Taiwanese Lawmaker REVEALS Details: How USA Is Pushing Taiwan Into War With China | Dr. Joanna Lei

## A dangerous choreography: how external pressure, internal identity, and miscalculation converge The conversation with Dr. Joanna Lei draws into sharp relief a worrying dynamic: Taiwan’s political evolution, layered historical identities, and the United States’ growing military footprint are interacting in ways that could make armed conflict not just possible but avoidably likely. Rather than a simple binary between “pro-independence” and “reunification,” the exchange exposes a far more complex political ecology where constitutional legacies, generational memories, party realignments, and external strategic calculus all shape decisions with existential consequences. The central risk is misperception: if Beijing interprets rising U.S. presence or overt military practices as a shift toward an American defense hub, it may choose rapid coercive action; if Taipei and its partners underestimate Beijing’s tolerance for those shifts, escalation spirals become more likely. ## Historical roots: overlapping sovereignties, colonial legacies, and the 20th-century pivot Understanding Taiwan’s present requires situating it inside a century of ruptures. The island’s return to Chinese administration in 1945 after Japanese rule created an immediate political and social recomposition. Dr. Lei emphasizes that Taiwan’s postwar trajectory was not a blank slate in 1949—the KMT’s retreat to the island followed a period in which local institutions and social relations had already been reconfigured by Japanese colonization and then by the chaotic end of World War II. Those layers shape contemporary identity politics: some communities retain cultural and educational ties to the Japanese era, while others trace their lineage to wartime resistance on the mainland. The international legal and diplomatic shifts of the 1970s—most notably the UN seat transfer and the U.S. normalization with the People’s Republic of China—fundamentally altered Taiwan’s international status. Those events forced a political realism into Taipei: it had to reconcile a historical claim to being “China” with the geopolitical fact that most states now recognize Beijing as the PRC. Dr. Lei’s recollection of Taiwan’s early role in the UN and global health organizations underscores how sudden and consequential that reversal was for Taiwanese elites and the general public alike. ## Domestic politics: party DNA, factional evolution, and the meanings of “Chineseness” The islands’ major parties—historically the KMT and the DPP, with emerging third-party movements—carry different historical lineages and political orientations, but those differences are neither static nor monolithic. Dr. Lei makes clear that the KMT’s identity has always been tied to the Republic of China constitutional framework and a rhetoric of Chineseness. Yet internal transformations since the late 1980s and the leadership of figures like Lee Teng-hui reshaped what it meant to be KMT. Lee’s move to lift martial law and to sponsor institutional reforms opened the party to new factions and political realists who would later align more closely with DPP-style identities. This factional mixing means that contemporary KMT politics cannot be reduced to a single cohering ideology. Some KMT members remain committed to cross-strait frameworks rooted in the ROC constitution and the National Unification Council’s guidelines; others have drifted toward pragmatic engagement or have embraced more localized Taiwanese identities. At the same time, modern DPP leaders trace part of their political pedigree through the same transitional generation, complicating simple “pro-independence vs. pro-unification” binaries. The result is a domestic political field in which institutional commitments—like the Republic of China constitution and cross-strait regulations governing travel and documentation—coexist with powerful currents of identity redefinition. ## The U.S. presence: deterrence, entanglement, and the risk of intentional provocation A central theme of the conversation is the evolving role of the United States in Taiwan’s security landscape. Dr. Lei warns that increasing American military presence—personnel, exercises, or hardware—can be read by Beijing not as pure deterrence but as a strategic reorientation: the conversion of Taiwan into an American forward base in the Western Pacific. Such a reading would be consequential. Beijing’s own rhetoric and strategic doctrine emphasize the sanctity of territorial integrity and the political costs of perceived external interference. If the PRC concludes that U.S. policy has crossed a red line, it may feel compelled to “move swiftly” to change the status quo. This is not merely theoretical. The history of cross-strait crises shows how miscalculation can arise from asymmetric signals. U.S. strategic ambiguity—long a cornerstone of Washington’s Taiwan policy—has aimed to deter unilateral moves by either side. Yet