Some time ago, an article was published in the Chinese-language media about a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson’s low-key visit to meet members of Indian think tanks, and the business and industrial communities, to discuss how Taiwan-India exchanges could help both nations. The article analyzed the huge potential such exchanges could have in terms of trade, education, technology, democracy, security and military affairs. It was written in 2012, and the then-DPP chairperson was President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
Little has changed regarding the article’s main points, despite the eight intervening years. What has changed is the international context and the apparent openness of New Delhi to proceed with increased exchanges with Taipei. Still, it might be advisable for Tsai to proceed with caution, despite these more amenable circumstances.
The prevailing wisdom of the past two decades was that Taiwanese businesses should invest in China because of inherent advantages such as a shared language and culture, and geographic proximity, despite the dangers of engaging closely with a country so openly hostile toward Taipei.
This perspective ignores aspects of what Taiwan represents to the international community and to itself. The nation might share a language and cultural elements with China due to its past, but over the past four centuries, Taiwan’s history has been one of being passed from one colonial master to another, including “retrocession” in 1945 to a foreign regime. Its people are ethnically and culturally diverse, and they are increasingly coalescing around a national identity that owes more to Taiwan’s history than China’s.
What has brought Taiwanese together in more recent decades are values including a commitment to democracy, freedom and a respect for human rights. In that, the nation is very much divorced from the politics of China. In open trade and technological prowess, it has more in common with India. In culture, its active engagement with its own history and rich religious tradition are, again, more similar to the reality in India than in China.
As Taiwan, it is arguable that the nation is closer spiritually to India than China. As the Republic of China, the picture is far more complicated.
As part of its New Southbound Policy, Tsai’s administration has consistently pursued engagement with India, ASEAN member states, as well as Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand. There are signs that the government is thinking of prioritizing negotiations with India, if remarks by an unnamed Cabinet official are accurate.
Asked about the Cabinet official’s remarks, Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中), who manages the New Southbound Policy, merely said that all nations in the policy are considered important. His caution was warranted: The underlying politics are sensitive given Beijing’s excitability regarding other countries entering agreements with Taipei.
What has changed is not only the COVID-19 pandemic, but China’s attitude under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) concerning fair trade practices, other nations’ sovereign integrity, and democratic freedoms and human rights. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is well aware of this, and the Indian public has recently demonstrated growing empathy for Taiwan and suspicion of China.
The more egregious and concerning aspects of Xi’s reign are not out of character: They are just the beginning of what is surely his increasing assertiveness. Xi does not want to see the international world order fold, he wants to see China at the apex of it; he desires regional hegemony, and that will affect countries on his periphery, including India.
It appears to be the perfect time for Tsai to press Modi on closer ties, but she must be cautious, for however much New Delhi might be watching Beijing’s actions with concern, India still stands to lose much by courting Taiwan.
We are used to hearing that whenever something happens, it means Taiwan is about to fall to China. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) cannot change the color of his socks without China experts claiming it means an invasion is imminent. So, it is no surprise that what happened in Venezuela over the weekend triggered the knee-jerk reaction of saying that Taiwan is next. That is not an opinion on whether US President Donald Trump was right to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro the way he did or if it is good for Venezuela and the world. There are other, more qualified
This should be the year in which the democracies, especially those in East Asia, lose their fear of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China principle” plus its nuclear “Cognitive Warfare” coercion strategies, all designed to achieve hegemony without fighting. For 2025, stoking regional and global fear was a major goal for the CCP and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA), following on Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) Little Red Book admonition, “We must be ruthless to our enemies; we must overpower and annihilate them.” But on Dec. 17, 2025, the Trump Administration demonstrated direct defiance of CCP terror with its record US$11.1 billion arms
The immediate response in Taiwan to the extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the US over the weekend was to say that it was an example of violence by a major power against a smaller nation and that, as such, it gave Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) carte blanche to invade Taiwan. That assessment is vastly oversimplistic and, on more sober reflection, likely incorrect. Generally speaking, there are three basic interpretations from commentators in Taiwan. The first is that the US is no longer interested in what is happening beyond its own backyard, and no longer preoccupied with regions in other
As technological change sweeps across the world, the focus of education has undergone an inevitable shift toward artificial intelligence (AI) and digital learning. However, the HundrED Global Collection 2026 report has a message that Taiwanese society and education policymakers would do well to reflect on. In the age of AI, the scarcest resource in education is not advanced computing power, but people; and the most urgent global educational crisis is not technological backwardness, but teacher well-being and retention. Covering 52 countries, the report from HundrED, a Finnish nonprofit that reviews and compiles innovative solutions in education from around the world, highlights a
RSS