in the West. It has increasingly become a central arena of global geopolitics, embodying issues of international security, economy, democracy, and order.

Today Taiwan is widely regarded as a critical locus upon which global security rests. Militarily, the island has been portrayed by international media as “the most dangerous place on Earth,” where China and the US may launch World War III.[1] Indeed, China is currently intensifying its military pressure against Taiwan – though still below the threshold of war – in order to advance its unification agenda. Such non-war military operations include conducting several “island encirclement military exercises,”[2] initiating day-to-day covert cyberattacks against Taiwan’s government and commercial sites (Cabestan 2023: 106), clustering its “anti-access/area-denial” (A2/AD) missile launchers in coastal provinces along the Taiwan Strait,[3] and sending jet fighters on a daily basis to intrude into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and cross the median line in the Taiwan Strait (Allen, Brown, and Shattuck 2024). To push back against China militarily, the US is stepping up its military presence in the Taiwan Strait, including expanding arms sales to Taiwan under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (Mahoney 2025), rotating more US special operations forces to Taiwan for expansion of military training support (Yuan 2023), conducting frequent Taiwan Strait Transits,[4] and moving from “strategic ambiguity” towards “strategic clarity” through President Joe Biden’s pledges to defend Taiwan on four separate occasions.[5] At the same time, the US is mobilising its allies and partners to collectively demonstrate their explicit opposition to any unilateral attempts to change Taiwan’s status quo by force or coercion through minilateral groupings such as the G7, QUAD, and AUKUS (“Rising International Support” 2021). With the escalation of military competition between the US-led coalition and China, the outbreak of a great power war over Taiwan is no longer unimaginable (Fong 2026). Taiwan is therefore a place where the future of global security is at stake.

Paradoxically, while military tension across the Taiwan Strait is escalating, Taiwan is becoming more prosperous economically and more democratic politically. Its importance to the global economy and global democracy has gained increasing recognition in recent years. Economically, within the international business community, Taiwan has been increasingly seen as “the indispensable economy,”[6] and its flagship semiconductor manufacturer, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), as the “most important company” in the world.[7] Indeed, because of its advanced techno-economic system – particularly its position as a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing – Taiwan has become one of the world’s most attractive destinations for international investments. In the post-Covid-19 period, the island has continued to enjoy steady economic growth, outperforming peer economies such as South Korea.[8]In recent years, Taiwan’s inbound foreign direct investment has reached new heights, while the TAIEX has repeatedly closed at record levels of market capitalisation (Neszmélyi 2022; Kuo 2024).[9] In this age of techno-capitalism, major powers – not only global powers, namely US and China, but also regional powers such as Japan, India, Germany, France, and the UK – all seek access to Taiwan’s advanced semiconductors to strengthen their economic development and technological competitiveness (Chiang 2023; Topal 2024). Taiwan is therefore a place where the future of the global economy is at stake.

Apart from economic advancement, Taiwan has also made significant progress in terms of democratic consolidation. In recent years, various international democracy indices have recognised Taiwan’s transformation into a mature and stable democracy. For example, Taiwan was ranked as the second-freest democracy in Asia – only behind Japan – by the Freedom House 2026 Freedom in the World Index.[10] It was also ranked 28th in the world in the Reporters Without Borders 2026 World Press Freedom Index, indicating that its media freedom is now broadly comparable to that of many established Western democracies.[11] Despite its lack of formal international legal recognition – including United Nations membership and diplomatic relations with most major countries – Taiwan now receives high-level delegations from Western governments, parliaments, militaries, and think-tanks on a near-daily basis (Templeman 2022). Demonstrating political and moral support for Taiwan’s democracy against China’s authoritarian influence has increasingly become a consensus within the US-led coalition (Albana and Fiori 2024). Taiwan is therefore a place where the future of global democracy is at stake.

Finally, Taiwan is a critical locus upon which global order is defined. Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the retreat of the Republic of China (ROC), Taiwan has become a contested state, exercising de facto sovereignty while lacking de jure international legal recognition (Fong 2025a, 2025b). As a disputed territory, Taiwan has increasingly become a focal point of two competing visions of international order. On the one hand, China frames Taiwan as a “breakaway province” and portrays its political future as a matter of absolute state sovereignty that precludes external interference. On the other hand, the US frames Taiwan’s political future as a matter of upholding a rules-based international order and opposes China’s unilateral use of military force to alter the status quo. This competition over the definition of global norms has intensified amid the escalation of US–China rivalry in recent years (Lai 2024).[12] Taiwan is therefore a place where the future normative foundations of the international order are at stake.

