Taiwan’s Strategic Clarity Amid Global Upheaval

**Mike Green** (0:00)
Welcome to The Asia Chessboard, the podcast that examines geopolitical dynamics in Asia and takes an inside look at the making of grand strategy. I'm Mike Green of the United States Studies Centre in Sydney and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Welcome back to The Asia Chessboard, I'm Mike Green. I'm joined by I-Chung Lai, the President of the Prospect Foundation in Taipei, an important institution and Professor Lai a very important voice in security policy, geopolitics from Taiwan, regular visitor here in Australia, to the US Studies Centre and to Japan and to the US. He served previously in high-profile positions with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. He was Executive Director of the DPP Mission to the US, Director General of the Department of International Affairs. I-Chung, great to have you with us.

**I-Chung Lai** (0:53)
Yeah, thank you, Mike. Glad to be here.

**Mike Green** (0:56)
So I think a number of our listeners will know who you are, read your work, know about Prospect Foundation. But tell us a little bit about your path to international affairs and then the DPP. Were you always on the Progressive Camp as you were doing your academic work? Did you find them? Did they find you? How did you get into this key role as an advisor on the DPP side of politics?

**I-Chung Lai** (1:18)
Yeah, I was part of the student revolutionary for the democratization in the early 90s, in the late 80s and early 90s. So many of my colleagues right now, they're in a higher position like Foreign Minister Lin Jiayou. He was a big student movement leader at that time. And also the current Vice Premier, Chen Yijun, she was leading the student hunger strike against the authoritarian regime at that time. So I was part of that group. And my first job to be on the DPP, it's actually introduced by Bikim Shao. She asked me to take the position at the DPP Mission in the United States so that I know these guys for over 30, 40 years, so.

**Mike Green** (1:55)
Yeah, and Bikim is, well, the Vice President for President Lai was the representative in Washington and also an important voice in US Taiwan and Taiwan's global posture. I think she went to Oberlin College and has many friends in the US and Japan. So tell us about The Prospect Foundation.

**I-Chung Lai** (2:11)
It was established during 1997-1998, almost one year after the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. So the foundation was established in order to coordinate and communicate better between Taiwan and the rest of the world for the geopolitical issues. I was assigned by the former president, Tsai Ing-wen, in year 2016 after she inaugurated as a president. So I've been here for this position for over 10 years.

**Mike Green** (2:41)
So many questions to ask you. Taiwan is at the centre of geopolitics and so many dimensions to the security dynamics in the first island chain, in North Asia, in the Taiwan Strait. I thought we might break it down by talking first about the PRC and your assessment and the debate in Taipei about the PLA's capabilities, as we've seen. But also we'll turn next to the intentions. How do you interpret the intentions of Xi Jinping and the leadership? Then we'll talk about the US. Again, a combination of mixed signals, very strong support with arm sales, but President Trump is sending other signals about rapprochement with Beijing.
We'll talk about other actors in the region, Japan, Australia, EU and so forth. Then finally about the all-important question, domestic politics and Taiwan security. I've often felt the center of gravity in any Taiwan contingency is the will and solidarity of the Taiwan people, which is not complete. We'll get to all of those, but let's start I-Chung with the PLA and with China. You've been watching them for decades. We've seen an increasing tempo and increasing scale, increasing capabilities, increasing geographic reach in China's series of military exercises around Taiwan. What do you see? What capabilities does the PLA have? Can they invade? Can they blockade? What are you seeing?

**I-Chung Lai** (4:02)
I think definitely PLA capability increased dramatically during the last 10 to 15 years. And in the last so-called Just Mission exercise, at the end of last year, we do see that the more sophisticated and coordinated blockade-like operation that they exercise, they even interfere with our daily commercial flights. So we do have the residents in Taiwan who try to go overseas for their vacation. They've been interrupted and they cannot go out. So that was the development.
But when we look at the invasion capability of the PLA, we do not think that before year 2027, they could have that capability because they just do not have the kind of projection capability as well as the air and the sea lift capacity that's necessary for the amphibious operation against Taiwan. However, about the PLA capability, we do think that should they want to launch the blockade, they probably will be able to do that. And as well as the quarantine operation. But we have to say that when we look at the quarantine operation, I have to say that it is a much, much resources taxing endeavor on the PLA side because Taiwan is such a busy international, the sea line communication as well as air traffic. Every year we have elites, 72,000 ships entering Taiwan. So for PLA to really launch the quarantine operation, they have to inspect every ship. Then you basically you are looking at the PLA need to exhaust all its shipment in order to be the Taiwan proper, in order to inspect every ship. And for other ships that will be able to escape from the quarantine, that will be the credibility stroke against the PLA. So that operation, South, they have the capability, but when they're doing it, it will be very taxing in terms of the resources. But the blockade operation, definitely, we do believe that they could launch that. But however, blockade means war. So in Taiwan, that if you want to do something, we will not consider that as a gray zone operation. We will have our defensive countermeasure as well.