WHY TAIWAN MATTERS

An island nation’s troubled waters.

Of all the flashpoints around the world, Taiwan may be the most dangerous. The author of numerous books on Asia, Brown emphasizes this point in his accessible study. As an example, Brown notes that 381 planes from the Chinese air force entered Taiwan’s air defense zone in 2020. Two years later, that figure jumped to 1,727 planes. Brown outlines the turbulent history of Taiwan, exploring the Japanese occupation from 1895 to 1945, the arrival of the defeated Nationalist forces in 1949, and the slow march to democracy and prosperity since then. The real value of the book, however, is its analysis of the past two decades. China has become increasingly assertive about its claim to Taiwan, while a new generation of Taiwanese people want to move toward full independence. The U.S. sees Taiwan, which is roughly the size of Maryland, as a democratic bastion against a communist superpower. Brown stresses how this is a delicate balancing act for the West, which must find a level of support for Taiwan that will deter China while not provoking Beijing. The Chinese government may believe that it could take and hold Taiwan without great difficulty, but Brown is not so sure. A wrong move could easily draw the U.S. and other powers into a broader conflict. He concludes that the status quo, with Taiwan remaining ambiguously half-independent, might be the only answer. “For today, strenuous defence of the stalemate is all that we can meaningfully do,” he writes. “Anything else is insanity.”

A cogent and unsettling exploration of one of the key geopolitical issues of our time.