TAIWAN PERSPECTIVE

Taipei observes the Hormuz blockade with the acuity of an island intimately understanding what strait dependence means. The Taipei Times reports Trump's order with remarkable precision: Iran's "inflexible" refusal to abandon nuclear ambitions as trigger, threat shifting to action in under 24 hours. For Taiwan, the parallel is impossible to ignore—if the US can blockade Hormuz to constrain Iran, can China blockade the Taiwan Strait to constrain Taipei? Taiwan's coverage doesn't make this parallel explicit, but the article's unusual length (889 words for a paper typically running 400) betrays how heavily Taipei weighs the precedent. Every attempted or successful naval blockade redefines international norms on naval force use in quasi-war—and Taiwan has the most to lose if those norms loosen.