ambiguity can be eroded by high-visibility engagements, training programs, and the normalization of military ties. The conversation suggests that the United States may be pushing behavioral thresholds in Taipei, encouraging a posture that Beijing perceives as provocatively aligned against PRC reunification goals. Whether intentional or inadvertent, such pressure increases the probability of a crisis in which Washington’s commitments, the island’s domestic politics, and Beijing’s red lines collide. ## Everyday stakes: families, law, and the human cost of geopolitics Behind constitutional texts and military posturing are millions of people with cross-strait family ties and everyday interests. Dr. Lei repeatedly points to laws and administrative arrangements—travel permits, dual-document practices, and the special status conferred by decades of cross-strait engagement—that manage practical relations between societies that still claim a common civilizational and historical space. Those arrangements reduce friction, enable business and social life, and embody a tacit peace. When external actors alter the calculus—by encouraging more overt international representation for Taiwan, increasing troops, or facilitating deeper security cooperation—those everyday arrangements are put at risk. Families separated by the strait, economic networks, and cultural links could suddenly become collateral in a strategic contest. The conversation highlights how policy shifts at the strategic level cascade down into lives, pensions, and cross-border habits, making the stakes of miscalculation profoundly human. ## Institutional memory and the limits of deterrence: why misreading intentions matters The transcript underscores a perennial problem in international relations: the divergence between declared intentions and perceived capabilities. Beijing interprets certain moves—military exercises, increased U.S. presence, high-profile arms transfers—not only as tactical preparations but as statements about a long-term strategy to incorporate Taiwan into an American defense architecture. That perception, whether accurate or exaggerated, alters threat assessments and shortens decision windows. Dr. Lei’s insistence that the PRC “would move very swiftly” if it judged the United States to be using Taiwan as a military base speaks to a strategic psychology where perceived loss of control accelerates coercive responses. At the same time, Washington’s policy, if guided by deterrence logic, assumes rational calculation by Beijing and the credibility of American commitments. But credibility is a two-way street. If Taipei’s leaders are encouraged to test the boundaries of U.S. support, they may misjudge the depth of American willingness to escalate. These gaps—between local initiative, Washington’s strategic appetite, and Beijing’s response thresholds—are the precise conditions under which accidents and crises incubate. ## Options forward: de-escalation, legal clarity, and the role of neutrality scholarship The conversation does not

How USA Is Pushing Taiwan Into War With China | Dr. Joanna Lei The political situation inside Taiwan is heating up and the USA is doing its utmost to make sure it can provoke China into an attack on Taiwan at a time of its choosing. But what is the situation really like and how do the Taiwanese see their future with their family members on the other side of the Taiwan Strate? After all, even the ruling government in Taipei still calls itself the "Republic of China"? Today I’m speaking for the second time to Dr. Joanna Lei, a Taiwanese business woman, media executive and former law maker for the Kuomintang Party. Today we want to discuss in a bit more detail her own work and analysis of how politics in Taiwan is going. #Johanna Recently, you can see quite a lot of military presence in Taiwan, and it's increasing at this moment. So I believe that mainland China is watching this as well. They want to make sure that the United States is honoring its relationship, including the three communiqués, the normalization, and the Taiwan Relations Act. But if not, then they would move swiftly, I truly believe. If the PRC deems that the United States is using Taiwan as a military base and increasing the presence of military personnel in Taiwan, they will move very swiftly to change the situation by not making Taiwan a part of the United States' West Pacific defense chain. #Pascal Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies. And today I'm speaking for the second time to Dr. Joanna Lei, a Taiwanese businesswoman, media executive, and former lawmaker for the Kuomintang Party. Today, we want to discuss in a bit more detail her own work and analysis of how politics in Taiwan is going. Joanna, welcome back. #Johanna Hi, Pascal. It's good to have another opportunity to talk with you. Thank you for having me. #Pascal Fantastic that we get to do a one-on-one and go a little bit deeper into Taiwanese politics. But before we do so, could you maybe give us a little