National Security Bureau Director-General Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) has made two public appearances over the past week to answer questions from lawmakers, mostly about the Russia-Ukraine war and its implications for Taiwan.
During a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, Chen said he believed the US would be “more deeply involved” in a war across the Taiwan Strait than in Ukraine, due to its commitments to Taipei under the US’ Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).
“The current situation [in Ukraine] has given China much to think about, as the US has given much support to Ukraine, even without a law similar to the TRA,” he said.
The news media focused on these comments, which, if taken out of context, could mean that the government is counting on Washington to intervene militarily in a conflict between Taiwan and China.
However, the opposite is true.
Chen was responding to a lawmaker’s question about Chinese cognitive warfare operations, which have sought to cast US assistance to Ukraine as lackluster and sow the idea in the minds of Taiwanese that they would be “abandoned” to their fate by a “fickle Uncle Sam.”
Since the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan last year, Chinese bots have flooded social media with posts such as: “Today Afghanistan, tomorrow Taiwan,” “Today Vietnam, tomorrow Taiwan” and, more recently, “Today Ukraine, tomorrow Taiwan.”
The intention behind such cognitive warfare is to create a sense of inevitability among Taiwanese — that there is no point in resisting China, so it would be better to sue for peace now rather than mount a futile resistance and suffer immense bloodshed while the US does nothing.
Cognitive warfare aims to gradually erode a person’s mental defenses and alter their perceptions without them being aware it is happening, which is why it is so dangerous and must be taken seriously.
Chen was probably seeking to rebut Chinese propaganda, and reassure lawmakers and the public that Washington is providing Kyiv with significant assistance, including detailed intelligence and vast quantities of weapons, and that it would likely do the same — if not more — for Taiwan under similar circumstances.
However, Chen was careful not to mention the prospect of direct military intervention. His assessment that Washington would likely be “more deeply involved” probably referred to enhanced intelligence sharing, shipments of sophisticated weaponry, economic sanctions and other forms of non-direct military assistance.
Moreover, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has repeatedly said the government’s national defense policy is centered around the concept of “defense self-reliance.” This means training and equipping the military to independently defend the nation against an attack and building a self-sustaining domestic defense industry, focused on supplying asymmetric warfare capabilities.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense is pursing a policy of “defense self-deterrence” — fielding a range of sophisticated medium-range, conventionally armed cruise missiles that can penetrate Chinese air defenses and strike deep into China.
The government and the military’s thinking on defense has for some time been predicated on the assumption that Taiwan cannot rely on the US or any other country coming to its rescue.
During questioning by lawmakers, Chen said that Ukraine’s resistance against a far larger and superior Russian force has greatly inspired Taiwan’s military and defense establishment. The government must strike while the iron is hot and use this moment to push through difficult reforms. It is time for Taiwan to stand on its own two feet.
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
RSS