ANALYSIS: The 18th Straits Forum in Xiamen — Beijing Accelerates Integration While Taiwan Sounds the Alarm

A "civil" forum that fools no one

On June 13, 2026, the city of Xiamen, on the Chinese mainland, hosted the main conference of the 18th Straits Forum. On stage: Wang Huning, the fourth-ranking figure in the Chinese Communist Party, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference — the man Beijing has placed on the front line of its Taiwan policy. That detail alone should have settled the debate about the nature of this event. But no. The forum still officially presents itself as a platform for non-governmental exchanges, a goodwill fair between the two shores of the strait. We know the tune. And above all, we know who writes the lyrics.

This 18th edition, held under the theme "Broadening people-to-people exchanges and deepening integrated development," drew, according to organizers, roughly 7,000 participants from Taiwan, from backgrounds as varied as commerce, agriculture, youth, and culture. Since 2009, the forum has welcomed more than 370,000 participants, approximately 140,000 of them from Taiwan. It is a well-oiled, patient, cumulative mechanism. And that is precisely what makes it dangerous.

The influence machinery at work

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) this year tightened its restrictions to the point of banning — for the first time — both central government officials and local elected representatives from participating in the forum. In previous years, only central officials were formally barred; local representatives received only a warning. This escalation in official language reflects a genuine awakening: Beijing systematically targets the lower rungs of Taiwan's state apparatus, where institutional defenses are thinner. MAC deputy spokesman Liang Wen-chieh was blunt: "The Straits Forum serves as a platform for the Chinese Communist government to deploy 'united front' tactics against Taiwan, with the aim of infiltrating Taiwanese society under the guise of cross-strait exchanges."

I read these MAC statements and tell myself that Taipei is right to call out the danger — but calling it out isn't enough. Beijing isn't improvising: it's building. Every forum is a brick. Every commercial agreement is a cable that ties Taiwan's economy a little tighter to the mainland. And while that goes on, Taiwan's opposition is handing Beijing exactly what it needs: local faces to legitimize the maneuver. That is where the real vulnerability lies.

A speech calibrated to the millimeter

At the 18th Straits Forum podium, Wang Huning delivered what could be called a liturgical speech, in the most strategic sense of the word: every word was weighed to maximize impact on the Taiwanese delegates present, while remaining perfectly aligned with the CCP's official line. Wang reaffirmed China's adherence to the "one-China principle" and the "1992 Consensus," stressing the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, opposition to any separation, and the promotion of exchanges and integration — all in pursuit of the stated goal of advancing toward "national reunification." The South China Morning Post reported he asked delegates to "stand on the right side of history."

Wang also praised the "enthusiasm" of Taiwanese who, in his telling, had "overcome obstacles" to attend — a formulation that neatly inverts reality: it is not the Taiwanese participants who braved restrictions, it is Taiwan's government that sought to protect its citizens from an influence platform. This narrative inversion is a hallmark of Beijing's rhetoric: presenting every democratic act of resistance as oppression, and every capitulation as an act of freedom.

The 1992 Consensus: a tool, not an agreement

The "1992 Consensus" is at the heart of the forum's rhetoric. For the CCP, the consensus means there is only one China, of which Taiwan is a part. For the Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan's main opposition party, it is an agreement acknowledging a single China with each side free to interpret what that means. For the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), this consensus never existed and will never be accepted. Beijing exploits this ambiguity to its advantage: by inviting the KMT to reaffirm the consensus on the Xiamen stage, it constructs an image of bilateral dialogue where in reality there is only an imposed monologue.

Since 2016, when the DPP returned to power, Beijing has cut all official communication channels with Taipei, refusing dialogue without prior acceptance of the 1992 Consensus. This is not a policy of reciprocity; it is a policy of coercion. And the Xiamen forum is its continuation by other means: demonstrating that Taiwanese are willing to come, even outside official structures, even in defiance of their own government's ban.

