Why Taiwan Matters More Than Ever With Chris Horton

Taiwan sits at the heart of global geopolitics, caught between history, identity, and rising tensions with China. In this episode, Chris Horton takes us inside the island’s struggle for survival and what it means for the world today.

Chris is a journalist based in Taiwan since 2015, covering the country’s foreign relations, domestic politics, economy, and society. Chris’ writing has appeared in The New York Times, Nikkei Asia, Bloomberg News, the Financial Times and other publications.

Chris has released his first book: Ghost Nation: The story of Taiwan and its struggle for survival.

Chris Horton's website - https://www.chrishortonwriter.com/

SUPPORT ME - https://www.thetransformationofvalue.com/support

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You know, if Taiwan is to were to fall to China, it's going to,
there's no one that is going to be untouched by this.
This won't just impact rich countries or democracies, it'll
impact everyone and and most people in the world aren't aware
of that yet. Hello, I am Cody Ellingham, and
this is the transformation of Value, a place for asking

(00:22):
questions about freedom, money and creativity.
Today I'm joined by Chris Horton, a journalist based in
Taiwan since 2015, covering the countries, Foreign Relations,
domestic politics, economy and society.
Chris''s writing has appeared inthe New York Times, Nikkei Asia,
Bloomberg News, the Financial Times and other publications.

(00:43):
Chris has just released his first book, Ghost Nation, the
story of Taiwan and its strugglefor survival, which we're going
to talk about today. Chris, welcome to the show.
Hi, Cody. Thanks for having me on.
Chris, can you tell me a little bit where you're originally
from, please? Well, I guess the place where I
grew up in the States, I'm American is kind of the Kansas

(01:07):
City area, which I, which I'm speaking to you from right now.
I actually just gave a, gave a couple talks at my alma mater,
the University of Kansas yesterday.
So that was that was a good time.
But yeah, I, I graduated from the University of Kansas 25
years ago with a Chinese degree,ended up going to China, was
there for the, the economic riseand just, you know, the, the

(01:30):
investment frenzy and just all the, all the amazing stuff that
happened during, during the 2000to like 2008 period.
And, and then once, once things kind of levelled off a bit and
earlier in China, like it felt like every year was better than
the year before. And there was, there was just
kind of this endless optimism. And then, and then things kind

(01:51):
of levelled off a bit after 2008.
And by 2013, I, I kind of felt like I had, I had been in China
long enough and, and so I, I moved to Hong Kong and I thought
it would just be lots of boring business stories, but that was
right before the, the umbrella revolution, the umbrella
movement of 2014. So I ended up writing.

(02:13):
So I, I, when I was, when I was in China, I was doing, I was
doing lots of kind of business and lifestyle, but also like I
was blogging for, for a living in, in South, mostly in
southwestern China and Kunming. And when I, when I moved to Hong
Kong, I, I started writing for more mainstream media and like

(02:33):
the New York Times and the Atlantic.
And I used those connections after the Umbrella Revolution
was dismantled with, with no concessions by the Hong Kong
government. I kind of knew what was going to
happen to Hong Kong. You know, I didn't know the
time. I thought it would be 10 years,
maybe not five years as it turned out.

(02:54):
But yeah, I, I, I decided to move back there, back to the
Mandarin speaking world and I ended up in Taiwan.
I had never lived there, even really traveled there.
But it, you know, I, I just go in there for one, one visit to,
to just to see if I, if I might want to live there.
Within an hour of being there, Iwas, I was sold.

(03:15):
And one of the things that really stuck out about Taiwan is
how little I knew about it compared to other Asian
countries of, of whatever size. You know, it's Taiwan is just so
invisible. It's a it's a ghost in the
international community, you know, to to riff off of the
book's title. Yeah, well, it's interesting.
I mean, the opening paragraph aswell of the book, you talk about

(03:37):
the hungry ghosts of Taiwan and how in a sense, this analogy
kind of does play out for Taiwan's role in the world
because, yeah, what what is Taiwan?
And if I could share a little personal story of mine.
Back in 2019, I had the privilege to visit a rural part
of Hua Lian. I was filming a project

(03:59):
interviewing some local indigenous people and, and the,
yeah, this, this landscape of the East Coast really struck me.
And then you've got the narrow gauge railways, which are the
same as New Zealand, same as Japan, and then these old like
diesel engine trains that were hauling freight and, and it
looked like, it honestly looked like New Zealand.
And then I remember taking photos of this young guy who we

(04:22):
were interviewing and he was wearing a tracksuit.
He had this homemade rifle and these monkey skins and these
deer skins, like stacked behind him in the shed.
And he like we're at the back ofhis house.
And, and I grew up in a rural part of New Zealand.
And I remember thinking this could be a guy that I'm talking
to from my hometown because eventhough we're, you know, we're

(04:44):
thousands of kilometers apart. As I understand it, the Maori
people of New Zealand can trace the genetic origins back through
to Taiwan many millennia ago. There's this kind of.
Yeah. Yeah, this kind of diaspora,
this great migration, these chains of migrations that came
from Taiwan originally. And then the other story from

(05:04):
that episode was I was so quite clearly remember interviewing an
old, like very old Taiwanese woman who was able to speak
Japanese with me because, you know, I live in Japan, I speak
Japanese. And she was telling me about
growing up as a little girl and under the Japanese Empire and
what that meant to her. And her face sort of lit up as

(05:24):
she sort of recalled, you know, these, these like elementary
school Japanese lessons and stuff.
And both these encounters struckme as having this profound
tapestry of history of a nation with a story, with a destiny.
And but of course, all these things and historical fact stand
in opposition to the claim that Taiwan is part of the People's

(05:48):
Republic of China. And I think that would be
perhaps something that we can start our conversation about
your experience with this nuanced Taiwanese identity.
Yeah, well, when I first, when Itook the plunge and moved,
relocated to Taiwan, I, I thought I had been relatively
impervious to communist propaganda about Taiwan.

(06:09):
And I, I realized very quickly that I wasn't because it's been
repeated, you know, in in media,not just from China, but like
worldwide, you know, to varying degrees for so long.
And, and also the the the Chinese Nationalist Party,
currently an opposition party inTaiwan.
But it, it used to be prior to the Communist Revolution, it was

(06:32):
the, IT was in control of the Republic of China Party state
that it, that was under Chiang Kai Shek, who is basically like,
you know, he ruled kind of like an emperor.
But but yeah, I, I, I remember getting to getting to Taiwan and
just nothing quite fit into the,you know, the, the, the holes or

(06:53):
the spaces that I was expecting it to.
You know, I, I, I assumed that indigenous Taiwanese would
probably be more green, meaning more, you know, voting more for
like the party, the DPP, the Democratic Progressive Party,
which has a primarily Taiwanese identity versus the, the

(07:13):
Nationalist Party's primarily Chinese identity.
And I, I, I would expect indigenous Taiwanese to, to kind
of vote more for the Taiwanese identity.
But historically they've, they've voted more, more bloom
more for the, the KMT or the, the Nationalists.
And, you know, there just also the Japan factor.
It's really, it's one of those things, yes, you know, Chinese

(07:37):
culture and Chinese history have, have had an effect and an
impact on on Taiwan, But some ofus, you know, so is Japan,
Japanese culture, Japanese history, You can, you can feel
that in Taiwan as well. And it's so, you know, while,
while it's never been part of the People's Republic of China,
there are four years that there was a, a Chinese based, a China

(08:00):
based government like from Chinathat that controlled Taiwan.
And during that four years, there was like halfway through
that four years. That was 1945 to 1949.
So in 1947 there's a, a big violent uprising by Taiwanese
against them. So that's the only four years
that you've ever had a Chinese government based in China that

(08:21):
controlled Taiwan. So it really, I mean, just
starting from there, like it's really hard to to justify the
People's Republic of China's claim on it today.
Yeah. Well, I think there's more
nuance to this. I mean, there's a lot more
details to these, the nuts and bolts of these claims of
sovereignty, which I think maybeit is also a good place to start
because I think I understand what you're saying, that there

(08:43):
is a propaganda and sort of media shorthands, you know, sort
of terms of phrase that are used.
And, and one that struck me fromwhen we, when we met at your
talk recently in Japan, was thisphrase mainland China, which I
had never realized, you know, consciously was actually a piece
of propaganda. Because by virtue of talking
about mainland China, you're referring to also some non

(09:05):
mainland China AKA Hong Kong andTaiwan being, you know, sort of
also in the concept of China, right?
For sure, yeah. I think in a in a Hong Kong and
China context, mainland is totally fine because Hong Kong
Island is an island, even thoughHong Kong, the territory is
mostly peninsula. But for for Taiwan, you know,

(09:27):
it, that really is a politicallyloaded term.
You're saying that you're sayingthat, you know, whether you you
realize it or not, you're sayingthat Taiwan is part of China,
Taiwan completes China. And that's just that's, you
know, I mean, it doesn't, it might in the minds of some
people, but historically it's, it's really never been a part of
China. Even within the Hong Kong
context, though, like is that that mainland phrase?