bit more of a background on yourself, where you were working before, how it came to be that you were working as a media executive in the U.S., and then your work for the parliament in Taiwan? -- 1 of 18 -- #Johanna Just very briefly, I was born in the last year right after 400,000 bombs hit Jinmen. So I was born in 1958 and brought up in Taiwan, finished my college education, and went to the University of Pennsylvania for my graduate work, both master's and PhD. My master's was mostly on development, on how countries develop a strategy as well as addressing social development issues. My PhD work was on political orientations and how it transpired between generations and got communicated from generation to generation. After that, I went to New York and worked at Capital Cities/ABC, which was the parent company of ABC TV Network, for about 10 years. The first six years were with ABC TV Network, starting from a sort of social researcher all the way to working on children's social research, news programming, as well as primetime programming. The last four years were very interesting because that was a time when you had people like John Negroponte in the MIT Media Lab. We started looking at the 500-channel possibility, broadband, digital interactivity, and so on and so forth. I worked in a strategic investment unit of Capital Cities /ABC and was later promoted to be the director and vice president for strategic investment. Then our company was bought by Disney, so we all had different kinds of hopes and dreams. I went and chased another dream and got picked up by headhunters to go to Singapore. In Singapore, my job was to look at media, communication, and information technology investments all over Asia, excluding Japan. That was the time when a lot of mobile licenses and media licenses were being issued. Privatization was rampant, and major families went into media and communication. We still have quite a lot to do with information tech. So I spent seven years in Singapore working in the Asia Pacific. Of course, I hit the Asian financial crisis. About the seventh month after I got to Singapore, the Asian financial crisis hit every country. So I had to move from being a strategic investor to working on debt restructuring, company mergers and acquisitions, trying to salvage companies and the hopes and dreams of individuals. So I think with that short background, you can see that my experience was quite interesting, starting from being a young student from a developing country, going to my dream department at the University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School, then moving into the center of media and what they now call cultural hegemony. So, you know, the U.S. is a very strong culturally exporting country, and I was at the crux, in the center in New York, and working with lawmakers and others in Washington, D.C. So I went to the sort of first world in the center of its strength. Then I was recruited to, yet again, go back to Asia, helping the developing economies build new sectors in communication, media, and information technology. So I sort of went between the third world and the first world. And then for a period of time, I worked extensively on poverty issues as a scholar. So before I went back to Taiwan in 2000, I sort of went around the world and had a very well-rounded education, understanding the different parts of the world, and how their needs and their dreams can and should be met. -- 2 of 18 -- When I went back to Taiwan in 2000, it was the first time that Chen Shui-bian won. So the DPP won the leadership, and that was the first time the KMT lost its ruling party position. In the ensuing 24 years of being in Taiwan, I observed one presidential election after another and actually participated in two of them. We saw quite a lot of differences in the relationship between Taiwan and China because of the differences in the parties. Whoever became the ruling party actually had a lot to say about what we will do and should do across the Taiwan Strait. So we should spend some time looking at that part of the history over the last 24 years. #Pascal Yes, precisely. Because the important piece of information here is that ever since Chiang Kai-shek went to Taiwan in 1949, when he had basically lost the civil war on the mainland, he withdrew together with the Republic of China. He took the Republic with him. But he was, of course, the representative of the KMT, the Kuomintang, of which you are a party member, right? And the KMT ruled for the entire 50 years until 2000. He was very close to a dictator, but the KMT was in power. Then there was the transition to democracy in the late '90s, early 2000s. And in 2000, for the first time, another party came to power, the DPP. #Johanna Let me just correct you a little bit on that. Taiwan actually went back to the arms of China in 1945 when Japan lost in the Second World War and unconditionally surrendered Taiwan, which was under its colonization, back to China. So the KMT government