The 1992 Consensus fascinates me for its conceptual perversity. Beijing built a perfect semantic trap: either you accept it, implicitly acknowledging that Taiwan is part of China; or you reject it and become a separatist who refuses dialogue. There is no clean exit. Taipei has understood that for a long time. What I would like to see is the rest of the democratic world understand that refusing this framework is not obstruction — it is dignity.

The KMT vice chairman in Xiamen

Kuomintang Vice Chairman Chang Jung-kung traveled to Xiamen to lead his party's delegation and delivered a speech at the forum's opening ceremony. His remarks, reported by Focus Taiwan/CNA, triggered an immediate reaction from the MAC in Taipei. Chang argued that the deep cultural and historical ties between Fujian and Taiwan — shared origins, common ethnic heritage — could serve as a foundation for deepened cross-strait rapprochement. He stated that "Taiwanese are also Chinese." He met Wang Huning on the forum's sidelines — a meeting the KMT itself announced.

This visit fits a broader pattern: since the DPP's return to power in 2016, and following Lai Ching-te's re-election in 2024, the KMT has multiplied overtures to Beijing, invoking the preservation of peace. But Taiwan's MAC was direct: in a statement, the council expressed its "deep regret" toward opposition figures who "echo the CCP's distorted narrative." It argued such actions deepen divisions within Taiwan, weaken democratic resilience, and give the international community the false impression that Taiwan accepts Beijing's preconditions for dialogue.

The united front mechanics through opposition parties

The MAC also underscored a crucial point: cross-strait communication channels are blocked not because of Taipei, but because Beijing refuses to recognize the existence of the Republic of China, imposes political preconditions on dialogue, and rejects any pragmatic approach that takes into account the dominant opinion of Taiwan's public. That last point is essential. According to a long-running survey by National Chengchi University in Taipei, 87.8% of Taiwan's residents want to maintain the status quo of de facto independence. This is not a separatist minority — it is virtually the entire population.

Using the KMT and other opposition parties as legitimizing vehicles is a documented strategy of CCP united front policy. By inviting Chang Jung-kung, Song Tao and Wang Huning are not buying peace: they are constructing a narrative for external consumption — look, Taiwanese come to Xiamen, Taiwanese want unification — which will be deployed in international diplomatic circles. It is a political investment with deferred returns.

I understand the KMT's position: they genuinely believe that maintaining a communication channel with Beijing protects Taiwan from military escalation. That's not a stupid argument. But when that channel consists of parroting the CCP's rhetoric word for word before Chinese cameras, you are not maintaining a channel — you are producing propaganda for the adversary. There is a difference between dialogue and co-optation, and I believe Chang Jung-kung crossed that line in Xiamen.

A banned magistrate — who showed up anyway

One of the most symbolically charged episodes of this 18th Straits Forum involves Yao Ching-ling, the magistrate of Taitung County and a KMT member. Her request to attend the forum in person had been rejected in June by the MAC — the first time such a request from an elected local official had been formally blocked. Yao found a workaround: she recorded a pre-taped video broadcast during the forum's signing ceremony on June 13, in which she congratulated Chinese buyers on their commitments to purchase Taiwanese agricultural and fishery products.

The Taiwanese government's response was immediate. The MAC referred the matter to the Ministry of the Interior for an administrative investigation. MAC Chairman Chiu Chui-cheng stated on June 18 on a radio program: "It is only after the investigation concludes that we will know whether she actually violated Article 33-1 of the Cross-Strait Relations Act." That article stipulates that no individual or organization in Taiwan may engage in any form of cooperation with Chinese agencies involved in "political operations against Taiwan" or activities "affecting national security or interests."

The legal and political debate around the video

The KMT fought back on legal grounds. KMT Mainland Affairs Department Director Chang Ya-ping argued that Yao had met no Chinese officials and had signed no political agreements. He posed the question: would phone calls or video conferences between Taiwanese local governments and Chinese municipalities also constitute participation in united front activities? KMT legislator Wang Hung-wei noted that current President Lai Ching-te himself, when serving as mayor of Tainan between 2010 and 2017, had visited China without controversy. Chiu replied that Lai would never have participated in a united front propaganda platform.

Yao Ching-ling, for her part, said she had a clear conscience and that filming the video was "the right thing to do" to defend the interests of her county's farmers. The position is not absurd: Taitung is a fragile agricultural region, and Chinese market access represents a lifeline for its producers. But it is precisely in this economic vulnerability that Beijing inserts the wedge of its influence. Agriculture as a Trojan horse for political integration: it's an old technique, and it works.

The Yao affair troubles me because it touches a real tension. Taiwan is a living democracy, with elected local officials accountable to their voters, farmers who need markets. If Beijing opens and closes the import tap according to its political needs — which it has done for years with pineapples and fish — then Taiwan is structurally vulnerable. The answer is not to ban every video. The answer is to diversify markets with the urgency the situation demands. Which, manifestly, has not yet been done.

The first actor to address the plenary

Among the forum's most-discussed moments, actor Zhang Linghe — star of the romantic drama Pursuit of Jade — speaking at the main plenary session represents a significant innovation. According to the Straits Times of Singapore, Zhang is the first Chinese actor invited to address the main plenary session of the forum, a rostrum normally reserved for major figures from the business and sports world. His six-minute intervention began with a "tak ke ho" — "hello" in Taiwanese Minnan dialect — which triggered an outburst of applause from the hall.

Zhang invited Taiwanese people to cross the strait and see for themselves the "vitality and dynamism" of the mainland. He declared: "The power of culture can always transcend mountains and seas, connecting the hearts of compatriots on both sides of the strait." Soft words, apolitical in appearance — and that is precisely their strategic value. Among experts consulted by the Straits Times, the analysis is unanimous: the choice of Zhang is highly strategic. He is enormously popular, particularly among young Taiwanese, making him more likely to be heard than a less well-known figure.

Taipei's response and the strategic decoding

MAC Deputy Spokesman Liang Wen-chieh responded with welcome candor: "Zhang Linghe was originally just an entertainer, but after being manipulated and used by the Taiwan Affairs Office of China, he has been tainted with a political coloring." Experts quoted in the Straits Times analysis estimate that this celebrity tactic carries relatively low risk for Beijing: actors can frame their participation as cultural exchange, even if criticized for doing "united front" work. The precedent exists: in June 2024, popular actor Hu Ge made a surprise visit to Taiwan, traveling on the same flight as a delegation from Shanghai's Taiwan Affairs Office.

Reactions on Taiwanese social media illustrate the risks for Beijing but also its partial successes. Some of Zhang's fans were enthusiastic; others felt he was exploiting his Taiwanese popularity for political ends. A widely quoted comment on Threads captures the ambivalence: "I really love him, but my head is still clear." That comment should be reassuring. But the very fact that one needs to state that one's head is clear shows the scale of the cognitive confusion that Beijing's cultural strategy can induce.

Pop diplomacy is a weapon that democracies struggle to counter because it operates on affective terrain, not rational argument. How do you explain to a Taiwanese teenager that her favorite actor is an instrument of state propaganda for an authoritarian regime that aims to absorb her country? The honest answer is that you cannot — not easily. And that is exactly the bet Beijing is making. I don't think it will be enough to change Taiwanese identities, as experts note. But every small shift in perception counts in a long-term influence war.

Commercial agreements and the logic of integration

Beyond the speeches and media stunts, the forum produced concrete results of an economic nature. At the 7th Cross-Strait Financial Forum, a parallel event, nine Fujian-Taiwan financial integration projects were signed, totaling 9.1 billion yuan. These projects span industrial cross-strait cooperation, water supply security, long-term modernization of Taiwanese enterprises operating on the mainland, technology and innovation industries, and modern agriculture. A Cross-Strait Wealth Management Alliance was also inaugurated at the forum.

