EDITORIAL: China, the Top Threat: Taiwan Is Our Front Line

The Moscow-Beijing Connection as an Operational Fact

EU High Representative Kaja Kallas's confirmation that China is training Russian soldiers in demining and drone operations is not a minor news item. It is concrete proof that the Moscow-Beijing authoritarian axis is no longer a rhetorical alliance. It is an operational military partnership that includes transfers of technology, training, and expertise directly applicable to combat in Ukraine. China is not a passive observer of the war in Ukraine. It is an active participant, with its own interests in the outcome. For Beijing, a Russia that survives the war with its regime intact is a valuable strategic partner — an energy supplier, a counterweight to American power, a partner in contesting the liberal international order.

The presence of 10,000 North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine — confirmed by Zelensky and corroborated by Western intelligence sources — extends the authoritarian axis to three players. North Korea supplies Russia with soldiers, ammunition, and missiles in exchange for military technology transfers that accelerate its weapons program. Analyses by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies published on June 25, 2026, document improvements to North Korea's KN-23 missiles thanks to Russian assistance. This Russia-China-North Korea triangle, with Iran as a fourth partner supplying its Shahed drones, forms a coherent axis whose members share a common interest: weakening American primacy and the liberal international order.

The Russia-China-North Korea-Iran axis — four authoritarian regimes testing and improving their military capabilities in the Ukrainian crucible, sharing technologies and doctrines, helping each other withstand sanctions — that is the geopolitical reality of 2026. The West is not facing four separate problems. It is facing a coordinated strategy to destabilize the world order. That reality demands an equally coordinated response.

5% of GDP: A Historic Commitment to Defense

The NATO Ankara Summit on July 7–8, 2026, takes place against a backdrop of unprecedented budget pressure on European defenses. The Alliance has set a target of 5% of GDP in defense spending by 2035 — an astronomical figure compared to the 2% goal from the Wales summit of 2014. This escalation of targets reflects the collective recognition that the world has entered a period of sustained military competition. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte mentioned "tens of billions" in defense contracts to be announced at the summit, covering systems that take years to produce — ammunition, armored vehicles, air defense systems, drones.

But the Ankara summit takes place under a cloud of uncertainty. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth launched a six-month review of the American military presence in Europe and conditioned U.S. contributions to NATO on allies meeting their spending targets. The cancellation of 4,000 U.S. troops planned for Poland — documented by the Guardian — and statements calling into question the automaticity of Article 5 guarantees have created cracks in the certainty that the United States would unconditionally defend its European allies. If Beijing believes that Washington would hesitate to defend its European allies, the same logic applies to its reading of the American commitment to Taiwan.

Hegseth conditioning Article 5 guarantees on compliance with spending targets — I understand America's frustration after decades of European underinvestment. But turning a collective security guarantee into a conditional commercial arrangement fundamentally changes the nature of NATO. Putin reads those signals. Xi Jinping reads them. And they calculate accordingly.

Recognizing the Ukraine-Taiwan Connection

The fundamental lesson Europe must draw from its experience with the war in Ukraine is that geopolitical security problems do not remain geographically contained. What happens around Taiwan affects global security through technology supply chains — Taiwan manufactures approximately 90% of the world's most advanced chips through TSMC — through the stability of Indo-Pacific maritime routes, and through the signal that Taiwan's defeat or survival would send to every dictatorship on earth. The joint Franco-British-German statements on the movements of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning are a first step. But Europe needs a coherent Indo-Pacific policy that is not merely deference to American priorities.

The basic principle of deterrence is that it must be established before a crisis, not during one. The West is learning this lesson the hard way in Ukraine: the weapons and support being provided today would have had infinitely more deterrence value if they had been supplied in 2021. The same logic applies to Taiwan. The defense systems Taipei seeks to acquire, the joint military exercises it wants to conduct, the American strategic clarity it demands — all of this has more value as deterrence today than as support after a crisis has begun. A Europe that raises its defense spending from 2% to 5% of GDP but has no strategy for the Indo-Pacific is missing the essential long-term threat.

I know that asking Europe to simultaneously invest in its defense against Russia, in its support for Ukraine, and in an Indo-Pacific strategy to deter China seems like asking the impossible. But there is something history teaches without relenting: paying the price of deterrence is always cheaper than paying the price of war. We should have learned that lesson. We are still learning it.

Two Wars, One Question

While the West mobilizes for Ukraine, bolsters its defense spending, sanctions Russia, and debates peace, another threat — larger, more patient, better funded — keeps advancing. China is encircling Taiwan methodically, week after week, incursion after incursion, vessel after vessel. And the West, consumed by Ukrainian emergencies and Iranian-American tensions, has not yet found the courage to name that reality with the clarity it demands: Taiwan is our front line. If it falls, it is not merely an island of 23 million people disappearing under the yoke of a dictatorship. It is the liberal international order itself that receives the killing blow.

I do not claim to have all the answers on how to defend Taiwan. I do not have access to the military plans of Washington, Tokyo, or Canberra. But I can name what I see: a deliberate accumulation of facts on the ground by Beijing, a systematic attempt to normalize a maritime and aerial presence that erodes Taiwanese sovereignty millimeter by millimeter, and a West that prefers strategic ambiguity over moral clarity.

