In 1996, ahead of Taiwan’s first direct presidential election, the People’s Republic of China launched missile tests and military exercises near Taiwan, attempting to signal its opposition to then-President Lee Teng-hui’s push for international recognition and Taiwan’s ongoing democratization. The show of force was meant to deter both Taiwan’s electorate and the international community from treating Taiwan as a sovereign political actor, which the PRC considered a violation of its “One China” principle.
Distressed by their aggression, I asked my parents: Will I be able to grow up here?
I was ten years old. This was by then the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis.
By 2020, this tension had become more “mainstream” in geopolitical discourse and beyond; everyday people began asking me, with new interest and awareness, whether I was afraid of a Chinese invasion.
The threat of war has been a constant in my life for three decades, and the norm for Taiwan since 1954. I am not afraid. I am far past afraid. I am tired.
In a recent interview with The New York Times, President Trump said that what China does with Taiwan is “up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping, [although] he added that he’d be “very unhappy” if Beijing changed the status quo.
With all due respect, President Trump does not have the right to toss out Taiwan’s sovereignty.
I am tired of superficial and sensationalized hot takes dragging Taiwan into every conversation about conflict elsewhere, as if the Taiwanese people don’t already see our future speculated in every photo and video of war-torn, bombed-out crises where the decisions of few harm the many. I am tired of exploitative, trend-driven political pundits weighing in on the “Taiwan issue” when they have never stepped foot in Taiwan or spent any meaningful time studying our geopolitical history. I am tired of “strategic ambiguity.” I am tired of the world enabling the Chinese Communist Party’s abuse of Taiwan.
Taiwan’s present and future are not up to Xi. And it is not complicated.
Taiwan is a sovereign democratic nation. This is not up for debate. We have a democratically elected president, a functioning democracy, a thriving cultural scene, and amazing food. As Chris Horton, a longtime Taiwan-based journalist, has written, Taiwan-China relations are not just a “Taiwan problem.”
Horton wrote in a recent Observer piece:
It is not China that is erasing Taiwan; it is we, Taiwan’s supposed friends, who are doing it at Beijing’s behest.
Countries around the world are complicit in bullying Taiwan, marginalizing us on the global stage, excluding us from the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the World Trade Organization—while the CCP openly threatens to invade us.
In November of 2024, I wrote an op-ed in the New York Times, titled “Taiwan is Ready to Defend Democracy. Is Trump?“
At the time, I was hopeful—cautiously, deliberately hopeful. I grew up in Taiwan, where warplanes and missiles are regular threats simply because we legitimately categorize ourselves as a “country,” under conditions where any attempt at self-defense is catastrophized as “defiance,” as if we were the troublemakers brashly disobeying orders and not earnestly minding our own business.
These impossible and coercive conditions are not new to us. Thus, to survive as a Taiwanese person is to choose hope, day after day, and to do it alone.
Today, I am also an immigrant living in America, after spending nearly a decade living under censorship and authoritarian rule in China. My time in China taught me to weigh my words carefully.
I also come from a deeply KMT (Chinese Nationalist) family—my family came with the Kuomintang to Taiwan in 1949. We are waishengren, and families like ours make up just 12% of the population. I don’t want to step on any toes, and I am aware that my voice shouldn’t be the one speaking for all 24 million Taiwanese people. I am not trying to make decisions for anyone. I simply believe that the decision is for the Taiwanese people to make.
Still: the Trump administration has not offered Taiwanese people that same basic courtesy of self-determination, concealing its own acts of coercion in tenuous language and legislature.
In December of 2025, President Trump signed U.S. support for Taiwan into law with the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which is meant to strengthen oversight of how the State Department treats Taiwan. To now say that Taiwan’s future is “up to” Xi Jinping is proof that President Trump’s own words cannot be trusted.
To say that Taiwan’s future is “up to” Xi Jinping is not coherent with strategic ambiguity. It’s flip-flopping. To this administration, Taiwan is merely a bargaining chip. These are not calculations about democracy, or cost of living, or national pride, or even about putting America first.
Presidential statements, especially issued from powerful countries like the United States, are treated as policy indicators. President Trump’s inconsistency and un-strategic ambiguity destabilize long-standing principles for deterrence, with significant impact on allies and adversaries alike.
But Taiwan is not a bargaining chip. We are (almost) all the chips.
Without our semiconductors, modern life as you and I know it would cease to exist. The Taiwan Strait is one of the most important trading routes in the world. By being careless with his words, President Trump is putting American quality of life at risk; his words also endanger 24 million lives in Taiwan.
Like President Trump, I would also be “very unhappy” with a change in the status quo. The majority of Taiwanese people want the status quo—not because it is dignified, and not because it is ideal, but because it is the lesser of many evils, incompletely shielding us from the aggression of the People’s Republic of China, though even this is precarious. It is our one remaining path to maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait. War would be devastating: it would mean the end of everything I know and love, and it would mean the reckless sacrifice of people from all backgrounds, communities, and ideologies.
The United States sold a bill of goods to the rest of the world to justify war after war. Now I am holding the United States—and its people—to the ideals that were sold to me, to my people, and to Americans across the political spectrum.
Taiwanese Americans and our friends in the United States: I know you’re tired, too. I am not asking Americans to go to war for us. Goodness knows you have had enough of wars you did not vote for. But it matters that you see us. It matters that you stand with us. It matters that you hold your government accountable to the promises and principles it claims to uphold. Last year, I went to FAPA’s (Formosan Association for Public Affairs) National Advocacy Conference and talked to congressional aides about legislation supporting Taiwan. Civic power is accessible. You can just do that in America—show up at the Capitol and demand to be heard. And changes do happen.
I do not want war. Nobody does. Democracy is not a spectator sport, and I am tired of the courtside commentary. You have to participate; it is a duty, not a right. Taiwan will defend our democracy. The question is whether Americans—including Taiwanese Americans who have built lives here—will hold their government accountable for the promises it claims to uphold.
I know many of us in the diaspora feel helpless, caught between two homes, exhausted by the constant explaining. But our voices have power—more than we know. We carry Taiwan with us in how we show up, in how we refuse to let our existence be erased, in how we insist on being seen.
I am asking you not to look away, and to make space in your hearts and minds for political vigilance. Words matter. Peacebuilding matters. Taiwan’s future cannot—and should not—be “up to” a dictator.
Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, Vickie Wang is a bilingual writer, interpreter, and stand-up comedian fluent in Mandarin Chinese, English, and American cultural references. New York-based as of 2024, she has lived in Taiwan, China, Sweden, and the good ol’ American Midwest.
Her work has been published in The New York Times, RADII, China Media Project, and The World of Chinese. As a stand-up comedian, she’s performed in Taipei, Shanghai, New York City, and opened for renown international headliners like Atsuko Okatsuka, Jenny Yang, and Elena Gabrielle.
She is currently working on a memoir on Taiwanese identity, shaped by her experiences living through COVID in China and performing stand-up comedy under censorship.
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