(09:48):
I mean, I'm not super sure on onthe the the Mandarin for it, but
like, is it, is that something that was historically used to
refer to like the actual continental, you know, non Hong
Kong Island, China? It was brought over in the 40s
by the, the KMT by the Guo Min Dong, the Nationalists.
And they, you know, they, they ended up losing China in 1949

(10:10):
and relocated to rebased themselves in Taiwan with their
capital in Taipei. And yeah, they, you know, it's,
it's really hard for, for anyoneto, you know, if you, if you
just look at the facts, you know, no one spoke, no one said
mainland before the KMT arrived before that they would call like

(10:33):
Taiwanese people in Taiwan wouldcall China Tong Shan, which is
something that I had never heard.
And that tongue that's used in, in the same are in the Mandarin
term for Chinatowns as well. So I think, I think that might
be the etymology. I don't know the etymology, but
in, in Taiwanese and in, in, well, people didn't really speak

(10:53):
Mandarin in until the arrival ofthe, the KMT said people spoke
Taiwanese, which was, which is aTaiwanese variant of a, of a
southern Fujianese language spoken by the original Chinese
migrants from 400 years ago, going back as far as 400 years

(11:14):
ago. And so, yeah, Tangshan was, was
the name that they used. But, you know, international
media just totally uses mainlandChina.
Like, it's like, I almost as if it makes them sound smarter, you
know, like we, we, you know, mainland.
Yeah. And some people just say
mainland and it's, it's, I mean,I, it's, it's just kind of
strange. Well, yeah, it's it's kind of
Orwellian, right? You're sort of you're creating

(11:37):
these words and these these categories.
But just zooming out a little bit, man, I just conscious we've
mentioned a few things, the KMT coming tongue these these
different phrases. Perhaps just just taking a step
back and just sketching this kind of picture of sovereignty
here because maybe we could start just if it's OK, maybe
just with the Qing dynasty, you know, not to do a huge history
lesson. But there is just a couple of a

(11:58):
couple of key events here that are probably worth pointing out.
And I think maybe starting with Cheng and and the Japanese
imperial period. And maybe you could just paint a
bit of a picture of how we arrived at where we're at today
and these kind of blow by blows over time.
Yeah, well, I, I, I mean, if youdon't mind, I'll, I'll start 401
years ago with the, with the arrival of the Dutch in 1624.

(12:20):
They were there for 30-8 years. They, they, it was the Dutch
East India Company. They, they were the world's
first stock company in the DutchW India Company, the same year
as 1624. That's when it set up its first,
established its foothold in Manhattan.
So the Dutch were very busy in both both of the Eastern and
Western hemispheres and they dida lot, they brought a lot, they

(12:42):
introduced a lot of, a lot of foreign plants and wildlife to
Taiwan. But they, they needed, they were
there. They were a company, they were a
stock company. And so they needed to make
money. One of the things they were
trying to do was farm. And by they didn't want to farm
themselves. They were the, the people
running, you know, running the company.

(13:03):
They but Taiwanese, indigenous Taiwanese had zero interest in
being being, you know, agricultural laborers for for
these Europeans who had come from so far away.
But the Ming Dynasty across the Taiwan Strait was falling apart
and there were tons of poor young Fujianese men and they
were the first wave of Chinese migrants to to go over to

(13:26):
Taiwan. And it was, it was, you know, in
many ways they were abandoning their economic refugees.
You know, these, these were not people who were like, we're
going to make Taiwan, you know, part of China.
And also it's, it's worth notinghere that the first schools in
Taiwan were not Chinese. They were, they were Dutch.
And the first written language or the written script taught in
in Taiwan was the Roman alphabet, not the Chinese

(13:49):
language. So, you know, but it was the
people, it was Koshinga, this half Japanese, half Fujianese,
son of a pirate who, who overthrew the, the Dutch.
And with that he brought, he started trying to sinify Taiwan.
So he introduced Confucianism, built Chinese style temples,

(14:12):
schools and whatnot. So that, that 21 year period, it
was very brief, but his, he and his son and grandson, they, they
ruled those 21 years and they, they started like the, the real
process of sinification of Taiwan.
And then after that you've got the Qing and the Qing are
Manchus, but they've conquered all, of all of China.

(14:33):
And then they, they basically, they decided they, they weren't
that interested in Taiwan until,until they kind of realized a
little bit too late how important it was.
But they, they oversaw 2 more big waves of immigration from
China and a lot of the, the areas of Taiwan that had been

(14:53):
colonized. It's, it's worth noting that
the, the, the eastern 2/3 of Taiwan is basically all
mountains. And then there's a coastal plain
on the West Coast where most of the people have lived and where
most of the people Live Today. Maybe 90% of Taiwanese live
there. So the the Ching ended up
basically only, you know, they claimed that they administered

(15:14):
all of Taiwan, but their actual rule only included that the non
mountainous coastal plain area because it it was, it was just
too dangerous to go up into the mountains.
The the indigenous Taiwanese were, were very fierce fighters.
They still are today a lot they they're over.
They're disproportionately represented in like Taiwanese

(15:35):
special forces, for instance. But but yeah, so they've always
been respected as kind of warriors and and whatnot.
But the Qing, A Manchu dynasty claimed all of Taiwan ruled the
western third of it. And really, yeah, I guess 1895
after they lost in in their war with Japan, they in the Treaty

(15:56):
of Shimono Seki, they they gave Taiwan, all of Taiwan to
Japanese in perpetuity. And then Japan went about this
was Japan's first colony. Imperial Japan was rising.
It had plans for the neighborhood and Taiwan was its
was going to be its showcase colony.
So they, they did, you know, it was obviously there were

(16:16):
extractive goals and, you know, money making goals and whatnot.
But also, I think this was, thiswas kind of propaganda for the,
for southeast, for South China and Southeast Asia, which you
know, Taiwan due to its location.
It was the springboard from which the Japanese would would
conquer these, these other partsof, of the region.

(16:37):
But getting back to what Japan did, they brought modern
medicine, infrastructure, education, rule of law, lots,
lots of industry, raised people's living standards, You
know, when they arrived, when the Japanese arrived, most
Taiwanese were illiterate farmers.
And that changed quite a bit over the 50 years from 1895 to

(17:00):
1945 that the Japanese were there.
But they also, you know, they, they didn't let Taiwanese, you
know, really have a say in theirown government.
And, you know, even though they kind of conquered the coastal
plain in 1895, in just like 3 or4 months, you had a situation
where, you know, it took 20 years to conquer the indigenous
parts. And there were many bloody wars

(17:22):
and just brutal tactics used by the Japanese.
And it still took, I mean, and this was the Japanese Imperial
Army. It took them 20 years to do
that. And but yeah, what they, what
they left, you know, and there was lots of political
imprisonment and whatnot, but towards the end, Japan tried to

(17:43):
make Taiwanese more feel more like they were actually Japanese
rather than just Japanese subjects.
But that was, it was another kind of case of too little too
late. And by 1945, Japan had
surrendered at the end of World War 2, and the US had decided
that the Republic of China was going to administer Taiwan, at

(18:05):
least initially. And the US brought brought over
Chinese soldiers, the Roc military, which is now Taiwan's
military. They brought them over on boats
in 1945. And yeah.
But good. So just on that, just on that
note though, we've got a parallel history here.
So we're talking about Republic of China, but so going back so
1895 to 1945, we've got this Japanese imperial period.

