The Red Leaf Express

Last Tuesday, China’s foreign minister called America’s top diplomat — and the two governments came away with two different phone calls. Beijing’s readout carried a pointed warning about Taiwan. Washington’s readout did not mention Taiwan at all. This week: Beijing raised its voice on Taiwan three times in three days — a phone call, a speech, and a law. In the same three days, Washington’s officia...

On Tuesday, China's newest aircraft carrier — the Fujian — transited the Taiwan Strait. That sentence has appeared in news feeds before. It will appear again. And each time it does, the instinct is to file it under provocation, under pressure, under the weekly drumbeat of Chinese military activity around Taiwan. That instinct is not wrong. But this week, it may be incomplete. Because the Fujian di...

This past week, two things were true about the world at the same time. The first: markets surged. A peace deal was signed. Oil prices fell. Taiwan’s stock market hit all-time highs — twice. The economy is now expected to grow nearly ten percent this year. A respected Swiss business school ranked Taiwan the fourth most competitive economy on the planet. By every measure that usually gets reported,...

Five hours. That's how long it took this week for Donald Trump to go from threatening to bomb Iran's Kharg Island — the island that handles roughly ninety percent of Iran's oil exports — to announcing on social media that the United States and Iran were about to sign a peace agreement. Five hours, on the eve of his eightieth birthday. Around the same time, three thousand kilometers away, six Chine...

In the summer of 2026, the United States sent seventeen of its most powerful business executives to Beijing. The list included the CEOs of Nvidia and Qualcomm — the two American companies most directly affected by US chip export controls on China. It included the head of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager. It included the chiefs of Visa and Mastercard. Seventeen people who between them r...

On May 27th, the leaders of Japan and the Philippines sat down in Tokyo and signed a joint statement. They agreed to elevate their relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership — deeper intelligence sharing, military equipment transfers, coast guard cooperation. And they agreed to begin formal negotiations to draw a maritime boundary between them in the waters east of Taiwan. Three days la...

In March 1996, China fired ballistic missiles into the waters off Taiwan's coast. Not at Taiwan. Near it. The target was the psychology — a message delivered to every Taiwanese voter preparing to cast a ballot in the island's first-ever direct presidential election: look at what proximity to us costs you. Look at what your democracy is worth to us. The voters looked. Over ten million of them. Seve...

Taiwan's president, Lai Ching-te [LYE CHING-tuh], is delivering a speech. It is the one-year anniversary of his inauguration. And the word he uses to describe himself — the political identity he claims in public, on this day, in this moment — matters more than it has at any point in his presidency. Not because of anything Taiwan did this week. Because of what happened in Beijing. -- Hosting provid...

Taiwan's economy is flashing red — and this week, red means boom. Record GDP forecasts, record stock gains, record labor fund returns. But in the same week: oil crossed a hundred dollars, a French container ship paid Iran in yuan to cross the Strait of Hormuz, and Taiwan's opposition leader flew to Beijing. Here's what it all looks like from Taipei. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

But a 34-kilometer strait now has a toll booth, and the costs are already transmitting through everything from jet fuel, electricity bills and plastic bags. Meanwhile, China is running three simultaneous campaigns while the world watches Hormuz — AI-driven information warfare, yuan oil settlement undermining the petrodollar, and political influence reshaping the Indo-Pacific's architecture at Boao...

In 1996, a group of policy advisers wrote a strategy document for a newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu. It was called A Clean Break. It named Iraq, Syria, and Iran as targets to be removed — not negotiated with. Thirty years later, one name remains on the list. And the clock appears to be running. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Iran closed the world's most important oil chokepoint without a navy — just drones, IRGC commanders, and insurance underwriters in London. Taiwan's waters carry nearly half the world's container fleet. This week, we ask the question nobody is saying out loud: has Iran just handed Beijing a playbook for something far cheaper than an invasion? -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Iran closed the world's most important energy chokepoint — not with a navy, but with cheap drones and the insurance market. Joey unpacks the paradox at the heart of the Hormuz crisis: a weapon powerful enough to send oil past $109 a barrel, but one that points at everyone — including the hand holding it. And what Taiwan should be reading in all of this. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Taiwan's stock market hit its year-end target in February. The HALO trade is real — hardware wins when AI can't replace the physical. But this week, the US lost in court and launched a war eight days later. Germany flew to Beijing underprepared. The architecture looks intact. The question is whether it still is. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

America's Supreme Court just struck down Trump's tariffs. Taiwan's trade deal survived. The chips are still moving. So why does this feel like the wrong kind of good news? This week, the Red Leaf Express traces the historical pattern underneath the headlines — and asks whether Taiwan is making 1935 calculations in a 1939 world. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Japan's Takaichi wins the biggest electoral mandate since WWII. Five days later, Taiwan commits $250 billion in overseas semiconductor investment. Everyone covered these as separate stories. They're not. Joey Chou examines how Japan is quietly becoming the anchor of a new East Asian order—and what that means for Taiwan. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

The U.S., Japan, and Taiwan launched their most coordinated rare earth move the same week seven European leaders flew to Beijing. One group's building for 2027. The other's hedging now. And Xi Jinping just purged his last rival while Trump fights midterm math. Guess who's racing whom. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

As world leaders queue in Beijing and Canada's Mark Carney declares a new "values-based realism" that abandons democratic principles, what happens to those who bet on solidarity? Joey Chou examines the shifting global order and speaks with former Czech Parliament Speaker Markéta Pekarová Adamová about small-country survival in an era of great power deals. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

When America's closest allies—Canada, UK, Finland, South Korea—make their first Beijing visits in seven years, it signals more than diplomacy. Mark Carney's standing ovation at Davos revealed the truth: middle powers are hedging against American unpredictability by building partnerships with China. The rules-based order isn't evolving—it's ruptured. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

Venezuela wasn't invaded because of Maduro—it was invaded because it was already broken. This week, we apply that lens to Japan and Taiwan. As the US retreats to the third island chain and economic cracks widen, what happens when small states lose the leverage that keeps them safe? -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

The US Venezuela operation wasn't about Maduro's crimes—it was a resource grab and capability demonstration aimed at China. But the real danger isn't that Beijing will copy this playbook for Taiwan. It's that we're normalizing decapitation operations as acceptable—and US allies are quietly jumping ship. -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

EP001 examines China’s Justice Mission 2025 drills around Taiwan and asks why escalation now feels routine. It breaks down what made the drills operationally significant, why international reactions were muted, and how a G2 world is reshaping crisis management. The episode warns that public numbness—not panic—is Taiwan’s greatest strategic risk, and previews an in-depth interview with defense expe...