Taiwan's 23 million split on China defense ahead of 2028 vote

Taiwan's 23 million people are divided over how to answer Beijing's unification push, with attitudes ranging from military readiness to accommodation ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

"If China actually attacks and the army needs me back on the front line to do my part and resist, there is zero doubt in my mind I'd do it," said Cony Hsieh, a 33-year-old trained reservist who served six years in Taiwan's military.

Hsieh, who hosts a podcast on Taiwan's defenses, is among a minority willing to fight. Eric Li, 25, said he knows no one who would rush into battle. "Everyone says they'd hide, hide, hide," he said. The divide tracks identity: younger Taiwanese increasingly see themselves as Taiwanese only, while older generations raised under Kuomintang rule retain a Chinese identity.

The stakes extend to global markets. Taiwan accounts for more than 60 percent of global semiconductor output, with TSMC the linchpin of advanced chip supply for Apple, Nvidia and AMD, and lawmakers in May approved a NT$780 billion defense package, a trimmed version of President Lai Ching-te's NT$1.25 trillion proposal for 2026-2033.

The interviews, conducted by The Wall Street Journal across Taiwan, capture a spectrum of views shaped by generational experience. Dov Lin, 54, who runs an IT services company in Taipei, said he would "fight tooth and nail" to defend the island, driven partly by family memory of the White Terror, the Kuomintang's era of political repression. His great uncle was imprisoned during that period, a family taboo for decades.

At the other end, Ben Chen, 63, a soil-and-water conservation engineer whose father fought in the Chinese Civil War, proposes a "Chinese Commonwealth" in which Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau share an umbrella with China while keeping separate flags, militaries and UN seats. "Growing up in Taiwan, I am Taiwanese. But I am also Chinese," he said.

The generational divide is sharpest among the young. Hsu Mei-chih, 27, an artist whose mother is from the mainland port of Qingdao, said an arts festival on Green Island — the notorious site of Kuomintang political imprisonment — cemented her Taiwanese identity. "I can't call myself Chinese because I don't know that place that well," she said.

The 2028 election stakes

The political stakes are concentrated in the 2028 presidential election, where the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which favors stronger defense, faces the opposition Kuomintang, which advocates better relations with Beijing. Hsieh warned that a KMT victory "would basically be handing Taiwan to China on a silver platter."

The election comes with a divided government. Since the 2024 vote, the DPP has held the presidency while the KMT-Taiwan People's Party coalition controls the legislature, delaying annual budgets and complicating defense and industrial policy. The Legislative Yuan in May approved a NT$780 billion defense package focused on procurement, leaving the administration's broader industrial agenda unresolved.

Market implications

For investors, the risk is concentrated in Taiwan's semiconductor supply chain. TSMC, which manufactures advanced chips for Apple, Nvidia and AMD, is the linchpin of global tech supply chains, and any escalation would ripple through equity markets and the Taiwan dollar. The last major escalation in August 2022, when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei, pushed the Taiwan dollar to a two-year low and weighed on TSMC shares before they recovered.

The 2026 local elections and 2028 presidential vote will test whether Taiwan's democratic institutions can manage disagreement while sustaining defense readiness. The island's future depends not only on how others respond to it, but on how effectively its own institutions serve the people they represent.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.