(18:28):
At that same time, though, Chinais going through some changes, a
very different place to it is today.
So maybe we, we, we go come backto China.
What? Looking at the history there,
the the Qing dynasty obviously collapses, right?
Well, the Qing dynasty was it. It was overthrown by the by the
Guam and Dong by the Republic ofthe by the people who would
later form the Republic of China.

(18:49):
And the the Guam and Dong were they were, I mean kind of first
and foremost they were an anti Manchu movement.
And you know, the Manchus, they,they made Chinese men grow long
braids, you know, like queues, Ithink they were called.
And, you know, cutting off, you see the.
Old, the old photos, right? Like San Francisco gold miners
and stuff. I've got the the long, the long

(19:09):
queues. They had the folded feet for the
woman. And is that the sound?
Feet as well, Yeah, yeah. So there was this kind of
cultural artifacts that you got coming from the Manchus.
And again, that was like, like Nwhat Northeast?
Sort of what, what, what you would now call northeastern
China that used to be Manchuria and also part of the Russian Far

(19:29):
East. A A A a large part of the
Russian Far East is it's, I think it's euphemistically
referred to as Outer Manchuria now, but it it just all used to
be Manchuria and. And then that also got colonized
by Japan in the 1930s. Yes.
And then after Japan left, the Republic of China moved in and
began a process that was later accelerated by the People's

(19:52):
Republic of China. And now, you know, people just
refer to Manchuria generally as Dongbei or the Northeast.
They don't call it Manzhou, you know, it's like.
And, and, and Manchu people havebeen more or less assimilated
into, into like a, a, a Han identity.
And I, you know, I think people look at Tibet and, you know, E

(20:14):
Turkestan or, or Xinjiang as it's known in China and, you
know, worry about the things that are going on there.
But like I, the, the level of assimilation that was inflicted
on the Manchu people, it's, it'squite interesting.
It's it's, it's very successful and it's so successful people
don't think about it. But that's yeah.

(20:35):
Yes, yeah. So we've so no, so we've got
this this kind of these interesting histories that
happen where there's there's quite a lot of changes happening
in China, there's this change happening in Taiwan as Japan
comes in. And then really there's the sort
of key moment, 1945 we have the defeat of the Japanese Empire in
World War 2. And then that is a a very

(20:57):
tumultuous period. So maybe that what?
At what point do those two realities start colliding after
that? Well, 1945 when the, when
Japanese speaking Taiwanese weretold that their new overlords
would be the Republic, the Mandarin speaking Republic of
China. And when, when it arrived, you
know, people didn't speak Mandarin in, in Taiwan and they

(21:19):
spoke primarily Japanese and Taiwanese, but also Haka and
some indigenous languages. So when the government, when the
New Republic of China government, which was headed by
Chiang Kai Shek in Nanjing or Nanking, as it was known then,
but like the, the Governor General Chuni he, like Chiang
Kai Shek, they both spoke fluentJapanese and they could have,

(21:41):
they could have like, you know, phased in Mandarin or, or, or
something like that. But there, there was no attempt
to do that. It was just like, hey, you're
Chinese now and we're going to speak Mandarin.
And so instantly, like all the local media, that local Japanese
media that people had relied on,it was gone.
And you were basically everyone suddenly had to learn Mandarin.

(22:03):
But it was in, you know, there were also attempts by Chinese.
He wanted to conscript Taiwanese, young Taiwanese men
and send them to China to fight against the Communists and
Taiwanese because they, a lot ofthem had, had been educated as
lawyers and knew their rights. You know, they were like, look,
we're, we still haven't, you know, we're part of the Japanese

(22:25):
Empire and there hasn't been a formal, any sort of formal end
of hostilities. And you want to send us over to,
you know, the other side of the straight and for a war, you
know, but like, we're kind of, you know, we're still
technically kind of like enemy combatants in in in your view,
you know. And so I think there was a big
concern that basically they, theyoung Taiwanese men would be

(22:50):
used as cannon fodder in China. And then also they wouldn't be
able to help in any sort of insurrection or uprising, should
it were were it to happen in Taiwan, which it eventually did
so. So just to clarify here, so we
had the surrender of the, the forces on, on Taiwan.
We had the, you know, the the fate of the Japanese Empire, but

(23:12):
at that point there was no formal handover of sovereignty.
There was no declaration that, you know, suddenly Taiwan and
international law is now part ofChina.
It was really just the defeat ofJapan right at that point.
Yeah, So it, it wasn't until 1951 that the Treaty of San
Francisco, you, you have Japan renouncing its sovereignty over

(23:34):
Taiwan. But what's very interesting and
a, a, a pretty big technical point here is Taiwan, Japan did
not say who the, you know, it did not give Taiwan's
sovereignty or in a rule of Taiwan to anyone else.
So like it just renounced there was no recipient country for
Taiwan's sovereignty. And so a lot of people in Taiwan

(23:57):
and elsewhere will point to thatand say, look, you know,
Taiwan's sovereignty is it? It does not.
It's never belonged to the Republic of China, which was not
part of the San Francisco Convention or the the where the
treaty was signed. Yeah, well, and this is an
interesting time frame as well because again, to throw some
complexity in here, obviously during World War 2, the the

(24:18):
China was governed by the Republic of China and they were
at war with with the Japanese, right.
And then post war you had the Chinese Civil War where these
communist factions suddenly wereable to attack maybe a a
weakened Republic of China. There was a lot of things going

(24:38):
on there. And so this accommodate 1949,
right, the Chinese Civil War. That was, yeah, the the civil
war pushed into 1950, but but Chiang Kai Shek left it at the
end of at the end of 1949. And a few months earlier in
Beijing, Mao Zedong proclaimed the foundation of the People's
Republic of China. One thing that's worth noting,

(24:59):
and this is where Manchuria comes in again, right before
like a day before Japan surrendered, the Soviets invaded
Manchuria and they took everything they wanted from, you
know, in terms of like industrial stuff and factories.
But they, they allowed the, you know, this was, this wasn't
Russia, this was the Soviets. And they, they were, they were

(25:21):
very close to the Chinese Communist Party and they, they
basically let the, the Communists move in and they let
them have all of Japan's weaponsand, you know, their, their
equipment, military equipment, military stockpiles.
And that really gave them a, a major toehold, a foothold in, in
China, northern China. And then they were, they were

(25:42):
able to push down southward. And that was, I mean, it was, it
was very much, you know, the Rocin the was weakened.
The Roc military was definitely weakened after eight years of
war with Japan, but but that assistance, that last minute
assistance from the Soviet Unionat the end of World War Two
really gave the really boosted the chances of the Communist

(26:04):
revolution's success. There could have been a
situation where, you know, it would have been much more
difficult. Maybe, you know, the communist
part of China would only be a few provinces.
And I believe even Mao Zedong kind of had that in mind
initially. But their, their luck just kept
getting better and better. And yeah, eventually the
Republic of China was, was it, it exiled itself?

(26:28):
Is it, it became a refugee government in Taiwan.
And for a lot of Taiwanese people, for people who had live,
whose families predate the arrival of the KMT in the 40s,
you know, they're, they're viewed very much as a colonial.
You know, the Roc is a Chinese colonial government and, and the
KMT is AI mean they still call themselves the jungle Guomindang

(26:49):
in Mandarin Chinese National Nationalist Party.
It's, it's, you know, the Roc has become Tai Taiwanized,
Taiwanified, you know, over overthe past several decades.
But the KMT still remains at at its core a a Chinese party.
So this concept then of a rump state, this, this period of time

(27:10):
where we've got the Republic of China in Taiwan at the same time
claiming to be the government of, of, you know, quote UN quote
mainland China. Maybe you can explain that
concept of a rump state in this context.
Well, I mean, I think one of the, one of the most unique
things about the, the rump stateand, and Chang's claim to, to be

(27:34):
the, the rightful ruler of Chinais the United Nations.
So it wasn't until 1971 that theRepublic of China lost the China
seat on the, on the, on the Security Council at the UN.
So the Republic of China, it wasthe first country attacked in
the Second World War. And so it was allowed, it was

(27:56):
given the the honor of being thefirst signatory in 1945 to the
UN Charter. And you know, the Roc was also
after the during World War 2, the Roc was an ally of the US.
But after, after the, the success of Mao's revolution, I
believe Eisenhower was was it was it Eisenhower or Truman?

(28:20):
I think it was Truman. Anyways, the US basically was
like, you know, we're done with them, you know, and then after
North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, that changed
everything. It was like, OK, communist
communism wants to expand. And, and then suddenly the
survival of the Republic of China, which was vehemently anti
communist, that that was of of utmost importance to Washington.

(28:45):
And so then the Roc and Chiang Kai Shek's rule had to be
protected at all costs. And yeah, you look at you talk
about like the transformation ofvalue and that, you know, like
for, for the US and, and other countries, other industrialized
developed countries, democracies.
You know, in the past, Taiwan's value was, was as an anti

(29:08):
communist bulwark and, you know,kind of the front line of, of,
you know, kind of containing communist expansion.
But now today it's, it's, it's more as a democratic partner and
a a technology supplier. You know, it's, it's Taiwan's
always been important, at least,you know, since the post war
era. But but it's, it's, it's

(29:30):
importance today. It's value today is has really
shifted in from from what it wasback then.
Yeah, Well, I I want to get intothat as well, Chris.
But just one quote here from your book, which I think in a
sense summarize what we've just talked about at this kind of
this is a winding history. But the absence of a legal
foundation for Beijing's claim has led to the CCP to stress the

(29:53):
narrative of Taiwan as an inalienable part of China since
ancient times. And as we've just discussed, I
mean, that's that's simply not true.
And there's this kind of war of words, this propaganda that's
deployed to make it out as if it's it's a historical truth,
when in fact it's historical fiction.

(30:13):
And and I think this is very interesting because it is
telling that from a legal perspective, an international
law. I mean, you can trace the story
quite clearly. And by, by by virtue you, you,
you, because you, you actually interviewed, I believe, former
President Lee Tanghuay. Yes, who, who, who he, he said
to you. I'm I never advocated Taiwan

(30:35):
independence because Taiwan is essentially already independent,
which is, I think, fascinating. Well, the last two presidents,
the current president Lai Qingdao and the previous his
predecessor at Sangwan, they both have kind of declared
independence, but retroactively they, they, they said there's no
need for us to declare independence.

(30:56):
How can we, you know, how can wesay that we're not part of China
if we've never been? How can we leave a, a, a
People's Republic of China that we've never been a part of?
You know, and it's, it's like divorcing someone you've never
married. You just can't do it, you know,
at least not logically. But it's, you know, I think what
what the People's Republic of China and the the Chinese

(31:16):
Communist Party have have reallybenefited from was all the
propaganda about about Taiwan being Chinese that the the
Guomintang and the Roc did before, you know, before all
this stuff that we've been hearing from Beijing.
And it was, you know, they, it is the Roc.
It was Chiang Kai Shek who firstdecided that in 1943 he that he

(31:39):
wanted he wanted to take controlof Taiwan.
And it was a month or two later that the Chinese Communist Party
was like, yeah, yeah, we, we think Taiwan is part of China
too. So both parties claims, you
know, even though so they said it's always been China, they
never cared about about Taiwan until 1943.
And that was after Japan. It it, it became apparent that

(32:02):
Japan was not going to win the war.
And so then it it's like, oh, you know, China's Taiwan's up
for grabs. And you know, yeah, it used to
be part of the Qing dynasty, butso did Arunachal Pradesh in in
India, which which the PRC and CCP claim, but also that that
massive chunk of outer Manchuriathat is now Russia.

(32:25):
And you know, it's worth noting that the Qing dynasty which
followed the Ming, the Ching wasa Manchu dynasty that conquered
Ming China and added a lot on tothat parts of Mongolia, Tibet
and East Turkestan. And so like, you know, the, this

(32:45):
claim by Chinese nationalists oneither side of the Strait that
that, you know, the Qing bordersare historically Chinese
borders. It's a bit of a stretch.
And, and also a lot of those frontier areas that were, that
were ruled by the Qing were ruled very loosely, just like
Taiwan was, which was most of the administration work that was

(33:06):
done in Taiwan for the Qing was done by like local Taiwanese
Gentry. Yeah, well, something.
And again, Guang Mintang, abbreviated KMT.
So CCP Communist Party of China,Chinese Communist Party and KMT
Guang Mintang. It's interesting because even
though these two party, these two parties were mortal enemies

(33:28):
during the Chinese Civil War, we're in this fascinating
position where they are both HanChinese ethno nationalist
parties with Leninist roots, as you say, and your book.
And they're they're kind of buddies as well because they
hang out with each other now andthey go and talk and they they
kind of support each other. And so there's like this
horseshoe, you know, they've gone all the way around and, and

(33:48):
they actually have, you know, relations and they and they
talk. And so there's this kind of
interesting turn of politics, right?
And. Rather than a horseshoe, I would
say a triangle and and one part of it, one side of the triangle
ended up collapsing. So you had this like kind of
equilibrium where the, so if we let's let's color code it here,

(34:08):
the Greens are the Taiwanese people who identify as
Taiwanese. The Blues are the Chinese
identifying people in Taiwan affiliated with the KMT or the
Guomingdong. And then the Reds are the the
Chinese Communist Party in China.
So the Reds and the Blues were against the Greens wanting to

(34:29):
have independence for Taiwan, a Taiwanese state.
The the Greens and the Blues opposed any, you know, attempt
by China to invade Taiwan. And the, let's see the, the Reds
and the Greens, they were, they were both quite anti KMT.

(34:50):
But the at one point and 2005 after the first DPP president
Chen Shuabian was, was re elected, that was when that was
when. So Taiwan democratized in the
1990's. The first presidential election
was 96 and then the 2nd. And that was Lee Dong Wei, who
was very much a he was Taiwaneseborn and very much had a
Taiwanese identity despite beinga member of the the KMT and and

(35:15):
chairman of the KMT when he was elected.
And this is the guy you interviewed, right, Who talked?
About one, one of the two presidents that I've
interviewed, yeah, for, for the book, but he, I've interviewed
him shortly before his death in 2018, I believe it was.
But he, so he, he oversaw the democratization of Taiwan.
And I, I asked him what he was most proud of in his, in his
political career. And I assumed that would be it.

(35:36):
But he said nationalize in the military was his greatest
achievement because the military, the Roc military had,
had been the, the armed wing of the KMT.
And, and he changed it so that it was nationalized.
And it was, its loyalty was to the country, the Republic of
China Constitution, not to one political party.

(35:58):
And that's what you have in China today.
You know that, that there, thereis no Chinese military and there
is no Taiwanese military. The, the Chinese military, when
we talk about it, that's the armed wing of the CCP.
They, they swear allegiance to and to protect the power of, of
the CCP. They do not swear allegiance to
the people of, of China or the Chinese constitution.

(36:19):
And then in Taiwan, there is no Taiwanese military because it's
the Roc military. So it's a, it's, it's kind of a,
it's just, it just highlights how complex things are in, in,
in the story of, of Taiwan and its relations with, with China
and, and also, you know, with two China's with the Republic of
China and the PRC. But in 2005 you basically had

(36:42):
the KMT and the CCP being like, OK, this, this Taiwanese
identity thing is becoming a problem that, you know, it's the
genie is out of the bottle. We need to get past our little
differences over, over the past.And, you know, we, we both see
eye to eye and they both, they both really look down on
Taiwanese identity in Taiwanese culture.
They think of, they think of it as inferior to Chineseness.

