The Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 shocked the modern world, destroying assumptions that large-scale conventional war was inconceivable in the 21st century. 5,000 miles away, democratic Taiwan faces the rising threat of a military takeover by China, a development that could further upend the global world order.
In his latest book, The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Center of the New Cold War, renowned Taiwan expert and former intelligence officer J. Michael Cole explains how this Pacific nation has become a quagmire that risks igniting a full-scale global conflict
J. Michael Cole is a senior fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, Canada, and the Taiwan Studies Programme at the University of Nottingham, UK. Prior to relocating to Taiwan in 2005, he was an analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in Ottawa. He joins us today all the way from Taipei.
