Taiwan Trajectories in 2026: Domestic Debates and Foreign Policy Pivots

Taiwan enters 2026 at a moment of profound political intensity, strategic uncertainty, and shifting geopolitical currents. At home, policy discourse is highly fluid. Episodes of institutional paralysis, contentious budget negotiations, and the political reverberations of the Great Recall have sharpened debates over governance and accountability. The opposition’s recalibration following the 2025 KMT chair election has added new layers to partisan competition, while the Lai Administration’s efforts to balance economic transformation with social welfare commitments continue to animate discussions about the nation’s development. Together, these dynamics have produced a domestic arena marked by both political contestation and remarkable civic engagement.

These debates unfold against a backdrop of mounting external pressure. China–Japan diplomatic frictions and Beijing’s increasingly ambitious military signaling—including large-scale exercises such as Justice Mission 2025—have heightened global anxieties about the future of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. At the same time, Taiwan’s foreign policy community is grappling with evolving international dynamics, including the United States’ intensified focus on Latin America and its more assertive rhetoric regarding the use of military intervention. These shifts have sparked vigorous discussion in Taipei about alliance signaling, democratic resilience, and the durability of Indo-Pacific stability amid competing global priorities.

To illuminate these intersecting forces, the Sigur Center for Asian Studies is convening a timely conversation with multidisciplinary experts to explore how Taiwan’s domestic political debates, security pressures, and diplomatic recalibrations are shaping its governance and strategic trajectory in 2026. We invite you to join us for this important and forward-looking discussion!

Panel I: Domestic Politics & Contestation in Taiwan

Lucy Best, Director of China Practice, Albright-Stonebridge Group

"Homes in Uncertain Times: Taiwan’s Housing Crisis and the Politics of Cross-Strait Tension," Yi-Ling Chen, Associate Professor of International Studies and Geography, the University of Wyoming

Kitsch Liao, Kitsch Liao, Associate Director of the Global China Hub, Atlantic Council

Panel II: Taiwan’s Foreign Relations & Policy Pivots

Bonnie Glaser, Managing Director of the Indo-Pacific Program, the German Marshall Funds

"US-Taiwan Relations in the First Year of the Second Trump Administration and Beyond,"
John Tai, Professorial Lecturer of International Affairs, the George Washington University

Leland Lazarus, Independent Consultant, Lazarus Consulting

About the Speakers

Lucy Best

Lucy Best is a Director in DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group’s China Practice, where she advises clients in the healthcare, technology, and agricultural sectors on regulatory and geopolitical developments in China and Taiwan. Previously, she was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations, focusing on Chinese foreign policy and domestic politics, and a Contributor for the research service Trivium China, where she profiled elite Chinese political leaders. In 2022, she received a Blakemore Freeman Fellowship to study Mandarin at National Taiwan University’s International Chinese Language Program. Her writing focuses on topics including Taiwanese politics and cross-Strait affairs and has been published by The Diplomat, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Global Asia, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Yi-Ling Chen

Yi-Ling Chen is an Associate Professor in the School of Politics, Public Affairs, and International Studies at the University of Wyoming, USA. Prior to joining the University of Wyoming, she taught for eight years at National Dong Hua University in Taiwan. She has been actively involved in Taiwan’s housing movement since the Snail Without Shell movement in 1989. Her research focuses on neoliberalism, urban social movements, gender, housing, and urban development in Taiwan, with her publications primarily examining housing and urban transformation from political-economic and feminist perspectives. In 2019, she and LSE professor Hyun Bang Hsin edited Neoliberal Urbanism, Contested Cities, and Housing in Asia (The Contemporary City) with Palgrave Macmillan. Her recent publications were on policy mobility, comparative housing studies, housing financialization, and Taiwan’s housing policies. Her recent research explores crises of housing and social reproduction in East Asia, social housing movements in the United States, and continues to observe the development of social housing in the Netherlands.

Kitsch Liao

Kitsch Liao is an associate director of the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Liao worked in the US Congress, in diplomatic postings, and as a cyber intelligence analyst for the private sector. He is also the cyber and military affairs consultant for Taiwan’s Doublethink Lab. He has worked on various projects with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Institute of National Defense and Security Research, the US Department of Defense, and Janes on topics including Taiwan’s order of battle; China’s chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear capability; and Chinese disinformation and cyber espionage operations.