(37:04):
And they, you know, they've got more in common as Chinese ethno
nationalists, Han China, you know, Han ethno nationalists
than they, than they have, you know, not in common.
They, they really have A and, and, and they're meeting more
frequently the, the current KMT caucus whip for the legislature,

(37:28):
Fu Kunchi, He led, he led A-17 legislator delegation to
Beijing, where they met with XI Jinping's right hand man on
Taiwan policy, Wang Hooning and the Great Hall of the People.
And, you know, they had these discussions behind, behind
closed doors. And when they returned to
Taipei, they had a, a very new agenda that coincidentally

(37:52):
really aligned with all of Beijing's goals in Taiwan.
So like, you know, trying to getrid of, you know, like kind of
Taiwanese history from, from textbooks from, which was only
recently introduced to textbooksin Taiwan.
They everybody had to had to study Chinese history before.
And so it's, it, there's, there's very much a sense that

(38:16):
the Communist Party through the KMT, through this closer
relationship with the KMT, the kind of Communist Party kind of
has a, a toehold in Taiwan's legislature right now.
And and that has a lot of peoplevery feeling very uneasy.
Yeah, well, just on that note aswell, it's interesting again,
the the People's Republic of China and the communist movement

(38:38):
there was supposed to end dynasties and feudalism in
China. In a sense, the nationalist
movement as well. The KMT and the CCP both have
that, that, that, that origin story of, of overthrowing
empires and, and dynasties. Yet here we are today with the
Emperor Xi Jinping and and priorto that the Emperor Chiang Kai
Shek, you know, out of Taiwan and, and this kind of I don't

(39:02):
know what to make of. That Mao was an emperor too, You
know, I mean, it's like I, I've,I kind of, I don't feel like
it's, it's too, you know, too wild to, to refer to at least
martial law Taiwan, you know, under Chiang Kai Shek.
You know, that's, that's the Chang Dynasty, which I think I
refer to it as, as, as such in my book.
But also, yeah, you know, this is the communist dynasty in

(39:24):
China. You know, it's, it's, it's, it,
it feels very similar to a dynasty.
And I think that's for, for people like Xi Jinping and Mao
Zedong and and Chiang Kai Shek. They do kind of, I, I, I feel
like the way they, the way they act and the, the way they speak
or, or spoke it it all, it all very much feels like, kind of

(39:46):
like an emperor's outlook ratherthan a, a modern politician's.
Yeah, and and the other thing that's interesting that this
kind of emphasis on, on the the,the, the blood nationality of of
Han Chinese is something that our we can look at Mein Kampf,

(40:07):
you know, people have the same blood, should be in the same
Reich, which is obviously Adolf Hitler and this idea of of
national identity through blood.And I think this is a very
interesting. Aspect because I believe it was
Frank Dakota who who talked about how, you know, China is
this huge country yet officiallyit has one time zone.

(40:27):
It's it's this unity, this kind of oneness that encapsulates
everything and anything outside of that necessarily needs to
just get absorbed in and become the one.
And so, yeah, the, the idea thatyou've got Taiwanese identity or
Tibetan identity or Muslim identity outside on the on the
fringes, that isn't really compatible.

(40:48):
It needs to be Chinafied signified.
And I don't know that's, it's like a, it's kind of a quite a
confronting idea, right? Yeah.
Well, I mean, I think if you look at language policy in China
in the PRC, you know, like the way that local languages and
ethnic languages have been de emphasized and, and kind of
subsumed by, by Mandarin, which in China they call Putonghua.

(41:12):
And like, you know, in, in Hong Kong, even, you know, the, the
amount of Cantonese that's beingspoken because a lot of Hong
Kongers have left and they've been replaced by, by Chinese, by
their, their mainland countrymen.
But yeah, it's, it's, you know, the, the disappearance of, of

(41:35):
Chinese languages, you know, in the strengthening of Mandarin
has, has been a, a massive trendfor, for decades now.
And it's, it's getting to the point where, you know, like my,
my Chinese friends, if they're from Shanghai or Yunnan, they
can speak Shanghainese or Yunnanese.
But the, the, the Shanghainese or Yunnanese that their parents
or grandparents speak, you know,there's a big difference

(41:57):
because, because it, Mandarin's just creeping into everything
and, and people are losing expressions and, and losing
words and, and ways of describing things.
And so it's, it's, yeah, there is this kind of unity and you
know, in mind and unity does sound good.
But but if it's if it's imposed kind of like steamroller style,
I don't know if that's that's ideal.

(42:20):
So I want to bring us to today because you alluded to the high
tech manufacturing that's takingplace in Taiwan.
And I mean, I've seen this with my own eyes dry, you know,
taking the bus from Taipei down to Taijong and, and passing
through that huge industrial belt.
And you just see these big warehouses and these
manufacturing facilities, you know, CPUs, graphics processing

(42:43):
units, all of this is, you know,silicon wafers, all this
technology. And in a sense in the media, I
get an impression, Chris, that this is, this is kind of pointed
at, OK, you know, Taiwan, TSMC, you know, the, the, the, the CPU
fabs are this, this thing. But we've just spent, you know,
40 minutes talking about this history and this, this, this

(43:03):
interesting nuanced history that's arrived at where we are
today. Yet now we're also adding to
that the absolute vital importance of Taiwan for
semiconductors, right? And I mean that's it's own
interesting history, but the thereality of it today, maybe you
can speak to kind of what that means like geopolitically.

(43:25):
Sure. Well, TSMC is a Taiwanese
company that produces basically all of the world's most advanced
semiconductors. And, and I think like maybe 60%
or maybe Taiwan produces 60%, I can't remember.
But Taiwan really punches above its weight and, and TSMC is kind
of God tier in terms of, you know, tech manufacturers.

(43:49):
And so people didn't really get this until 2020-2021 when there
was the, the pandemic kind of caused a semiconductor crunch or
shortage. There were a lot of the, the
demand for semiconductors, advanced semiconductors moved
away from cars and, and some other items and shifted towards

(44:12):
laptops, mobile devices, tabletsand stuff like that because
people were working at home and,and, you know, isolating
themselves from others. So, you know, then then the car,
the, the automotive production lines came back online a little
bit earlier than they were expecting to.
And they're like, hey, TSMC, remember that order We cancelled

(44:33):
that? Can we get that now?
And they're like, we're, we don't really have any spare
capacity guy, you know, And thenso suddenly you've got this
situation where where all aroundthe world, you know, whether
it's car manufacturers, you know, big multinational
companies producing whatever, you know, electronics.
And then also just governments in general being like, I mean,

(44:53):
it was in, it was seriously likea oh shit moment, you know,
where people are like, how did we not know that we were this
reliant on Taiwan and also just one company in Taiwan?
And that that was really, I think a wake up call for a lot
of a lot of countries. And while Taiwan was already
getting lots of kind of, you know, thoughts and prayers type

(45:17):
stuff from people, you know, like, you know, and, and there
was this, you know, there's thislike China shouldn't bully
Taiwan talk, you know, but not not really anything.
There wasn't much action behind it.
But then suddenly and, and, and people weren't really going to
Taiwan. High level people weren't going
to Taiwan to visit that much. And then once everybody realized

(45:39):
that Taiwan was super important and that everyone else had just
realized that just like they had, you know, it was like, oh,
and suddenly Taiwan, who was president at the time, she's
just getting delegation after delegation.
Everybody is aware now everyone is aware that Taiwan produces
chips and these are important chips.
And so now, even though it's notin the UN and it's not

(46:01):
recognized by the Roc governmentin Taiwan isn't recognized by
most countries, Taiwan does havea seat at the table.
So it's, it's, it's like, so youknow, since 401 years ago when
the Dutch first arrived, it wasn't until probably 2016 that
you really had a situation wherelike the government of Taiwan

(46:24):
really felt like a government ofTaiwanese people rather than
outsiders, rather than like, youknow, the Roc Governor General
or the, the Japanese Governor General or the Qing.
You know, for almost all of its existence, Taiwan has been, you
know, it's, it's, it's been ruled or, or its fate has been
decided by outsiders. And, and you're kind of four

(46:47):
centuries in now, you're finallygetting to a point where where
Taiwan really has like it's got a seat at the table And it, it,
it has more agency and, and moreleverage than than it ever has.
And yeah, so that's so, you know, and now you got a, you've
got two different kinds of valuepropositions for, for Taiwan.
You know, like if you care abouthuman rights, the human rights

(47:10):
of 23 and a half million Taiwanese people, if you care
about regional stability and, and democracy and freedom of
expression and stuff like that, then then Taiwan's great.
You know, you're, you're going to like a lot of things about
Taiwan. It's, it's not perfect.
It, it has, it has issues like any country.
But you know, then, so let's sayyou don't care about human

(47:32):
rights and you don't care about the Taiwanese people, but you do
care about your portfolio. You know, if if Taiwan were to
be attacked by China, Bloomberg News not known for being, you
know, wildly speculative. They, they estimated a few years
ago that a Chinese invasion attempt would shave 10% off of
global GDP. And so, you know, that that chip

(47:54):
shortage that we had during COVID, it would be way worse
than that. And when the smoke settled, you
know, when the dust settles, youknow, maybe China's going to be
in the position. If TSMC is gone, China will
suddenly be one of the one of the biggest producers of what
will then be the most advanced chips in the world.
And then that just gives China even more leverage.

