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The geopolitical environment Taiwan has faced in the last few years — an increasingly assertive China, an unpredictable US — has only become more complex in 2026 with the consequences of the war on Iran prosecuted by the US and Israel. Taiwan is vitally dependent on external energy supplies, many of which need to transit the Hormuz Strait, including direct inputs for Taiwan’s crucial semi-conductor industry. The internal political machinations of 2025 have now settled into a permanent gridlock, which has informed commentators increasingly worried. Government action — including in defence — has become bogged down by party polarisation, and political discussion in general has become more fraught.

The 2026 Taiwan Update brings together scholars to address these and other issues vital to understanding where Taiwan stands now. Chun-yi Lee, Director of the Taiwan Research Hub at the University of Nottingham, UK, examines the semi-conductor industry and geopolitics, the subject of her forthcoming monograph. Ching-hsin Yu of the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University, Taipei, looks at how Taiwan’s democratisation is threatened by both external threats and internal polarisation. Mark Harrison from the University of Tasmania, and Australia’s pre-eminent scholar on Taiwan, discusses the level of knowledge of Taiwan within Australia’s national discourse and considers the roles and responsibilities of Taiwan Studies today. Rosemary Haddon from Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa/ Massey University in Aoteroa New Zealand takes us back to the Nationalist (Kuomintang) era and post-Martial Law Taiwan to examine the formation of Taiwan’s identity.

Pivotal in the cultural expression of a new Taiwanese identity was film. This year we present a restored version of The Sandwich Man from 1983, in which three of the major nativist writer Huang Chun-ming’s short stories are transferred to the screen. Regarded as foundational in Taiwan’s new wave cinema, the story that gives the film its name was directed by the great director Hou Hsiao-hsien. The Sandwich Man will be introduced by Andrew Pike OAM, the eminent film historian and director, who also formed Ronin Films, the film distribution company that has introduced many of the most important East Asian films to Australasia, beginning in the 1970s.

THE 2026 ºÚÁÏÌìÌÃTAIWAN UPDATE PROGRAM

Acknowledgement
The Taiwan Update is an initiative under the ºÚÁÏÌìÌÃTaiwan Studies Program 2025-28, which is a partnership between the College of Asia and the Pacific at ºÚÁÏÌìÌà and the Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan).