Taiwan's special defense budget — a NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.55 billion) package critical to the island's military capability over the next eight years — has been stalled in the legislature for over half a year. It was against this backdrop that retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Mike Studeman, former Director of Intelligence at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, visited Taiwan for the launch of his new book, Might of the Chain: Forging Leaders of Iron Integrity.

The visit was nominally about leadership. But as Studeman put it, "people like me never stop serving — the uniform is off, I don't have title or position, but if you're a good citizen you will continue to contribute to your society and to others." During his time in Taipei, he met with senior political figures and kept a close eye on the defense budget standoff.

"The frustration is felt by everybody — this has carried on for too long," he said. He sees the best hope for breaking the deadlock in moderate KMT legislators: "Perhaps there'll be some moderate KMT that can be brought into the points of influence to be able to bring the more extreme KMT leaders into a point of better understanding of what's needed." In his most optimistic scenario, "maybe you'll see half to two-thirds of the defense budget ultimately pass."

But the damage, he warned, is already being done. The prolonged stalling has dealt a serious blow to perceptions of Taiwan's will to defend itself. "If you can't help yourself, why would we help you? This is the perspective of the Trump team," he said bluntly. The only beneficiary of the delay, in his view, is China.

Studeman's ties to Taiwan run deep. Between 2020 and 2022, during his tenure as the top intelligence official at Indo-Pacific Command, he visited the island three times and met with then-President Tsai Ing-wen — making him one of the highest-ranking U.S. military officers to visit Taiwan since the severance of formal diplomatic relations over four decades ago. As far back as 2000, he had traveled to every naval base on the island to assess Taiwan's military capabilities.

As a senior intelligence official, Studeman was also a key figure behind the Biden administration's 2022 National Security Strategy, which designated the 2020s as a "decisive decade" — a period of sharply rising risk of Chinese military action against Taiwan, and one that would define the trajectory of U.S.–China strategic competition. The strategy led to an unprecedented expansion of American engagement across the Indo-Pacific and a deepening of ties with Taiwan.

The following is an excerpt of the interview:

Q: You first visited Taiwan 26 years ago and have returned many times since. How has the overall geopolitical situation changed compared to then?

26 years ago, I was a lieutenant commander assigned at Indo-Pacific Command. I was the only intel officer with a bunch of Navy pilots and surface warfare officers and submariners, and we were tasked with coming to find out the Taiwan Navy's strengths and weaknesses and where perhaps the United States could help. We went all around the island, visited every military base, talked with people, and went on every ship and aircraft and everything else. That gave me a very strong foundation in understanding Taiwan's situation and military capability.

Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, when he came in, he was far more impatient with regard to assimilating Taiwan. He got rid of consensus decision-making, centralized all the power and authority, and then pursued his ambition to create a military strong enough to be able to take Taiwan. This to us wasn't just an excuse to build a military — this is an existential threat issue for Taiwan, a key democracy, a Chinese-speaking democracy in the Western Pacific.

At the time, Washington was mostly people who were experts in manhunting and the Middle East — promoted because they were essentially the kind of creatures that developed after 2001, 2003, after 9/11. There wasn't a lot of understanding about the Western Pacific or Taiwan and China.

During my time as director of intelligence at Indo-Pacific Command, we had a huge responsibility to educate the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chairman, SecDef, and others on what was at stake. The intelligence was overwhelming with regard to what China was doing, how they were doing it, what their intentions were, how they intended to change the status quo to meet Chinese preferences, and the rapid modernization of arms and capabilities across all warfare domains. You can't avoid it — it's in your face. Xi Jinping was going to change the region significantly through a combination of gray zone tactics, the slow nibbling and salami-slicing efforts to gain dominance over the First Island Chain, and Taiwan would fall.

People say 2027 doesn't look like it's going to occur — that's not the point. At the time when Xi Jinping talked about it he was pretty darn serious that he wanted his military to be ready to execute upon his orders up to a major invasion plus everything else. Look around the island, look around Kinmen and the offshore islands, look around Penghu, look at your eastern side — there are more forces, more active and able to do more military activities than ever before.

The United States and allies have put in place a series of actions with our allies and partners over time to change Xi Jinping's calculus. We've raised the cost of making a strategic choice to the point where Xi Jinping has to look at it and go, "I'm not sure." But that doesn't stop him from doing all of the other activities to co-opt sectors of Taiwan society — whether religious organizations, businesses, political parties, or political warfare — which is intensely applied today and will be for years. There is a whole set of things that have to be done to educate a population about political warfare.

Q: What are some examples of political warfare? What new tactics have you seen here?

Political warfare is essentially — if you go take a look at George Kennan's description, one of our leading national security figures in the Cold War — it's the means by which a nation uses every tool at their disposal short of war to expand their political power and influence.