actually came to Taiwan in 1945. And I think that's a part that people often overlook. Between '45 and '49, the KMT quickly rebuilt the economy of the island because when the Japanese left, they actually even took away all the power. So the new KMT members had to rebuild the power grid and the power structure, and they did it within three months. So it was a very important part of history because Taiwan was then returned to China and not under Japanese rule. And the second part is that most people thought democratization started in 2000 when the DPP won. In fact, in 1987, it was a very momentous occasion when the son of Chiang Kai- shek, Chiang Ching-kuo, ended martial law and allowed different parties to form and run in political elections. So 1987 was the official time when martial law ended. Then you had a more free and open political system with different kinds of political participation from 1987. #Pascal Right. So the transition to democracy, or the democratic transition, was definitely something that took place over quite a period of time. And within that period, different political streams gathered steam within the country. Today, they are more or less separated into three major parties: DPP, KMT, and what is the third one? It's TPP. TPP. TPP. -- 3 of 18 -- #Johanna Yeah, it was the People First Party, but the People First Party is no longer that strong. So Ko Wen-je led the TPP, the third party. #Pascal Right. And what then happened in these last 24 years? Because in the 1990s, while you were outside of the country, it was also not completely peaceful. There were always flare-ups with the mainland, right? And there were always moments when the Americans deployed aircraft carriers between Taiwan and the mainland. And I think already in the last episode we did, we established that Taiwan's official name is the Republic of China and the mainland's official name is the People's Republic of China. #Johanna People's Republic of China, yeah. #Pascal Although it makes sense to talk about the PRC for the mainland and the ROC over there, because both agree that they are different versions of China, right? #Johanna Exactly. I think you're entirely... You just put your finger on the right time. Because in 1990, at the end of martial law, which was 1987, as I just mentioned, after that, you have a lot of domestic debate in terms of the political structure. But also, Lee Teng-hui, the then president, realized that you have to maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait in order to develop Taiwan. So in 1990, he accepted the suggestion by one of our friends, Ambassador Dai, to form the National Unification Council, and also quickly in the year following to adopt guidelines for national unification. And that is to tell China that we are still working towards a unification regime. So, you know, whatever differences we may have, we will work under the National Unification Council with the guidelines for national unification. The national unification guidelines have three phases. The first phase is to reduce hostility. The second phase is to build trust and begin promoting reforms in the PRC. And that's, of course, the ROC perspective. We at that time believed that communism was not the ideal structure or system for the entire China. So our idea was that in the second phase, we would first reduce hostility, then build trust and gradually move the PRC away from the communist regime and start their reform. -- 4 of 18 -- And then the third phase is to negotiate a unification under democracy and equality, which means that the two sides, even though Taiwan is very small and China is very large, will have an equal unification political structure or institutional system going forward. So that was 1990 and 1991 under Lee Teng-hui's rule. And Lee Teng-hui, of course, while he was the chairperson for the KMT, was actually secretly promoting the DPP and groomed Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen; they were all his underlings. So you can see that it's a very complex history because Lee Teng-hui was the head of the KMT, but under his leadership, he groomed DPP leaders one after another and actually supported the DPP by even structurally giving every party a political endowment fund using the election funds. #Pascal Why did he do that as a KMT leader, fostering the opposition to his own party? #Johanna Well, in his own memoir, you can see that he actually is a strong Japanese colonist. His identity and his identification is Japan. He studied in Japan. He was part of that generation that believed that Japan was an ideal civilized possibility for Taiwan. So with that very strong Japanese identification or identity, he has a lot in common, probably not with Chen Shui-bian, but has a lot in common with Tsai Ing-wen and Lai Ching-te, the last two presidents. And Lai Ching-te is, of course, the current president in Taiwan. So Lee Teng-hui, Chen Shui-bian, Tsai Ing-wen, and Lai Ching-te are from a very similar background and have a very str