Maritime – Taiwan Insight

China’s Maritime Pressure Spans Sea and Screen: Taiwan Needs a Regional Evidence Network

20 August 2026 NGA Shi Yeu

Written by Ming-hui Tang. This article analyses how Beijing combines maritime patrols, AI-generated propaganda, and legal framing to create an illusion of administrative control around Taiwan, Japan, and the Philippines. To counter this strategy of jurisdictional enclosure, it argues that Taiwan must leverage its strategic position to build a public regional evidence network with its neighbours. By standardising real-time data verification, authenticating media, and clarifying international law, Taiwan can convert individual incidents into collective security.

Islands as Breathing Infrastructures: Why Are More Visitors Making Livelihoods More Difficult in Today’s Kinmen?

19 August 2026 NGA Shi Yeu

Written by Chengyu Yang. This essay examines how Kinmen’s surge in cross-strait transit passengers strains local livelihoods and infrastructure without delivering proportional economic benefits. As a passage between Taiwan proper and mainland China, Kinmen acts as a “breathing infrastructure”, a delicate sea-air system easily desynchronised by weather disruptions. Consequently, high passenger volumes exhaust finite transport resources, fuelling tensions between stranded travellers and residents who depend on those same domestic flights for daily life.

Staying Afloat in the Wave of Zero-Fees Policies: Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and its Impact on the Taiwanese Fishing Industry – Part II

18 August 2026 NGA Shi Yeu

Written by Shao-Yun Chang, Vanny El Rahman, and Beatrice Zani. This article (part 2) continues to illustrate how the US-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) and its mandatory “zero-fee” recruitment policies impact Taiwan’s fishing industry. While designed to protect foreign migrant workers from predatory debt bondage, the policy places heavy financial strain on small-scale vessel owners already facing declining yields and rising costs.

Staying Afloat in the Wave of Zero-Fees Policies: Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and its Impact on the Taiwanese Fishing Industry – Part I

17 August 2026 NGA Shi Yeu

Written by Shao-Yun Chang, Vanny El Rahman, and Beatrice Zani. This article (part 1) examines how the US-Taiwan Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) and its mandatory “zero-fee” recruitment policies impact Taiwan’s fishing industry. While designed to protect foreign migrant workers from predatory debt bondage, the policy places heavy financial strain on small-scale vessel owners already facing declining yields and rising costs. Ultimately, the piece highlights how these sweeping regulations risk driving illicit practices without solving systemic supply-chain issues.

Is it Time for Taiwan to Modernise its Commercial Maritime Laws?

26 November 2020 Editor

Written by Jason Chuah. Taiwan, with her economic strength in shipping, could perhaps be likened to a first-class marathon athlete running in the Olympics with flipflops unless it modernises its commercial maritime law. UNCTAD reports in its 2019 Shipping Outlook Report that Taiwan ranks 11 in terms of “ownership of world fleet ranked by dead-weight tonnage.” This is one place above the UK and only two places below the US. In terms of monetary value, it is ranked number seven in the world for ownership of bulk carriers (excluding oil tankers) and in the top 20 ship owning countries by value. Yang Ming and Evergreen are in the top 20 of terminal operators in the global league table.

Cold War Border Politics: Chinese Maritime Captives in Korea during the 1950s

2 October 2019 Editor

Written by Yu-Cheng Shih. The fishing and sailing communities during the Cold War is a long-neglected subject in current Cold War scholarship. For fishers and sailors whose livelihood requires frequent border-crossing, legal documentation became necessary, lest they be arrested as undocumented immigrants or smugglers. In other words, the new Cold War border illegalised a considerable part of these people’s livelihoods.