Liao has also published with various journals and media outlets including the Diplomat, Jamestown China Brief, National Interest, among others. Liao has also provided commentary for media outlets such as the New York Times, Financial Times, Deutsch Welle, and Al Jazeera.

He received an MA in international affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and a BSc from Taiwan’s National Chengchi University.

Bonnie Glaser

Bonnie Glaser is managing director of GMF’s Indo-Pacific program. She is also a nonresident fellow with the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia, and a senior associate with the Pacific Forum. She is a co-author of US-Taiwan Relations: Will China's Challenge Lead to a Crisis (Brookings Press, April 2023). She was previously senior adviser for Asia and the director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Glaser has worked at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics and US policy for more than three decades.

From 2008 to mid-2015, she was a senior adviser with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, and from 2003 to 2008, she was a senior associate in the CSIS International Security Program. Prior to joining CSIS, she served as a consultant for various U.S. government offices, including the Departments of Defense and State. Ms. Glaser has published widely in academic and policy journals, including the Washington Quarterly, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, International Security, Contemporary Southeast Asia, American Foreign Policy Interests, Far Eastern Economic Review, and Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, as well as in leading newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and in various edited volumes on Asian security. She is currently a board member of the U.S. Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She served as a member of the Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board China Panel in 1997. Ms. Glaser received her B.A. in political science from Boston University and her M.A. with concentrations in international economics and Chinese studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

John Tai

Dr. John Tai is Senior Advisor, Pamir Consulting LLC. He is also a Course Coordinator (McColm consultant) at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State, where he teaches courses on China and Taiwan. For nearly 12 years, he supported the U.S. intelligence community as an open-source analyst. Earlier in his career, John had served as an East Asia analyst at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. He had also advised the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth. He is the author of Building Civil Society in Authoritarian China (Springer, 2015) and has written on China’s technological, political, and economic developments, China's maritime strategy, Taiwan’s military diplomacy and its external relations, and South Korea's relations with the United States and China.

Leland Lazarus

Leland Lazarus holds a strong academic foundation in International Relations, with a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University and a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, specializing in the Asia-Pacific region and international organizations.

He complements his expertise with executive certifications in Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain from MIT Sloan School of Management, integrating emerging technologies into his geopolitical analysis.

With extensive experience in national security and diplomacy, Leland has held key roles such as Associate Director of National Security at Florida International University, leading projects with the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) and developing AI tools to monitor China’s influence in Latin America.

He served as the Special Assistant and Speechwriter for two four-star SOUTHCOM Commanders and as a U.S. diplomat in China and the Caribbean, representing the U.S. Department of State in critical international missions.

In addition to his role as founder and CEO of Lazarus Consulting, Leland is Vice Chair of the National Board of the Fulbright Association, is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.

Fluent in Mandarin and Spanish, he regularly appears as an analyst on international media outlets such as NBC, BBC, and The Wall Street Journal, establishing himself as a leading expert on U.S.-China relations, China-Latin America dynamics, risk mitigation, and strategic communication.

About the Moderators

Bruce Dickson

Professor Dickson received his B.A. in political science and English literature, his M.A. in Chinese Studies, and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan. He joined the faculty of The George Washington University and the Elliott School in 1993.

Professor Dickson's research and teaching focus on political dynamics in China, especially the adaptability of the Chinese Communist Party and the regime it governs. In addition to courses on China, he also teaches on comparative politics and authoritarianism.

His current research examines the political consequences of economic reform in China, the Chinese Communist Party’s evolving strategy for survival, and the changing relationship between state and society. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the US Institute of Peace, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Richard Haddock

Richard J. Haddock is the Assistant Director of the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at the George Washington University, where he leads the Center’s robust Taiwan affairs programming, outreach, and curriculum development. He is also a member of the UC Berkeley U.S.-Taiwan Next Generation Working Group, where his research focuses on U.S.-Taiwan education diplomacy and exchange. Previously, he has held positions at the GW East Asia National Resource Center, the National Democratic Institute’s Asia team, the American Institute in Taiwan’s Public Diplomacy Section, and the U.S. Department of State. Mr. Haddock is currently pursuing a PhD in Public Policy and Public Administration at The George Washington University, focusing on digital democracy and e-governance development in the Asia-Pacific. He holds an MA in Asian Studies from the Elliott School, with a concentration on domestic politics and foreign policy of East Asia. He graduated from the University of Central Florida with a BA in Political Science and minors in Asian Studies and Diplomacy.

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