PRC state media present these signings as the concrete realization of the ten cross-strait cooperation measures announced by Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office in April 2026, following the meeting between KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun and CCP Secretary-General Xi Jinping. This lineage is not incidental: it shows that the forum is not an isolated event but a link in a carefully planned political chain where each step — KMT-CCP meeting, policy announcement, forum, signings — advances the integration agenda.

Agriculture as geopolitical leverage

The commercial signing ceremony between mainland companies and Taiwanese associations for the purchase of agricultural and fishery products — atemoya, pomelos, tea — was highlighted by Chinese state media as proof of Beijing's goodwill toward Taiwanese farmers. Xinhua described the ceremony as a "great encouragement" for Taiwan's farmers and fishermen. The message is expertly composed: Beijing is your economic friend, Beijing buys your products, Beijing feeds you.

But as Taiwan News analysis notes, Beijing can suspend these imports at any time, as it did with Taiwanese pineapples in 2021. This is not trade — it is conditioning. Economic dependence creates a structural vulnerability that Beijing can activate or deactivate according to its political needs. Magistrate Yao Ching-ling, by filming her video for the forum, was not just defending her farmers — she was participating, perhaps without fully realizing it, in the construction of that dependence.

I have no doubt about Beijing's intentions in this economic dimension. This is a textbook soft economic coercion playbook: weave ties, create dependencies, then pull the lever when politically necessary. What I find troubling is that this mechanism works because real people have real economic difficulties, real farmers with real families to feed. The exploitation of economic hardship in the service of geopolitical strategy: that is the most cynical face of the CCP, and the one the free world struggles most to counter because it forces us to confront our own failures in supporting Taiwan.

The Institute for the Study of War's reading

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), in its June 18, 2026 update, documents the forum within the broader context of the CCP's cross-strait policy. The ISW notes that Beijing uses exchanges such as the Straits Forum to promote a shared cross-strait identity, economic ties, and pro-unification messaging. Chinese state media portrayed participants as having called for peaceful development and closer exchanges, while rejecting Taiwanese "separatism."

The ISW also highlights that Taitung Magistrate Yao Ching-ling addressed the forum via a pre-recorded video to promote her county's agricultural products, triggering a Taiwanese government investigation. This seemingly minor detail is in fact strategically significant: it shows that Beijing managed, through the forum, to get a representative of Taiwan's government to participate in its influence platform, circumventing the official ban by technological means. The vector changed; the logic of penetration is identical.

The broader security context

The ISW's June 18 update also documents other Chinese pressure vectors on Taiwan that frame the forum. The Chinese government research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 conducted a "marine environmental survey" in disputed waters east of Taiwan from June 16 to 18, 2026, escorted by two Chinese Coast Guard ships. The ISW notes that data collected on underwater conditions has significant applications for submarine navigation and underwater detection. These waters lie near the Bashi Channel and the Miyako Strait, two key maritime chokepoints for any blockade or invasion scenario involving Taiwan.

The Xiamen forum and the Xiang Yang Hong 22 mission run in parallel — one on the terrain of cultural softness, the other on military preparation. This is the dual nature of China's strategy toward Taiwan: seduce and threaten simultaneously, keeping Taiwan's population in ambiguity while preparing coercive options.

The ISW report is a valuable tool because it connects the dots that mainstream media tends to treat separately. On one side, a forum of songs and agriculture. On the other, military vessels mapping the seabed around Taiwan. These are two faces of the same coin. I am not a military analyst and will not claim to assess with precision the risk of invasion. But I can say this: when a regime simultaneously conducts charm operations and military reconnaissance, prudence requires not looking only at the side you prefer.

