Next-Generation Perspectives on Taiwan

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Introduction

By Bonnie S. Glaser

In 2026, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) made plainer than ever that it is determined to isolate Taiwan and prevent it from participating in international organizations. Its campaign extends far beyond the halls of the UN. Over the past several months alone, Beijing has reached into a World Trade Organization (WTO) ministerial, a global civil-society summit, and the airspace of three African nations to keep Taiwan off the world stage. The pattern is unmistakable: As Taiwan’s democratic and economic achievements grow more visible and countries worldwide enhance their ties with Taipei, the PRC’s efforts to shrink its international space grow more creative and more aggressive. 

Consider the breadth of this year’s record. In March, Taiwan withdrew from the WTO’s 14th Ministerial Conference in Yaoundé, Cameroon, after the host government issued travel documents referring to Taiwan as “Taiwan, Province of China”. That amounted to a first-ever exclusion of Taipei from a forum in which it holds full membership, and one that drew bipartisan condemnation from members of the US Congress. Two months later, the digital- rights conference RightsCon was forced to cancel its planned summit in Lusaka, Zambia, after PRC diplomats pressured the Zambian government to bar Taiwanese civil society representatives from attending by, reportedly, leveraging Zambia’s debt obligations to Beijing. In between, China pressed Madagascar, Mauritius, and the Seychelles to revoke overflight permissions for President Lai Ching-te’s aircraft, forcing Taiwan’s head of state to delay and then reroute a visit to Eswatini, its sole remaining diplomatic ally in Africa. Taiwan also marked its 10th consecutive year of exclusion from the World Health Assembly. The PRC is preparing to host the 2026 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum this fall, and there are concerns it will attempt to set new terms for whether and how Taiwanese officials may take part in APEC events on Chinese soil. Each episode is different—a trade body, a human rights conference, a presidential visit, a global health forum—but together they reveal a PRC strategy that has moved well past traditional diplomatic poaching and into the granular work of denying Taiwan a seat at almost any table, public or civic, that it can reach. 

None of this diminishes what Taiwan has built. It remains one of the world’s most resilient democracies, having transformed itself from martial law to direct presidential elections within a single generation, and it continues to rank among the freest societies on Earth. Its economy, anchored by a semiconductor industry that produces over 90% of the world’s most advanced chips, makes it indispensable to global technology supply chains. Its public health system and its disaster-relief contributions—from earthquake aid in Japan and Türkiye to global humanitarian assistance— demonstrate a consistent ability to punch above its diplomatic weight. Taiwan is a full member of the WTO, the Asian Development Bank, and APEC, proof that it can be, and has been, a constructive and capable international partner. The gap between what Taiwan contributes and what the PRC will allow it to contribute is the defining feature of its international predicament. That gap is widening.

It is also precisely the gap that the Taiwan-US-Europe Policy Program (TUPP) was created to address. TUPP encourages young professionals from the United States and Europe to incorporate Taiwan into their research and professional work, and it helps Taiwan expand its global networks at a moment when Beijing is working overtime to constrict them. Established in 2017 and expanded in 2022 to include European participants alongside Americans—in keeping with GMF’s broader mission of transatlantic cooperation— TUPP has grown into a small but durable pipeline of talent that understands Taiwan firsthand rather than through the distorted lens of Beijing’s preferred narrative.

Each year, a rigorously selected cohort of 10 delegates—five Americans and five Europeans— begins the program in Washington, DC, meeting with US officials, members of Congress, and policy experts, before traveling to Taiwan for a week of direct engagement with its government, civil society, and culture. That on-the-ground exposure is the heart of the program. It is far easier to dismiss or discount efforts to isolate Taiwan from a distance; it is far harder to do so after walking its streets, sitting across the table from its officials and civic leaders, and seeing for oneself the democratic society that the PRC’s pressure campaign is working to silence internationally.

Participants leave TUPP with more than an appreciation for Taiwan’s history and its commitment to democratic principles. They leave with a clear- eyed understanding of just how deliberately and persistently the PRC works to deny Taiwan international standing—and of why sustained, informed engagement from the next generation of transatlantic policymakers, journalists, and researchers matters. As Beijing’s tactics evolve, from courting reluctant chairs of UN bodies to pressuring debt- burdened states and rerouting presidential flight paths, the case for a broader bench of experts who know Taiwan well, and who are willing to advocate for its continued international participation, only grows stronger.

Over time, TUPP aims to build precisely that bench: a body of global experts with personal knowledge of Taiwan who will go on to support its international ties throughout their careers, whatever form they may take. It is my earnest hope that the members of this year’s cohort will be inspired to work on and with Taiwan in the years ahead. I am grateful to the Henry Luce Foundation, the Global Taiwan Institute, and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy for their continued support of this program and its goals. 

The essays that follow, written by the members of the 2026 TUPP cohort, reflect the diversity of perspectives this program is designed to cultivate. I hope they prompt readers on both sides of the Atlantic to look more closely at Taiwan, and at what is at stake in the PRC’s ongoing campaign to keep it off the world stage.