The Numbers Speak for Themselves

Since June 1, 2026, Chinese coast guard vessels have been patrolling near-continuously in the waters east of Taiwan — a zone historically excluded from Beijing's direct sphere of coercion. On June 25, 2026, 14 PLA aircraft sorties were detected in a single day, with 10 crossing the median line. The aircraft carrier Liaoning just completed its longest deployment in the South China Sea and western Pacific — more than 40 days. The PLA Daily published, on June 22, the first official image of the hypersonic DF-17 missile equipped with the DF-ZF glide vehicle — designed precisely to destroy enemy air defense networks. And the EU confirmed that China has trained Russian soldiers on drones and demining in Ukraine.

These facts are not isolated incidents. They are pieces of a puzzle we are assembling in real time. And the picture taking shape is not reassuring.

I will be direct: the West is underestimating China the way it underestimated Russia in 2021. We see the signals, we catalogue them, we write reports — and we hope the problem resolves itself. It will not. China has a strategy. It has a timeline. And it is advancing. It is time our leaders spoke with the same clarity as analysts at ISW or AEI.

The Strategy of Progressive Fait Accompli

What makes China's strategy toward Taiwan particularly formidable is precisely that it avoids triggering a direct Western military response. Beijing is not staging a spectacular invasion that would instantly galvanize Taiwan's allies. It advances in successive layers of normalized presence: coast guard patrols, then escorted research vessels, then environmental surveys, then "law enforcement operations," then military exercises moving progressively closer.

Each step is presented as a response to a Taiwanese or foreign "provocation." Each step, taken in isolation, seems "manageable." The cumulative effect is catastrophic. ISW documented this mechanism in its report of June 26, 2026: China is seeking to normalize its presence in the waters east of Taiwan the same way it normalized its presence around the Kinmen Islands since 2024 — what analysts call the "Kinmen model." If the Kinmen model extends to eastern Taiwan, the island will be practically encircled by a permanent Chinese military and paramilitary presence.

The Ongoing Political Influence Operation

AEI documented on June 26, 2026, the existence of a network of 163 inauthentic Facebook pages broadcasting pro-Beijing content targeting Taiwanese voters ahead of the November 2026 local elections. China does not need to invade Taiwan if it can install Beijing-friendly local governments through electoral subversion. And beyond local elections, opposition parties in the Taiwanese Parliament — some with links or conciliatory positions toward Beijing — blocked the 2026 defense budget for over nine months, delaying critical weapons purchases.

The combination of gray-zone military operations, internal political subversion, and budget obstruction constitutes a multi-domain attrition strategy whose effectiveness surpasses that of a frontal invasion, which would inevitably provoke an international response. This strategy is more dangerous precisely because it is less visible.

The blocking of Taiwan's defense budget by opposition parties — and China's social media influence operation to manipulate local elections — reveals something fundamental: China understands democracies better than democracies understand China. It uses the mechanisms of democracy against democracy itself. That is the real challenge of the 21st century: protecting our institutions without betraying them in the very act of defending them.

Beyond Microchips: A Question of Freedom

The world knows that Taiwan manufactures approximately 90% of the world's most advanced chips used in global industry — through TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company). This economic dependency is documented and constitutes an economic deterrent against a Chinese invasion. But reducing the defense of Taiwan to a question of semiconductor supply chains is to miss what matters most.

Taiwan is a living democracy. With its 23 million people, its universal healthcare system, its press freedom, its free elections, its remarkable civic engagement — Taiwan represents what a Chinese-speaking society can achieve without the constraints of an authoritarian regime. Its destruction as a free political entity would send a devastating message to every democratic force in Asia: you can fight, but if Beijing decides you have grown too strong, you will fall.

The Pacific Chain and Indo-Pacific Stability

Strategically, Taiwan is a central link in the first island chain — the line of island bases that has structured the defense of the western Pacific since the end of World War II. If Taiwan came under Chinese control, the People's Liberation Army Navy would gain direct access to the western Pacific without passing through the Taiwan Strait — an incalculable strategic advantage that would upend the naval balance across the entire region. Japan, the Philippines, Australia, and South Korea would find themselves in a fundamentally different defensive position than today.

That is why nations as different as Japan, the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, France, and New Zealand have maintained a naval presence in the South China Sea and the western Pacific. That is not provocation. It is the expression of those nations' vital interest in maintaining a rules-based international order rather than the law of the strongest.

I know that this position will earn me the label of "warmonger" or Western ethnocentrism in certain circles. But here is my response: defending the right of a democracy to exist without being annexed by a dictatorship is not "warmongering." It is elementary international morality. Taiwan has never threatened anyone. China, for its part, deploys aircraft carriers to Taiwan's doorstep and trains foreign armies. The responsibility for the tension is not symmetrical.

Military Exercises and Arms Sales

Taiwan conducted its combat readiness exercises from June 22 to 26, 2026, the most realistic in its history. Its first domestically built submarine continues sea trials. It launched HIMARS systems into the Taiwan Strait during recent exercises. The United States notified Congress of a new arms sale to Taiwan. The Valiant Shield and Resolute Dragon exercises with Japan run through July 1. The Pentagon expanded its list of Chinese military companies.