The KMT between protection and capitulation

The Kuomintang finds itself in a structurally uncomfortable position. On one hand, its argument for peace through engagement is not without theoretical merit: maintaining communication channels with Beijing can reduce the risk of accidental escalation. On the other, the form these engagements take — public speeches reaffirming the 1992 Consensus on stages orchestrated by the CCP's Taiwan Affairs Bureau, meetings with Wang Huning in Xiamen — goes well beyond maintaining a channel. It is the co-production of a narrative.

The ISW notes that CCP rhetoric about a handful of Taiwanese "die-hard separatists" whose actions run counter to the interests of the Taiwanese people closely mirrors the narratives Beijing uses to describe certain Philippine officials. This repetition of the pattern — isolate a few dissenting officials, present the majority as favorable to Beijing — is a universal narrative manipulation technique. It aims to fracture the political elite of the adversary, rewarding the compliant and stigmatizing the resistant.

The Taiwan People's Party in the equation

While the KMT is the main opposition actor to have participated in the forum, the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) also deserves mention in the context of pressure on Taiwan's defenses. The ISW reports that the KMT and TPP, which collectively hold a majority in the Legislative Yuan, have delayed for over nine months consideration of Taiwan's 2026 general budget, threatening to cut significant portions — including funds for defense and Taiwan's international outreach. The 2026 Defense budget represented an approximately 20% increase over 2025 and was a cornerstone of President Lai Ching-te's efforts to bring Taiwan's annual defense spending to 3.3% of GDP. Taiwan currently spends just 2.4% of its GDP on defense.

This is the painful paradox of Taiwan's democracy: the parties presenting themselves as guardians of peace through engagement with Beijing are also those blocking investments in deterrence that would make Chinese aggression less likely. One can legitimately wonder whether this coincidence is strategic on Beijing's part, ensuring that its preferred interlocutors in Taiwan contribute, through their legislative action, to keeping the island in a position of military vulnerability.

This point about the defense budget seems underreported in the forum's coverage. We talk about Zhang Linghe and Yao Ching-ling's video — important subjects, but circumstantial. But the blockage of Taiwan's defense budget by the same parties that go to Xiamen? That is structural. That is perhaps the most concrete contribution Taiwan's opposition is making to Beijing's strategy — not necessarily through malice, but through alignment of interests. And sometimes the outcome is the same.

A long-haul project

Since its creation in 2009, the Straits Forum has hosted more than 830 events and brought together more than 370,000 participants. This 18th edition included 58 series of activities covering grassroots exchanges, youth exchanges, cultural exchanges, and economic exchanges, spanning finance, technology, rural revitalization, new media, education, e-commerce, biomedicine, and SMEs. This extraordinarily broad scope is not accidental: it ensures that virtually any Taiwanese from any professional or social background can find a relevant event.

This cumulative logic is at the heart of the mechanism's effectiveness. Year after year, ties accumulate, habits of cooperation take hold, personal networks grow denser. This is what united front analysts call building a mass base: creating enough Taiwanese whose economic and personal interests are tied to mainland actors to make any policy of distance from Beijing costly domestically. This is not a one- or two-year plan. It is a generational plan.

The 2026 innovations: the actor, the youth, the finance

This 18th edition stands out for three significant innovations. First, the invitation of a pop culture actor — Zhang Linghe — to the main platform, marking a turn toward cultural soft power targeting youth. Second, the creation of the Cross-Strait Education Forum and a Young People's E-Commerce Competition for Fujian Products, two initiatives designed to build professional and educational bridges between young people from both shores. Third, the structuring of a Cross-Strait Wealth Management Alliance, aimed at gradually integrating financial markets.

These three innovations sketch a strategy that seeks to capture Taiwan simultaneously at three levels: hearts (culture and celebrities), minds (education and professional skills), and wallets (finance and agriculture). It is a 360-degree envelopment strategy of a sophistication that cannot be underestimated.