The rationale for the special feature

How should we account for Taiwan’s recent evolution into a centre of global geopolitics that vividly embodies global security (as a flashpoint for great power war), the global economy (as the linchpin of the global semiconductor supply chain), global democracy (as a frontline in the democracy–autocracy contest), and global order (as a disputed territory subject to competing conceptions of world order)? More specifically, what motivates the US and its allies to compete so intensely with China over Taiwan in recent years? Over time, the scholarly and policy literature on Taiwan has burgeoned, addressing the global implications of its war risk (e.g., Wang Y. 2019; Santoro and Cossa 2023; Wu 2023), semiconductor industry (e.g., Chiang 2023; Chou 2023; Martin et al. 2023), survival as a democracy (e.g., Templeman 2020; Chen 2022), and international legal order (e.g., Wang K. 2019; Ahl 2020). Written by scholars and experts from different backgrounds and disciplines, and lacking a common theoretical framework, the extant literature – though intensive and thorough – inevitably captures only part, rather than the full picture, of Taiwan’s recent evolution into a centre of global geopolitics. This special feature endeavours to fill that gap by drawing on great power competition theories to explain Taiwan’s emergence as a centre of global geopolitics.

The central argument of this special feature is that the rising “national interests” of the US and its regional allies in Taiwan have prompted them to strengthen their support for the island vis-à-vis China, thereby positioning Taiwan as a critical arena in global geopolitics. In the great power competition literature, “national interests” are defined as the perceived priorities that a country – including global and regional powers as well as small states – seeks to pursue regarding its external environment (Nye 1999). Such national interests may be broadly classified into defence interests (the defence of the country against military threats from other countries, including threats to its system of government), economic interests (the enhancement of the country’s economic well-being), ideological interests (the promotion of values, norms, and beliefs that the country and its people consider as universally good), and world-order/overseas interests (the maintenance of an international order that protects the security of a country’s overseas citizens and enterprises operating beyond its territorial borders), following the classical typology developed by Nuechterlein (1976). Building upon these great power competition theories and concepts – which are derived from an emerging grand theory in international relations called “neo-offensive realism” (Fong 2024a) – this special feature examines the evolution of the US and its regional allies’ interests in Taiwan in recent years and their implications for Taiwan’s rise as a centre of global geopolitics.

Apart from highlighting the causal importance of national interests in driving the US and its regional allies to compete with China over the island, and hence provide greater support for it, this special issue also pays attention to Taiwan’s own agency in navigating such geopolitical turbulence. One of the biggest paradoxes of great power competition theories is that they must extend their analytical focus beyond great powers to include non-great powers, including regional powers, small states, and quasi-states. In particular, small states and quasi-states are not only “objects” but also “subjects” of global geopolitics. They are probably powerless to prevent great powers from competing over their territories at the system level, but they nevertheless possess – however limited – agency to navigate such competition at the unit level (Fong 2025a, 2025b). In recent years, the Taiwanese government under the leadership of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has mobilised its techno-economic and democratic resources to bolster international support through “economic diplomacy” (An, Chen, and Yeh 2023) and “value-based diplomacy” (Otmazgin 2022). This special issue will examine how – and how successfully – Taiwan has leveraged the US-led coalition’s growing defence, economic, and ideological interests in the island for its own survival.

Overall, this special feature aims to make theoretical and empirical contributions, with important policy implications. More specifically, this special feature will place the case study of Taiwan as a centre of global geopolitics in the theoretical context of great power competition studies. What makes a place a critical domain of global geopolitics? International relations scholars generally argue that small states endowed with strategic geographical locations and rich natural resource endowments are likely to attract the attention of global and regional powers (Van Evera 1984; Klare 2001). However, a full-fledged theory that forcefully explains and predicts “where geopolitics occurs” is still under-developed in international relations scholarship. Moreover, the existing literature is overtly state-centric. It is largely unaware of the critical role of “quasi-states” that fall outside of the orthodox definition of “sovereign states” in global geopolitics (Fong 2022). Taiwan – a contested state that has struggled for survival between China and the US from the Cold War to the present day – is definitely a critical case of quasi-state. Therefore, a holistic empirical study of the national interests of global and regional powers over Taiwan not only helps us understand why they are now jockeying for strategic influence over the island, but will also provide a critical case study with the potential to enrich the theoretical discussion of “where geopolitics occurs.” In addition, Taiwan’s attempts to bolster its international support through economic and value-based diplomacy offer critical insights on how a non-great power – specifically, a contested quasi-state – can navigate strategic competition. On the whole, the case study of Taiwan will help enrich the emerging literature studying non-great powers as both geopolitical objects and subjects (Fong 2025a, 2025b).