But one essential element remains missing: strategic clarity. The United States deliberately maintains ambiguity over its commitment to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion. That ambiguity, which may have been useful during the Cold War to preserve flexible stability, has become a source of vulnerability in a context where Beijing seeks to calculate precisely the cost of action. If Beijing believes Washington will hesitate, the risk of a catastrophic miscalculation grows.

What Europe Must Do Now

Europe, preoccupied with the security of its eastern flank and the war in Ukraine, has long viewed Indo-Pacific affairs as secondary. That perception must change. The confirmation that China is training Russian soldiers on drones and demining reveals that the two theaters — Ukraine and Taiwan — are linked by the Moscow-Beijing authoritarian axis. This is not two separate wars. It is a single strategy to contest the Western international order, waged on two fronts.

European countries sending vessels into the Pacific — France with its aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, the United Kingdom with its frigates — are making the right call. Those that view the "Indo-Pacific as none of our business" are making the same type of error as their predecessors who thought "Ukraine is none of our business" in 2021. We know how that story ends.

I am not blind to the difficulty of the European position: defending Ukraine, funding one's own rearmament, managing relations with Trump, and now engaging on Taiwan — all simultaneously, with populations increasingly weary of conflicts and defense spending. That is a lot to ask. But geopolitical reality does not wait until we are ready. It is playing out now. And if Europe does not invest in Indo-Pacific deterrence today, it will pay the price of that avoidance tomorrow, when China has concluded that the West only defends its immediate neighbors.

The Axis of Aggressors Expands

The threat does not come from China alone. North Korea has sent 10,000 soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, according to Zelensky. Kim Jong-un, on June 25, 2026, called for a "destructive" military posture and announced new weapons tests. Pyongyang has received technology transfers from Moscow in exchange for its soldiers and ammunition, according to analyses by ABC and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. South Korea is responding by building an army of "drone warriors" — 500,000 soldiers trained to operate 20,000 drones.

This trilateral axis — Russia, China, North Korea, with Iran as a fourth partner — is not a coincidence. It is the deliberate construction of an anti-Western bloc that tests our capacity for simultaneous multi-front responses. The democratic alliances — NATO, AUKUS, QUAD — are the institutional answer. But their effectiveness depends on the political will to use them.

The Signal the West Must Send

The NATO summit in Ankara on July 7–8, 2026, will be an opportunity to clarify the Alliance's defensive commitments. But NATO alone cannot defend Taiwan — that is an Indo-Pacific theater requiring different frameworks. What NATO can do is send a signal of cohesion and resolve that discourages Beijing from concluding that now is the moment to act while the West is distracted. That signal includes defense spending, joint military exercises, and — most importantly — the willingness to name China for what it is: the primary long-term threat to global security.

This is not hatred of the Chinese people. It is a clear-eyed assessment of the Chinese Communist Party regime, which has chosen to use its country's economic growth to fund a war machine and a regional expansion strategy. These two things — respect for the people and clarity about the regime — can coexist.

I want to name something that diplomats and politicians carefully avoid: the problem of Taiwan is, at its core, a problem of Western political will. We have the means to deter Beijing. We do not yet have the collective will to deploy them clearly. Every time Washington maintains strategic ambiguity to protect economic interests with Beijing, every time a European capital refuses to send vessels into the Pacific, every time a leader avoids naming China as a threat to avoid "provoking" — we weaken deterrence. And weakened deterrence is an invitation to miscalculation.

The Hour of Clarity

China is the greatest threat to the liberal international order in the medium and long term. That is not a controversial opinion among serious strategists. It is the conclusion of dozens of independent analyses, Pentagon reports, allied intelligence services, and reputable academic institutions. What is controversial is drawing the political consequences from it. This editorial argues that we do exactly that — now, while there is still time to build the deterrence architectures that will make a Chinese invasion of Taiwan too costly for Beijing.

That much, at least, is not in dispute. The record is written in actions, not in intentions. History will judge the choices made here — not the speeches delivered, but the decisions taken, the weapons sent or withheld, the alliances honored or abandoned. That is the standard that applies.

Taiwan Must Know the West Is There

The Taiwanese people, who face daily military and psychological pressure from their giant neighbor, deserve to know that the West considers them a valued partner and not a sacrificeable geopolitical pawn. Surveys show that 44.9% of Taiwanese believe their security depends above all on strengthening their own defense capabilities, with a comparable share citing cooperation with the United States. That determination deserves to be honored with concrete action — unambiguous arms sales, clearly defensive military exercises, and diplomatic engagement that leaves no doubt about Western priorities.

Naming the danger is the first act of resistance — that is what I wrote as my conclusion heading. The West spent years refusing to name Russia as an existential threat to European security. We are still paying the price of that silence. We cannot afford to repeat the same mistake with China. Calling China the primary threat to the liberal international order is not a new Cold War. It is elementary geopolitical lucidity. And lucidity is the beginning of every effective strategy.

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.