What I see in these eighteen years of forum is a patience that our democracies struggle to replicate. We operate on four-year electoral cycles. Beijing works on decade-long cycles. This temporal asymmetry may be the most troubling dimension of the confrontation. And in the meantime, our debates on Taiwan tend to bounce from one crisis to the next without ever tracing a coherent twenty-year guideline. I don't know whether Taiwan can win this war of attrition — nobody does. But I know it cannot be won without taking it as seriously on the same time horizon.

Washington, Tokyo, Manila: the strategic environment

The Xiamen Straits Forum takes place in a particularly loaded regional strategic context. The ISW documents several parallel developments during the same week. China sanctioned Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro on June 11 for his repeated criticism of Chinese actions in the South China Sea — a first: Beijing had never sanctioned a sitting minister of a country it recognizes diplomatically. This escalation shows the CCP is increasingly willing to use direct pressure tools against officials of sovereign states.

Moreover, the ISW reports that the research vessel Xiang Yang Hong 22 was operating east of Taiwan under Chinese Coast Guard escort during the same period as the forum — a juxtaposition that is likely not coincidental. The implicit message is clear: while Beijing extends a hand with agricultural agreements and peace speeches in Xiamen, it simultaneously sends military vessels to map the waters around Taiwan. For Western chancelleries still uncertain about the forum's nature, this simultaneity should be enough to settle the question.

The Xi-Trump summit and its paradoxical effects

In May 2026, a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and CCP Secretary-General Xi Jinping established what the ISW describes as a broadly positive tone for Sino-American relations. This context produced paradoxical effects on the management of pressure on Taiwan: the Trump administration decided not to add more than 100 Chinese companies to the Bureau of Industry and Security's trade blacklist to avoid escalating tensions with Beijing, according to Reuters. At the same time, the Pentagon added 65 new entities to its list of Chinese military companies, including Alibaba and Tencent.

This dual posture — commercial appeasement, maintained security vigilance — reflects the Trump administration's approach to China: unpredictable in form but broadly less disposed to sacrifice the bilateral relationship for the sake of defending Taiwan. For Taipei, this is a difficult equation. The American security guarantee remains the fundamental pillar of deterrence vis-à-vis Beijing. Anything that weakens the perception of that commitment in Chinese calculations can reduce the perceived cost of aggression.

Trump is what I would call a necessary evil for the West in this Taiwan equation. On one side, his economic firmness toward China is real — the sanctions, the blacklists, the export controls. On the other, his strategic unpredictability and his tendency to treat Taiwan's defense as a commercial lever rather than a moral obligation create an uncertainty that weakens deterrence. I don't know whether Trump would militarily defend Taiwan in the event of aggression. And Beijing is asking itself exactly the same question — which paradoxically may maintain some form of deterrence. But playing with probabilities over the existence of 23 million free people is not policy — it is gambling.

Institutional countermeasures

Faced with this multifaceted pressure, Taiwan has developed a set of institutional countermeasures worth documenting. On June 14, 2026 — the day after the Xiamen forum — Taiwan's National Security Bureau launched a secure online platform allowing Chinese nationals to anonymously submit information about political, military, economic, and social conditions inside China. It is an interesting signal: Taiwan is not merely defending itself passively against espionage; it is trying to build its own human intelligence network inside the mainland.

Furthermore, the ISW notes that Taiwan's Control Yuan impeached and had convicted former Air Force Academy Colonel Chang Ming-che, sentenced to eleven years in prison for joining a Chinese spy network. Chang had accepted the equivalent of approximately $42,000 from a CCP agent between September 2019 and November 2024, in exchange for sensitive information on Taiwan's Air Force exercises, Taiwan-U.S. cooperation missions, military personnel, and public opinion. This case illustrates the intensity of China's espionage campaign targeting Taiwan's armed forces.

