Written by Yenting Lin.
Image credit: 賴清德/ Facebook.
There is no doubt that baseball is a Taiwanese national passion. In March 2026, Taiwan’s run in the World Baseball Classic again pulled the entire country into a shared moment. Taiwan finished 13th with a 2–2 record, including a 5–4 extra-inning win over South Korea and a 14–0 blowout of the Czech Republic. This came only one year after the 2024 WBSC Premier12 championship, which had already triggered nationwide celebration. Baseball in Taiwan is a “national passion,” and international tournaments reliably generate surges in attention, including roughly 24 per cent increases in domestic league attendance in the following season. Let us use this moment to ask one question: Is our system really healthy?
Take a step back. Why is baseball so popular in Taiwan? The answer is colonial history and political construction. Baseball in Taiwan originated during Japanese colonial rule and was later promoted as the national sport (國球) under the Republic of China. Cases such as KANO (嘉農) in 1931 and the Hongye Little League Team (紅葉少棒隊) in 1968 established baseball as a symbol of national identity. This legacy continues, but in a transformed form. Today’s popularity is driven less by grassroots participation and more by event-based consumption. The current baseball wave is strong enough that lawmakers have debated placing national team players such as Chen Chieh-hsien (陳傑憲) and Lin Yu-min (林昱珉) on the NT$500 bill. At the same time, the domestic league relies heavily on entertainment. Cheerleading performances and spectacle drive stadium attendance. Fans engage intensely during major events but not consistently across seasons. Baseball remains culturally dominant, but its foundation has shifted from sport to entertainment.
Why can a sport become diplomacy and politics? Taiwan’s participation in international sport is constrained by the requirement to compete under the name “Chinese Taipei.” This is not just symbolic. It is actively political. On March 7, 2026, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) travelled to the Tokyo Dome to watch Taiwan compete. This was the first visit by a sitting Taiwanese premier to Japan since 1972. The trip triggered domestic political backlash, with opposition lawmakers questioning its timing, while misinformation about Japan’s reaction circulated and required official clarification. Earlier cases, such as the 2018 name rectification referendum and the cancellation of the 2019 East Asian Youth Games, already showed these limits. The 2001 Baseball World Cup was also used by the government to promote identity and manage domestic sentiment. These appearances function as domestic political signalling and international positioning. At the same time, they trigger debates about name rectification and Taiwan’s international status. This topic can easily expand into a full book and become politically sensitive very quickly, so it stops here.
Taiwan’s baseball system is shaped by political clientelism and state–business networks. The system is divided between the Chinese Professional Baseball League (中華職業棒球大聯盟, CPBL) and the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (中華民國棒球協會, CTBA). Compare this with other systems. Major League Baseball operates as a unified commercial structure controlling development, media, and competition. Japan created Samurai Japan as a joint platform linking professional and amateur baseball into a single national brand. Korea’s system is centrally organised through corporate ownership. In Taiwan, coordination depends on political negotiation rather than institutional design. Key actors such as Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌), who served as commissioner of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) since 2021 and Jeffrey Koo Jr. (辜仲諒), the president of the Baseball Federation of Asia (BFA), represent this dual structure of politics and capital. This limits long-term planning and prevents a unified industry strategy. The system is not just divided. It is structurally constrained.
Admit it or not, Taiwan does not treat sports as a full industry. It treats them as entertainment. The system lacks an integrated pipeline similar to the NCAA in the United States. There is no large-scale athletic education system producing talent while generating revenue. The broader ecosystem is incomplete. Taiwan lacks specialised sports lawyers, agents, and analytics firms needed to support a modern professional league. As a result, growth remains shallow. The league can generate attention and short-term revenue, but cannot scale into a high-value industry. We might not see a Taiwanese version of Shohei Ohtani in the near future under this structure.
You might blame corruption in the past, but its effects continue today. The 1996 Black Eagles case (黑鷹事件) and the 2009 Brother Elephants scandal (黑象事件) nearly destroyed public trust. These were not isolated events but embedded in social networks based on trust and personal relationships. This legacy continues. In August 2024, CPBL players, including Tseng Chuan-sheng (曾傳昇), Kuo Tien-hsin (郭天信), Chang Cheng-yu (張政禹), and Tseng Chun-yueh (曾峻岳), were investigated or disciplined for involvement in underground poker environments. One player was indicted, and multiple suspensions followed. These cases did not involve match-fixing, but they exposed weak professional boundaries. The implication is clear. The system still struggles to separate professional sport from informal social networks. This creates reputational risk and discourages large-scale investment.
What about development constraints? There are hard and soft limits. Hard constraints include weak minor league systems, limited regional training infrastructure, and an unstable amateur-to-professional pipeline. These directly limit talent development. Soft constraints reinforce the problem. Coaching systems often prioritise short-term winning over long-term athlete development. Sports science and psychological training are not fully integrated. Cultural pressure favours academic success over athletic careers. Together, these constraints produce a system that can generate talent but struggles to sustain development pathways.
What about progress? Have we really improved beyond hiring more cheerleaders? There is some movement. The proposed Ministry of Sports (體育部), backed by Lai Ching-te (賴清德) with a budget target of around NT$20 billion, signals intent. However, execution depends on approval in a divided Legislative Yuan (立法院). Funding for sports development has become a partisan bargaining chip. Programs such as Sports Vouchers (動滋券) and Sports Coins (運動幣) provide consumer subsidies. These increase short-term engagement but do not build structural capacity. They do not fix governance fragmentation or create investment incentives. Taiwan is funding consumption, not production. Long-term sports development requires stable and predictable investment, but funding is tied to short-term political negotiation. Even when the state recognises the importance of sports, it lacks the institutional capacity to implement a consistent policy.
There is no strong culture in Taiwan of fathers and sons playing catch together, including me. What we do have are shared memories of watching games at home, eating dinner, drinking beer in dorms with friends, or opening a small screen at work just to follow the game, all hoping that this time we beat South Korea. Taiwanese baseball is highly popular, politically visible, and capable of generating national moments. The 2026 World Baseball Classic and the 2024 Premier12 show that the system can produce attention and results. The issue is structural. Governance is fragmented, development systems are weak, and the industry lacks depth. Political involvement increases visibility but does not resolve these problems. Taiwan has been successful. The question is whether the system itself is strong enough to sustain it. We can, and we should do better, starting now.
Yenting Lin is a second-year Master of Public Policy student at George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. He is an affiliate researcher at the PiVoT Peace Lab at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and a collaborator on a National Science Foundation Security and Preparedness grant proposal. His research focuses on how authoritarian states use social media platforms to monitor, coerce, and shape public discourse, with a focus on Taiwan and China. He also examines the cross-strait security dilemma between Taiwan and China. He received his Bachelor of Social Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees from National Chung Cheng University in Taiwan.