(48:15):
So, you know, if Taiwan is to were to fall to China, there's
it's gonna, there's no one that is going to be untouched by
this. This won't just impact rich
country countries or democracies.
It'll impact everyone. And, and most people in the
world aren't aware of that yet. And I think, you know, Taiwan,

(48:37):
you know, it can't really, I think it's in a tough position
to deter China on its own. And it's, it's, it's moving in
that direction as, as it's, as the harassment from China is
increasing. And, and you know, like signals
from, from Washington are, are less, less reassuring maybe than
they had been in the past. But they're working more with

(48:58):
the Philippines and Japan. And the Philippines and Japan
are working more with them. Because if, if Taiwan were, were
to become part of the PRC, then suddenly the, the People's
Liberation Army, the Chinese military, the CCPs military is,
is suddenly on the, the doorstepof both Japan and the
Philippines. And that's that's a much tougher

(49:18):
situation for both Manila and Tokyo than than what they're
facing now. Yeah, just taking a step back
again in the in the kind of current media moment, you know,
invasion of Taiwan, you know, you're going to see the these
like headlines or whatever, but actually like, let's take a step
back. I mean, the these two these two
countries have been kind of backand forth.

(49:40):
And then there's been since the end of World War 2, there's
there's been there's this kind of nuanced relationship.
But why now? Why now is talk of amphibious
invasion? You see the photos of these
these ships that the the the Chinese are manufacturing to do
amphibious invasion? Like why is that now suddenly on
the books after 50-60 years of this back and forth?

(50:01):
Yeah, I think it's more than more than 7 decades of, of
Beijing threatening to invade, but it's but yeah, it's, I mean,
well, first of all, like China has only recently acquired
something close to the, you know, the the arsenal and, you
know, the things that they wouldneed to do it to successfully,

(50:26):
you know, do attempt the the largest amphibious invasion in
human history. I mean, this is this would be
way bigger than than D-Day, way bigger than Normandy.
And the distance that they have to cross is 3 times the width of
the English Channel. The, the waters are much
choppier, the beaches are much smaller in Taiwan than than

(50:49):
around Omaha beach and Normandy and all that.
So it's, it's really, you know, it, it's there was a joke for,
for a long time, you know, like they, they called the, the
Chinese threat to invade, you know, they, they referred to it
as it would be a, the million man swim, you know, and because
they didn't have a Navy, you know, like historically the

(51:10):
Chinese military and even the Roc military has been more of an
army, more of a land based army.But it was after Lee Dong Wei
was elected president in 1996, when China was firing missiles
into waters off of the northern and southern coast of Taiwan to
show its displeasure with Taiwan's first democratic

(51:32):
presidential election. It was, it was during that time
that Bill Clinton sent 2, what is it 2 carrier groups from the
7th Fleet in Japan to the northern and southern tips of
Taiwan. And China realized it had
nothing that it could do to dislodge them from from there.

(51:53):
And it, it, it stopped its hostilities towards, towards
Taiwan or it's, it's, you know, it's aggressive actions.
But it was, it was that moment, I think in, in 1996 when, when
the CCP realized it needed a modern Navy.
And it's so you've had since thelate 90s, you've had the biggest

(52:13):
military buildup in human history during peacetime.
That's, that's what the PLA has gone through.
But then the Navy and also it's,it's rocket force.
Those are the two areas that have really kind of become much
more important to the mix with, you know, compared to like the
the land army. Yeah, well, just if, if I can

(52:34):
just pull on that thread, Chris,because I guess I'm looking at
this with sort of two lenses, right.
One lens is, you know, there's political posturing, there's the
the black box of Chinese communists and, and, and the
kind of the, the posturing and, you know, the image, image
making as, as one piece. And then the other is that they
are just slowly but surely the, the rebuilding, the rearming.

(52:56):
And they're just going to go anddo what they want to do, and
they're just waiting for the right time.
And in a sense, I think both of those are kind of interlaced
with like propaganda and posturing and Sabre.
Wrestling, psychological the psychological warfare as well
for sure. Yeah.
And I mean, how do you break those down?
Because in a sense, I mean, it'spretty clear that an invasion of
Taiwan would be this incredible undertaking that disrupts the

(53:19):
entire global economy. I mean, as you say, 10% of the
global GDP, but I mean, it's, it's not a country like Russia,
Ukraine, where you can just walkover the border.
I mean, it would be if it is a low intensity invasion, low
intensity ongoing pacification. I mean, that's got to go across
all of that water is there's just so much there that would,
would, would the Chinese communists risk the entire

(53:43):
fragility of their own country by undertaking something like
that? Or have they kind of committed
to it in a narrative sense, likethey've talked about it for so
long that they have to act upon it to kind of show that they
still have the goods, You know, and I, I don't know how to
unpack all of that, sorry, but well.
I, I think, I think it's, it's best to just start from, from
the top. The, the, the, the most

(54:04):
important thing for the, the Chinese Communist Party is to
retain control of China, to stayin power.
And that is the, the, the main, the main goal of the People's
Liberation Army is to, is to make sure that happens.
I mean, the, the last time that the PLA, you know, fought and

(54:25):
won a war was 1989 when it invaded Beijing.
And you know, it's, it's like suddenly going from that to
we're going to do the most difficult, the most difficult
type of war possible with, with very little warm up beforehand.
I mean, I think, I think to someextent, I think a lot of the

(54:47):
aggressive behavior towards Japan and the Philippines and
Taiwan, it's, it's all to get some more experience.
I mean, the, the, you know, the US military, you know, it's,
it's, it's always fighting something somewhere.
You know, it's always, it's always engaged somewhere.
But the, the Chinese military, not so much, you know, and I

(55:08):
mean the Taiwanese military, at least it, it hasn't fought in
anything for the Roc military inTaiwan hasn't fought since,
since it lost China. But it did, you know, they at
least keep busy with like disaster relief and things like
that, you know, and they're, butthey're also they're modernizing
too. You know, it's during the, the

(55:29):
previous couple decades, the, the Roc was not taking the
threat from China terribly seriously.
The Roc military, and while it was still answering to the, the
government in Taipei up until very recently, I think the, the
Roc military kind of, it was itsown political entity.
And it, it kind of, it called its shots a bit more than a

(55:53):
military in a fully democratizedcountry might.
But yeah, it's, it's, yeah. But then on the other hand, you
know, OK, yeah, this is a reallydifficult thing.
And, and China's military's untested and all that.
But then you also have like nobody, a lot of people just
didn't think Putin would invade Ukraine and then he did.
So like if, if a lot of people think Xi Jinping won't invade

(56:16):
Taiwan. I mean, I don't know.
I don't know how much that's worth.
I think if if, if they're threatening, you know, military
invasion, which they definitely are, and these joint exercises
that surround and encircle Taiwan, you know, that's that I
think those those threats shouldbe taken at face value and they
should be. They should be, you know, a

(56:38):
response based on that being like a legitimate threat makes
sense. You know, you you need to
prepare. But yeah, go ahead.
So pull pulling on that thread though, because I, I guess the,
the the the Chinese communists primary objective is to maintain
the control of power. And I mean, this is just, I
mean, basic, yeah, Marxist Leninism, you know, that that as