They will pay off and give kickbacks to certain people, launch charm offensives, bring people over for free junkets into China to be overawed or be impressed. All of it is designed to essentially win over co-optees to cooperate with how China intends to move forward in the world.

We sometimes underestimate exactly how much influence has been successfully gained by China in the world. In the Global South, there are over 120 countries that have their primary training partner as the Chinese. By hook or by crook, the Chinese have been very successful in penetrating societies through political warfare — this is the nature of the regime. This is why when multiple countries get together to organize defenses against the PRC, the PRC is so deeply affected by those — you'll see them responding with all of their propaganda as they try to divide and conquer.

The defense budget delay and dilution will hurt everybody. The only beneficiary is China. What it demonstrates to me more significantly is that the CCP has been very successful with their two-handed approach — one on the outside, the outside pressure, and then one on the inside — and the ability to actually convert Taiwanese politicians into puppets of Beijing. Not all the KMT is in this position, but some of the key players are. It shows you the success of Chinese political warfare that Taiwanese KMT leaders are able to thwart something that only benefits China.

You probably need even more money over time to be able to deal with this. China is creating a new norm. You're surrounded on all sides including vertically — balloons that simply fly with impunity over Taiwan. Your rectangular cube is being encroached upon in significant ways. 

It's a boiling frog scenario. Just because the threat isn't sprinting at you with a spear doesn't mean that the slow-moving dagger isn't threatening your heart. This is the Chinese way — to change conditions in a way that ultimately advantages them in such a significant way that they've achieved their objectives.

Q: With the Trump–Xi summit barely two weeks away, many people are concerned that Taiwan will be on the table. What is your view?

I'm sure it'll come up in some respect, but I don't think it's core to the summit at this stage. I imagine that there will be some statements that are posturing on both sides that relate to South China Sea issues, perhaps Taiwan security and a few other things, but I think those will not be where the major part of the discussions go.

The intent is to try to get to an economic deal that Trump can say back inside the United States is a victory — in terms of stabilizing the relationship and allowing the kind of intercourse that is more managed and disciplined, especially in key technology areas or agricultural areas.

Q: How are regional allies like Japan thinking about how Taiwan is handling these threats and risks?

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has been very clear with regard to how Japan's security is intimately tied with Taiwan's security. China's ambitions are not only to dominate the First Island Chain but beyond. It's not a peripheral issue — this is a core issue of whether or not Japan can actually defend itself. Japan is right in the middle of the Philippines, right in the middle of Taiwan. Better to hold the line at its existing barrier point than to presume it's okay and allow that barrier to move even closer to Japan.

China only understands strength. Japan is a very strong middle power. When Japan and Taiwan are more significantly oppositional to China's worst ambitions, strength has to meet strength — and this is good for stability.

China is hoping to divide Japanese society like they have in Taiwan. For example, they are working hard to gain influence in the Ryukyu chain with Okinawans, trying to show them that the Tokyo government doesn't have sovereign rights over the old Ryukyu Kingdom — pointing to 500 years of vassalage to China from the 14th to the 19th century. The political warfare in play today. Japan sees all this and understands the nature of their adversary.

So Japan is no longer staying quiet. They are taking on China in a more informationally public way — willing to, so to speak, offend China, willing to anger China even verbally. Once you are able to do this, you normalize what China doesn't want other countries to do: stand up to them, call them out, expose them for what they're doing. In this regard, Japan has been probably more open, maybe even more than Taiwan.

Q: So should we follow Japan's example and create more friction?

The question is whether or not you're a cooperative player in the conditioning and the re-norming to benefit China, or whether you become an uncooperative player. When you're uncooperative, you create friction. But if you don't have friction, you don't have traction — and so many countries have been unwilling to onboard that friction, even in their own sovereign interests.

Japan is showing the way. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is showing the way in a different way — he's calling out the threat of American bullying and making his society more resilient in the face of it. Same principle: create friction, get traction. Deal with the actual threat for what it is, rather than just fearing it.

I see a future world where multiple countries will actually coordinate informationally to call out Chinese bad behavior, and ideally coordinate economically to exact a penalty on China. If you have two, three, or four countries that are all affected by Chinese policy and decide enough is enough — tailoring a bilateral, trilateral, or quadrilateral economic package — China may stand strong and talk tough, but they'll look at it and go, "These coalition partners are clever, smart, and finally getting their act together. This is a problem." You're going to help shape their behavior in a good direction because you're not going to allow them to get away with the leverage they've been using without paying a high enough price.

No country can do it alone. Multiple countries that show political will and the ability to exact a penalty together will help shape the future environment.

Have you read?

• Fake Press, Real Spies: How China Tried to Infiltrate Taiwan’s Civil Society
• Taiwan Indicts TEL in TSMC 2nm Leak: Implications for the Semiconductor Sector
• Landmark Taiwan National Security Act Ruling: Former TSMC Engineers Sentenced in 2nm Trade Secret Theft

Uploaded by Ian Huang