J. Michael Cole, "The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Centre of the New Cold War" (Polity, 2025)

About this episode

J. Michael Cole discusses his book on Taiwan's political and security landscape amidst rising tensions with China.

J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based security analyst and writer who has spent over two decades documenting Taiwan’s political and security landscape. A former analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), he is a Research Fellow and Executive Editor with the Prospect Foundation in Taiwan, and advises various private and governmental actors. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, and the University of Nottingham’s Taiwan Hub. In this episode of the New Books Network, we chat with Cole about his latest book, The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Centre of the New Cold War (Polity, 2025). Starting with the Sunflower Student Movement and rise of Xi Jinping, the book explores why the Taiwan Strait has become such a “tinderbox”, and surveys various tactics that the People’s Republic of China has used to destabilize Taiwan. With the Ukraine War’s shadow looming, Cole also examines the prospects of conflict between Taiwan and China, and discusses various means through which Taiwan and its liberal democratic allies can build resilience and interconnection. Anthony Kao…

People in this episode

Host: Anthony Kao

Guest: J. Michael Cole

Topics covered

• Taiwan politics
• China relations
• security analysis
• Cold War
• international affairs
• resilience building

Keywords

• Taiwan
• China
• Cold War
• security
• politics
• international relations
• resilience
• Sunflower Student Movement
• Xi Jinping
• Ukraine War

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Prospect Foundation, Global Taiwan Institute, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, University of Nottingham

Books & works: The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Centre of the New Cold War

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