(57:00):
Mao Zedong said, you know, all power comes from the barrel of a
gun. They will gun down people like
they did in Chinamen to to maintain that power.
Yet I just wonder what your gauge is on how important these
promises and these narratives are towards taking over Taiwan.
Like is the, the, the balance ofpower here that like, could this

(57:20):
be a perpetual thing similar to maybe what we see with North and
South Korea where there's this, this long term kind of angst,
yet it kind of has arrived at A at an impasse and it's just sort
of, you know, in stasis. Whereas are we not heading
towards maybe a place where Xi Jinping has made these
proclamations? There's kind of like a time
frame, there's dates that have been set in stone that if

(57:43):
they're not achieved it, it kindof undermines the legitimacy
decision, I don't think. I mean, how would you?
I don't think Xi Jinping has established any clear goals
other than like basically like in the next couple of years, the
military needs to be ready to invade.
It's it's there's no deadline for invasion.
And I think, you know, there's, there's, there, I'm sure there

(58:06):
are people in Beijing who are looking at ways, non military
ways in which to acquire Taiwan.And I think the, the Guam and
Dong is, is the, the main, the main vector through which they
could potentially do that. So if, if, if the Guam and Dong
were to retake the presidency in2028 and maybe also have control

(58:30):
of the, the legislature, then suddenly you're probably going
to see top Chinese officials visiting Taipei and, and closed
door negotiations and things like that.
But you also might see, as in 2014 and many other years in
recent decades, big protests by Taiwanese people against getting
closer to China. So it's, you know, it's, it's

(58:52):
really hard to say like how things are going to play out
because the KMT, the, the Guamidan, they just voted for a,
a new leader, Jiang Lee one. And she's the new chair of the
KMT, their second female chair ever.
And she's, you know, she's, she's pro unification.
She, she's not hiding it or anything.
And so it'll be interesting between between now and 2028,

(59:15):
when, when the next presidentialelection is if, if she really
pushes this pro China thing and people don't like it, that could
really spell disaster for the KMT at, at, at the ballot box,
Which if, if, if they were to lose this coalition that they've
got running the legislature right now and then also not
regain the presidential office, They're they're kind of out in

(59:38):
the wilderness. And then, you know, that might
cause Xi Jinping and and others in Beijing to kind of be
concerned and be like, you know,is the KMT ever going to come
back to power? That might, that might set, you
know, kind of set off a, a new sense of urgency.
So there's, there's a lot of things going on.
You know, Xi Jinping has an economy that is, it seems to be
giving him some trouble right now.

(59:59):
And then there's the trade war. And I don't know, I think the
general mood in China isn't terribly positive, but, you
know, that might be in his mind the right time to try to make a
move on Taiwan and try to unite the country and, and also maybe
catch, catch the United States in a moment of weakness.
Yeah. Well this is interesting to if I

(01:00:19):
can get a better speculation here, but a a pro unification
KMT taking the presidency and I Are you implying Cheng Li Wun
would be the president if she isthe chairman of the?
Cheng Li Wun, she has the she has the ability to appoint the
appoint, yeah, the nominee for the presidency.
So presumably it would be someone ideologically aligned

(01:00:43):
with her. And I think, you know, the way
that the KMT has been drifting closer and closer to the CMCCP,
you know, it's, it's, it's not hard to imagine a very pro China
candidate, But like, how would they fare?
That's really hard to say. Yeah, Well, it's interesting
though, because in a sense, you know, the the, the kind of
specter of military invasion, you know, it's kind of

(01:01:03):
background noise, you know, is this mutually assured
destruction? In a sense, you know, it would,
it would mess a lot of things up.
I don't think there's a clean way to to navigate there
economically or militarily. And so the kind of the option
then they're presented as yet the political pathway or, you
know, KMT gets in, they they start maybe trying to create
these pathways for unification potentially.

(01:01:25):
But that would imply that KMT has a mandate from the people if
they're getting elected in and you know, they're being voted
in. And so that would imply that
there is sort of within Taiwan, maybe there's this conflicted
identity of like, well, what do we actually want to do?
I mean, I don't know what the numbers are like, but I mean
there must be a large number of people who are.

(01:01:45):
Supporting So I guess like a, a very simple way to describe
voters in Taiwan is you've got 25% who are hardcore KMT, 25%
who are hardcore DPP, and 50% who are basically swing voters.
But they don't tend to swing very much when it comes to the
president's, the presidential election.
So the the DPP candidates have won the last three, the

(01:02:09):
Taiwanese identifying candidateshave won the last three
elections, right. And the KMT hasn't come close.
And then you've got the situation where like
legislators, they don't really affect like kind of foreign
policy for Taiwan that much. And so they're a little bit less
risky. Yeah.
Maybe you want to, you know, people will, I think people give

(01:02:33):
legislators, they just worry about what they might do with
regard to China less. And it's and also mayors and
other local, local politicians. But you know, if you, if you
look at the trends, the, the, the polls by National Jungjer
University, which was founded inChina, it was the former party

(01:02:55):
school of the, of the KMT. So this is not like a Green or
DPP institution by any means. And their, their polls time and
time again show that only like 3% of people in Taiwan want
unification with China now. And there's, there's varying
degrees. There are some people who are
like never or, you know, like declare A Taiwanese state today.
Another one is like keep the status quo and unify, keep the

(01:03:20):
unify later, keep the status quoand and declare independence
later, or keep the status quo and just keep doing it until
something a good option becomes clear.
You know, so, but The thing is there, there's no doubt that
most Taiwanese people, whether they're green or blue, would
prefer to just keep things as they are the status quo.
You know, Taiwan has a, a government called the Republic

(01:03:42):
of China and it is sovereign andindependent of any other
country's rule. And, and so, you know, also the,
the, the sense of identity, There's a very small percentage
of Taiwan, Taiwanese people who,who think of themselves
exclusively as Chinese, everybody, even people who are
like, you know, proud of their, you know, their families,

(01:04:02):
Chinese heritage and ancestry. They're like, well, but I'm
Taiwanese, you know, and so it's, it's, there's nobody this
would, you know, for the KMT to,to move towards some sort of
unification plan, it, it would be a disaster for the KMT
because you would, you, would, you would get like what happened

(01:04:22):
in 2014 when, you know, 10s of thousands of students took to
the streets in Taipei and, and occupied the legislature in the
Sunflower Movement. But but The thing is, you know,
like there are there are concerns that, you know, if
we're going to go full speculation, you know, like if,
if the KMT were to do something like this and there were big
protests, you know, would it be possible for them to call in for

(01:04:45):
help from the PLA? You know, and then that's that's
where you start entering into, into really, you know, hard to
predict or, or you know, kind of, you know, figure out kind of
scenarios. But you know, it's the more that
the KMT and CCP coordinate in China, the more that you need to

(01:05:09):
I think, you know, kind of consider these possibilities.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting.
Well, just, I mean, final note there, I mean the, the, the, the
experience of Hong Kong is certainly very close, closely
followed. And, you know, I was just in
Hong Kong recently, and, I mean,it ain't what it used to be, you

(01:05:29):
know? And I think that's pretty clear.
Yeah, it's pretty clear to a lotof people.
And it's probably important to under score this whole
conversation, but Taiwan is the the freest democracy in Asia,
you know, in terms of a lot of the rankings.
It's got the freest media environment, the first, the
first country to to have same sex marriage in Asia, the first

(01:05:51):
to apologize to its indigenous peoples.
Yeah, it's. It's got a lot of progressive
place. It's got great, it's got great
chips, you know, if you're into tech and business, but like, if
you're, if you're into democracyand human rights, it's got a lot
going on there too, Yeah. Yeah, and it's it's interesting
as well because I mean, the other piece of speculation right
now there's twelve countries that recognize Republic of

(01:06:12):
China, formal diplomatic ties, plus the Vatican, I think.
I don't know if the Vatican counts as a country, but so you
got a number of countries dwindling though year after year
and a lot of these are kind of small, small, small countries
recognizing Republic of China. The question we must ask what
happens when that number goes to0?
Because this isn't a fantasy. I mean, this is a real place