Civil society as a bulwark

Beyond institutions, the resilience of Taiwanese civil society deserves recognition. The National Chengchi University survey cited earlier — 87.8% of Taiwanese wishing to maintain the status quo of de facto independence — is fundamental data. Despite eighteen years of forums, pop diplomacy, agricultural purchases, and speeches about shared identity, the vast majority of Taiwan's population has not moved on the fundamental question of its political status. This demonstrates remarkable identity resilience in the face of one of the world's most sophisticated and well-funded influence programs.

Taiwanese experts consulted by the Straits Times are careful but nuanced: political analyst Chen Shih-min of National Taiwan University considers it very unlikely that one person alone will change Taiwanese identity or make Taiwanese people want to be governed by China. Cross-strait expert James Yifan Chen of Tamkang University concedes that the cultural strategy may generate resonance and make China appear slightly less hostile, but not produce an overnight conversion of perceptions. It is a fragile balance — and this is precisely why Beijing invests for the long term.

Those 87.8% are both a source of comfort and a responsibility. Taiwan has built, in a few decades, a democratic identity of a solidity that many would not have predicted. It is a victory for freedom, and must be named as such. But this identity resistance does not sustain itself alone. It needs strong institutions, credible defense, sincere allies. And there I am less at ease. The resilience of the Taiwanese people is real. That of the international community in defending them is far less so.

The forum as a component of a hybrid strategy

The Straits Forum must not be analyzed in isolation. It is part of a strategic continuum that includes far more aggressive operations. The same week as the forum, the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI seized 13 web domain names linked to Chinese espionage operations on LinkedIn and other online employment platforms, used by Chinese intelligence agencies to actively recruit government and military personnel in the United States, NATO member countries, and U.S. partner nations. FDD researcher Max Lesser identified a list of more than 100 additional domain names likely connected to this recruitment network.

Additionally, Google's Threat Intelligence Group reported on June 15 that a Chinese hacker group had targeted military, medical, and academic research institutions in the United States and Canada from September 2023 to November 2025, using keyword search techniques to steal sensitive information about U.S. geostrategic policy, the Indo-Pacific Command, military strategy in the Indo-Pacific, drones, and AI. These cyberespionage operations aim to identify vulnerabilities in American, NATO, and partner military forces that China could exploit in a potential conflict.

Military-civil fusion in service of pressure

The Pentagon added tech giants such as Alibaba and Tencent to its list of Chinese military companies, underscoring the CCP's military-civil fusion policy. This policy means that Chinese civilian companies are required to support the state's military and intelligence objectives. In this context, even commercial agreements signed at the Straits Forum — involving entities like Xiamen International Trust, investment funds, and banks — cannot be analyzed independently of the state control structure within which every major Chinese economic actor operates.

This is what makes defending against the Chinese strategy so difficult: it deliberately blurs the lines between commerce and politics, culture and propaganda, civilian diplomacy and military preparation. Every agricultural purchase may be a future lever. Every pop star may be an influence vector. Every financial agreement may be a node in a dependency network. Failing to see this systemic coherence is to condemn oneself to treating symptoms without ever addressing the disease.

I want to be honest about the limits of my analysis: I cannot state with certainty that every agreement signed in Xiamen is explicitly controlled by the CCP in its operational details. But what I can state is that China's governance structure — which places every significant economic entity in a relationship of potential subordination to the state — means this dimension can never be excluded. The benefit of the doubt is a luxury that democracies cannot afford when their security is at stake.

Naming things for what they are

The first condition of an effective response to Beijing's cross-strait strategy is to name things clearly. The Straits Forum is not a spontaneous popular gathering between citizens of the two shores. It is a state operation, planned by the Taiwan Affairs Bureau, led by the CCP's fourth-ranking figure, financed by Beijing, and integrated into a long-term strategy of gradually absorbing Taiwan. The fact that Taiwanese participants attend freely does not change this reality: the most effective influence operations work precisely because their targets participate of their own accord, believing they are pursuing their own interests.