The above theoretical and empirical contributions will have important policy implications. Taiwan’s status quo – its security, prosperity, democracy, and de facto sovereignty – is far more than a matter concerning 23 million Taiwanese. It is also closely related to the future of international security, economy, democracy, and order and has already been placed at the top of the national security agenda of major democratic powers, including the US,[13] the European Union,[14]Japan, and Korea.[15] In other words, the scholarly findings of this special feature will provide a solid intellectual foundation for furthering global policy dialogue and policymaking. It will benefit policy-makers and practitioners worldwide – including government officials, diplomats, intelligence officers, military generals, legislators, think-tanks, business analysts, and journalists – who are closely observing the US–China competition and cross-strait relations.

Organisation of the special feature

This special feature brings together researchers from different disciplines – including international relations, international political economy, military studies, and comparative politics – to study the case of Taiwan from a holistic perspective. It includes four articles that together present Taiwan as a critical case study of global geopolitics in the twenty-first century. As an empirical study that aims to explain recent developments, this special feature will principally focus on the time period from the 2010s to 2025, namely from the intensification of US–China competition since the early 2010s.

The first article will set the theoretical foundation for the special feature. It adopts and applies neo-offensive realism theory for studying the critical research question of “where geopolitics occurs” in the context of US–China rivalry over Taiwan. The second to fourth articles survey the national interests of the US and its regional allies over Taiwan and discuss how such interests have translated into growing support for the island from the 2010s up to 2025. Such interests include defence interests associated with Taiwan’s role in the Western Pacific, geo-economic interests in Taiwan as a critical hub of global trade and technological supply chains, and ideological interests in supporting Taiwan as a democracy. The contributors also examine Taiwan’s agency in leveraging these geopolitical dynamics militarily, economically, and ideologically.

Following a brief period of relative stability in the post-Cold War years of the 1990s to 2000s, we are once again living in a world defined by geopolitics – despite the once-popular claim of the “end of history” (Fukuyama 1992). Indeed, “history” did not end with the Cold War. Rather, “history” reminds us that geopolitics is now returning to the forefront of the global stage after the brief US unipolar moment of the 1990s and 2000s (Fong 2024b). In this new era, the geopolitical turbulence currently unfolding in Taiwan is, to varying degrees, mirrored in other geopolitical focal points worldwide. Studying contemporary Taiwan therefore helps us understand “the world as it is” and, correspondingly, reflect on “the world as it should be.”

References

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[1] “The most dangerous place on Earth,” The Economist, 1 May 2021, https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/05/01/the-most-dangerous-place-on... (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[2] “Tracking the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), August 2022, https://chinapower.csis.org/tracking-the-fourth-taiwan-strait-crisis/ (accessed on 15 June 2026); “Tracking China’s April 2023 Military Exercises around Taiwan,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), April 2023, https://chinapower.csis.org/tracking-chinas-april-2023-military-exercise... (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[3] “How Are China’s Land-based Conventional Missile Forces Evolving?” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 12 May 2021, https://chinapower.csis.org/conventional-missiles/ (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[4] Ronald O’Rourke, “U.S.-China Strategic Competition in South and East China Seas: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, May 2025, https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R42784 (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[5] David Sacks, “What Biden’s Big Shift on Taiwan Means,” Council on Foreign Relations, 24 May 2022, https://www.cfr.org/articles/what-bidens-big-shift-taiwan-means (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[6] Lauly Li, and Ting-Fang Cheng, “How Taiwan Became the Indispensable Economy,” Nikkei Asia, 31 May 2023, https://asia.nikkei.com/spotlight/the-big-story/how-taiwan-became-the-in... (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[7] Nicholas Kristof, “Visiting the Most Important Company in the World,” The New York Times, 24 January 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/opinion/tsmc-taiwan-china.html (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[8] For GDP annual growth of Taiwan vis-à-vis other countries and territories worldwide, see: “Annual GDP growth, 1980 to 2031,” Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/real-gdp-growth (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[9] See also: Min-Hua Chiang, “Taiwan’s Economic Growth Prevails Despite China’s Military Intimidation,” East Asia Forum, 4 February 2025, https://eastasiaforum.org/2025/02/04/taiwans-economic-growth-prevails-de... (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[10] “Freedom in the World,” Freedom House, 2026, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[11] “Taiwan,” Reporters Without Borders, 2026, https://rsf.org/en/country/taiwan (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[12] See also: David Sacks, “Why Is Taiwan Important to the United States?” Council on Foreign Relations, 20 June 2023, http://cfr.org/articles/why-taiwan-important-united-states (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[13] Ibid.

[14] Francis Shin, “The Prospects for Taiwan-EU Cooperation,” The Diplomat, 16 February 2024, https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/the-prospects-for-taiwan-eu-cooperation/ (accessed on 15 June 2026).

[15] John Fitzgerald, “Why Japan and South Korea Care about Taiwan,” The Strategist (Australian Strategic Policy Institute, ASPI), 8 August 2022, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/a-blockade-of-taiwan-would-cripple-chi... (accessed on 15 June 2026).

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