(01:06:34):
with, you know, billions of dollars of high tech stuff being
produced. And it's a near G20 economy.
Yeah, like it's it's in the top 20 and almost in the top 20.
Yet what happens when it's no longer recognized by anyone?
You know, this isn't just like aa saying to a friend.
This isn't an oil rig that someone suddenly putting a flag
on saying, hey, I'm a country. This is a country that no one,

(01:06:56):
you know, no one knows what to do when it doesn't become a
country. And it could actually be that
this is sort of maybe the the impasse that we're heading to
where the de facto it is just Taiwan and, you know, the
Republic of China almost just evaporates off.
And that would be an interestingsituation.
I yeah, I, I do wonder if if China even wants to test those

(01:07:19):
waters because like, as a top Taiwanese diplomat once said to
me, you know, he's like, well, you know, what if, what if China
takes all of our, you know, so-called diplomatic allies, you
know, what do we, does the Republic of China just end and
we just become Taiwan? You know?
So I, I think kind of creating asituation like that where no one

(01:07:40):
recognizes an Roc government in Taiwan, making Taiwan even more
of a de facto country, perhaps in some people's eyes, maybe
they don't want to do that. And also, you know, for a long
time they had it, they they had an unlimited number of countries
that they could peel away from the Roc.
And now they're down to 12 in the Vatican.
And like, you know, and also most people in Taiwan don't

(01:08:03):
really care. I mean, you know, I think they
appreciate being their government being recognized by
Paraguay and, you know, small countries in the Caribbean and
Eswatini and, and, you know, theVatican.
But also, I mean, I think that, you know, they know that the
most important relationships arewith their, their unofficial

(01:08:24):
friends, their unofficial partners, the US, Japan,
Australia, you know, other countries, the Philippines now
much more so than before. And also, you know, countries in
Eastern and Central Europe are really warming up to Taiwan
'cause they're, they're kind of in a similar situation and
they're trying to exchange best practices.
So, you know, like the, the antidrone Nets that are being used

(01:08:46):
in Ukraine are now starting to be installed in, in kind of near
critical infrastructure in Taiwan.
And you know that that these exchanges are, are helping both
sides and Taiwan's trying to develop its own like drone
supply chain. And you know, this right now,
it's not much, but it, it could be something later.

(01:09:07):
But but yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting time and like
everything's kind of in flux forsure.
So always in flux. Well, look, man, this thank you
so much this. It's a fascinating, fascinating
journey. And I do recommend ghost nation,
the story of Taiwan and its struggle for survival.
This is Chris's new book, first book, incredible story history

(01:09:29):
of, of, of Taiwan up to the present day.
And I mean you, you still have your, your home there, though.
So I mean, I guess my, my final question to you, Chris, I mean
you must, you must have some thoughts towards the future.
I mean, how do you feel personally about the future your
your life in Taiwan and and sortof what the future holds for you
there? Well, I'm not planning on
leaving anytime soon. I, I have, I do have a life

(01:09:54):
there. I've been there for 10 years.
And so, yeah, Taiwan feels like home.
And you know, in terms of the future, like I, I would say the
future everywhere is a lot shakier than it used to be.
And and so like, yeah, well, Taiwan has this, this threat
looming from from China. You know, as we noted, you know,
Xi Jinping has his plate quite full.

(01:10:15):
And, you know, it's, it's reallyhard to say what might, what
might transpire in the next two or three years.
But I think, I think by like 20/27/2028, I think after the
next Taiwanese election in 20 January 2028, I think it'll be a

(01:10:35):
lot clearer like kind of what direction Taiwan is headed where
it's like it's, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's struggling to,
to deal with the challenge from China and, and to, you know,
basically prepare for a possiblewar, but also prepare its
friends to, to, you know, work with it to, to deter that, that

(01:10:59):
war from even happening. You know, if so, if it, you
know, there's a possibility thatthat that could happen or, or
then you, you know, there's alsoa possibility that there's some
sort of at least unforeseeable right now outcome where the KMT
wins the election and, and suddenly rapprochement with,

(01:11:19):
with Beijing is, is on on the menu.
And you know, it's, it's, it's really hard to say.
I, I think the next two or threeyears will, will, will really
kind of shape how that election turns out.
But I, I just, I don't see Chinachanging its playbook too much.
I think, I think the constant military threats and trying to
undermine the central governmentthrough cooperation with, with

(01:11:43):
the KMT, but also with KMT, likelegislators and, and mayors and
whatnot. I think that'll continue to to
happen as as they keep building more and more hardware, you
know, I mean, their third aircraft carrier is soon to be
commissioned and it's it's technologically way far superior
to their first two. And they're building the first

(01:12:03):
drone carrier that, you know, they've got robot dogs, all
sorts of stuff that will be evenmore lethal and terrifying
probably in two or three years. Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, like
they can build all the weapons and all the drones, but I I
often think back to Japan. You had a stock market crash
1989, but you had a democracy and you had a population that

(01:12:28):
understood freedom and understood what was going on.
And I sometimes wonder, is it a case that Taiwan just needs to
keep being Taiwan being chilled?You know, I kind of think of it
as a bean, the beanbag country because it's a chill place, man.
Taipei, man, is so chill. No one's stressed out.
It's, it's, it's it's easygoing,good food.
And it's kind of like it just needs to go through this.

(01:12:49):
And, you know, China builds all this stuff up and makes it all
happen. But as you say, it's, it's got
its own economic worries. And the problem with communism
is that when the shit hits the fan, you know, you, you're gonna
go for the guy at the top and itbecomes very violent.
And I, I do kind of have a hope in my own.
This is kind of my vibe from my time in Taiwan.
It's, it just needs to kind of keep going and, and just kind of

(01:13:12):
muddle through this. And the Chinese will do what
they do. And in a sense, the the collapse
of of the Xi Jinping Empire seems to me a little bit more
kind of pertinent or, or, or kind of important in this
conversation. And hopefully Taiwan can just
sort of step around the outside of that, right, potentially.

(01:13:34):
Yeah. Well, I think that's what Taiwan
is historically known for, is navigating tight political and
diplomatic and geostrategic spaces.
But, you know, there's no guarantee that whoever comes
after Xi Jinping will be better for Taiwan than Xi Jinping.
Good point. There's a lot of people that are
like, you know, we just need to outlast Xi Jinping.

(01:13:55):
But I'm like, you know it. Could be worse, yeah.
It can always be worse, but but yeah, I think another thing I
just in the news today, I saw that military recruitment, it
has gone up considerably, partially I think because for
privates, for foot soldiers, like they're the I think the
wages have been increased dramatically, maybe even close

(01:14:16):
to double. And in Taiwan, so, so a lot of
people have have, you know, there's been this long running
thing that the Taiwanese won't fight.
But but I think there's a lot ofa lot of different things going
on in Taiwan these days that areshowing that that that Taiwanese
do care about what they have andthey've fought to get what they
have. So why would they not fight to
keep it? Yeah, and I mean the other,

(01:14:38):
sorry, one more thing on that. I did hear a commentator talk
about how it's highly unlikely that Chinese parents are going
to want to send their single child to go fight in some war,
an aggressionary war versus, youknow, people defending their
home are going to fight regardless.
But, you know, there there's this kind of the the role of the
one child policy and, and, and single child families, you know,

(01:14:58):
people being pretty precious. I mean, drones maybe change that
a little bit. But still, unless you've got
foot foot soldiers on the ground, you're never going to
take a place. So I don't know, man, I hope
peace and love prevails in a kind of typical fashion.
But Chris Horton, thank you so much for your time sharing your
incredible writing. And yeah, I hope we can keep in
touch. And maybe either when you're in

(01:15:20):
Japan next, maybe when I'm in Taiwan next, go and go down to
the night markets, get some goodfood and.
Sounds great. Yeah.
Thanks again for having me on. Thank you for listening.
I am Cody Allingham and that wasthe transformation of value.
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(01:15:40):
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