Taiwan's MAC has named things clearly. The international community should do the same. Calling the Straits Forum by its real name — a united front platform aimed at the forced integration of a 23-million-person democracy into an authoritarian state — is not provocation. It is clarity. And that clarity is the prerequisite for any coherent policy of support for Taiwanese democracy.

Support for Taiwan as a strategic and moral imperative

Beyond rhetoric, concrete support for Taiwan runs along several axes. First, accelerating defensive capability transfers: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared at the Shangri-La Dialogue in May that the United States expects its allies to devote 3.5% of their GDP to defense. Taiwan is still at 2.4%. The stakes are not merely budgetary — this is a credibility signal. Second, supporting the development of Taiwan's drone industry: President Lai vowed on June 16 to find other methods to develop Taiwan's unmanned systems capabilities, after the KMT and TPP blocked dedicated funding in the May special defense budget.

Finally, and perhaps most fundamentally, allied democracies must help Taiwan diversify its agricultural and economic markets to reduce structural dependence on the mainland — the dependence Beijing exploits as leverage at the Straits Forum. This is not just a trade policy. It is a national security policy.

I end this analysis with firm conviction and honest uncertainty. The conviction: Taiwan is a vibrant, courageous democracy that deserves the unreserved support of the free world. This is not a matter of abstract geostrategic interests — it is a matter of values. And any democracy that claims those values must be willing to pay the price, not just profit from them when convenient. The uncertainty: I don't know whether the international community has the lasting will to do so. This 18th Straits Forum was the 18th edition of a process the world has been watching unfold since 2009. I wonder how many more editions it will take before the response is equal to the threat.

An assessment without complacency

This 18th Straits Forum in Xiamen has confirmed three realities that can no longer be ignored. First, Beijing has perfected a formidably sophisticated cross-strait influence machine that operates simultaneously on cultural, economic, political, and institutional planes. Second, Taiwan's opposition — particularly the KMT — continues to serve, intentionally or not, the CCP's narrative objectives, to the detriment of Taiwan's democratic cohesion. Third, the international community has been watching for eighteen years without developing a coherent collective response to this program of gradual absorption.

The resilience of the Taiwanese people is a remarkable given. But identity resilience is not enough when faced with a strategy that aims precisely to circumvent conscious identity choices through mechanisms of economic and institutional dependency. The Straits Forum is not a folksy event. It is an instrument of political warfare in service of a territorial absorption objective. It must be treated as such — with the analytical clarity, institutional firmness, and international solidarity that this reality demands.

What Taiwan teaches the world

Taiwan's story is, in its way, a masterclass in democracy under pressure. A people who, in the space of a few decades, built a pluralist democracy, an innovative economy, a strong civil society — and who face every day an authoritarian superpower whose official policy is to absorb them. If the world's democracies cannot find in this reality sufficient reason to mobilize, to stand together, and to defend what Taiwan represents, then perhaps our democratic professions of faith are not worth very much. Taiwan deserves more than our admiration from afar. It deserves our commitment. Not tomorrow. Now.

Primary Sources

Institute for the Study of War — China & Taiwan Update, June 18, 2026 — June 18, 2026

Focus Taiwan/CNA — KMT official's 'shared heritage' pitch at China forum draws MAC rebuke — June 13, 2026

Focus Taiwan/CNA — Taitung magistrate's Straits Forum video still under investigation: MAC — June 18, 2026

Secondary Sources

South China Morning Post — Beijing pushes Taiwan exchanges at Straits Forum despite tightened restrictions — June 12, 2026

The Straits Times — Why a speech by Pursuit Of Jade's Zhang Linghe has divided Taiwan — June 20, 2026

Taipei Times — MAC bars central and local officials from Straits Forum — June 5, 2026

Taiwan News — Government may investigate Taitung magistrate over Straits Forum appearance — June 16, 2026

ScanX Trade — 18th Straits Forum expands exchanges, RMB 9.1 billion projects signed — June 15, 2026

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

Secondary source families: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.