Článek EVC briefs Czech legislators about Russian and Chinese escalation options se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek EVC briefs Czech legislators about Russian and Chinese escalation options se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek AI Diplomacy in Action: Taiwan–Paraguay’s “Yguazú Digital” Project se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Photo: President Lai Ching-te meets President Santiago Peña. Source: Office of the President
What’s happening?
On his fourth visit to Taiwan, Paraguayan President Santiago Peña announced a joint “50-50” partnership with Taiwan to develop one of the world’s largest AI data center projects in Paraguay. The project will be developed under a binational entity named “Yguazú Digitall” and is framed as the world’s first government-to-government plan to jointly build AI computing facilities. According to the proposal, the center will help Paraguay develop its AI industry and meet rising global demand for computing power and clean energy. The agreement proposes a “Digital Data Embassy” that would give the AI data center’s servers and data Yguazú Digital protections to secure and safeguard the information. The project can be understood as part of Peña government’s “Digital Transformation” project which aims to turn Paraguay into a regional technology hub.
What’s the broader picture?
Through this project, Taiwan is expanding its integrated diplomacy by leveraging national strengths in technology and digital innovation. Taiwan frames this as a flagship example of sustainable development, as it will be powered by Paraguay’s surplus hydroelectric energy.
The integrated diplomacy approach envisioned by President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), which aims to realize values-based diplomacy and transform Taiwan into a thriving global economic powerhouse, mirrors Paraguay’s Digital Transformation initiative.
Of course, this is not the first project Taiwan has collaborated on in Paraguay. The Health Information System (HIS), developed jointly by the International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) and Paraguayan partners, is now in use in more than 1000 public healthcare facilities across the country. The success of this program may have given Taiwan the confidence to initiate and expand projects of this scale in the country.
This ambitious project can also be considered part of Taiwan’s new diplomatic vision under the so-called Double-12 structure. The Double-12 (總合外交雙12) in Taiwan is a way of organizing integrated diplomacy proposed by Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung. The first 12 refer to key foreign policy directions, such as strengthening ties with its official diplomatic allies, expanding participation in international organizations, and promoting regional security and economic cooperation. The second 12 focus on like-minded countries and practical areas of implementation. The project’s emphasis on sovereign AI aligns closely with these broader diplomatic and technological objectives.
Needless to say the project is not without detractors, some of whom have raised concerns about Paraguay compromising its energy sovereignty. Several Paraguayan experts have also questioned whether the country possesses the human capital necessary to benefit from such an advanced technological investment. Members of Paraguay’s AI sector have warned that the project risks becoming disconnected from local realities because Paraguay currently lacks enough trained engineers, researchers, and AI specialists to support an ecosystem of innovation around the infrastructure. Instead of creating a broad-based knowledge economy, the project could depend heavily on foreign expertise and imported labor.
Nonetheless, from Taiwan’s perspective, the significance of this project cannot be overstated. It represents not only a political and economic partnership, but also an opportunity to deepen Taiwan’s presence in South America through its only diplomatic ally in the region. In doing so, Taiwan seeks to position itself as a leader in green digital infrastructure.
Why does it matter?
The proposal is compelling: Taiwan’s technological expertise would be combined with Paraguay’s clean energy resources to create an alternative model for AI infrastructure development. In theory, the project aligns with and advances both countries’ strategic visions for AI development. If successful, it could reinforce Taiwan’s image as a promoter of sustainable AI infrastructure and serve as a model that could be replicated elsewhere.
As a result, the project may serve as a litmus test for Taiwan’s broader ambitions in AI diplomacy and digital infrastructure development, demonstrating whether large-scale technology partnerships can translate diplomatic vision into sustainable local outcomes that extend beyond the label of “green infrastructure.” Ultimately, its success will depend on whether the necessary legal framework, social sustainability considerations, and local development objectives are integrated throughout the implementation process. Only then can the project achieve both environmental and broader societal sustainability goals.
Článek AI Diplomacy in Action: Taiwan–Paraguay’s “Yguazú Digital” Project se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek Tarnished Pride and Tarnished Rights: China’s active crackdown on LGBTQ+ se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Photo: by Olimpia Kot
What is happening?
Characterized by colorful flags and marches, the month of June sees diversity and LGBTQ+ rights celebrated worldwide.In China, however, the Pride scene is rather bleak. According to Le Monde, Beijing’s Institut Français, the French cultural center, was forced to cancel the screening of two French films featuring homosexual themes due to the constant harassment of Chinese authorities. From a phone call from police concerning the usage of the term “Pride Month” to a demand that identities of the attendees be shared with the authorities, the response was a demonstration of how authoritarian states like China utilize their power to undermine universal human rights that are portrayed as “foreign forces” interfering with“national ideologies.”
What is the broader picture?
The crackdown on the LGBTQ+ community in China has been ongoing since the 2020s, showcasing the Chinese government ability to stifles those voices it deems are representing “foreign forces, “as was the case with the Institut Français films. However, domestic organizations face even greater pressure with the mobilization of local authorities.
Regardless of these organizations’ flexibility to navigate within the Chinese government’s red lines by, for example, refraining from holding rallies and adopting a more subtle tone, they remain at the mercy of the authorities’ arbitrary rules. This year marks the fifth consecutive year since the shutdown of ShanghaiPRIDE, a Chinese LGBTQ+ nongovernmental organization that once held Pride gatherings and promoted Chinese queer experiences. The reason for the organization’s prohibition remains undisclosed. “Members of ShanghaiPRIDE were under huge pressure,” stated Raymond Phang, one of the NGO’s founders. “It became increasingly hard to execute as an organization.” Similar developments came with other LGBTQ+ organizations, such as the Beijing LGBT Center. Grassroots activists were discouraged due to detention and constant threats toward their family members and friends from police officials. Many activists even fled the country.
Another distinct tactic of the Chinese government is the manipulation of patriotic public opinion and the maneuvering of state-controlled media censorship. On Chinese social media platforms, such as Weibo (微博) and Rednote (小紅書), netizens are no strangers to censored words, as the Chinese government uses censorship as a means of controlling narratives aligned with its interests and ideology. Controversy erupted in 2025, when Voice of homosexual (同志之聲), an LGBTQ+ advocacy account on Weibo, was accused of tarnishing China’s Communist ideology through the use of the term tongzhi (同志), which means “comrade” but is also the slang term for “homosexual.” Not only was the formal term for “homosexual” (同性戀) censored, but the account was branded as a “foreign force,” and portrayed as actively undermining the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s authority in conformity with “Western Values.” Moreover, research from the Chinese Rainbow Network shows that search results for “Pride Month” remain censored across Chinese social media platforms such as Red Note (小紅書) and Douyin (抖音). Accounts from which celebrations of Pride Month were posted have been removed, and some users have even started to use the euphemism “Humble Month” as a way of dodging Chinese censorship.
It is worth noting that while commercial establishments with LGBTQ+ themes remain hands-off, activities and organizations connected to advocacy are being actively targeted. Not only does this asymmetrical approach create a seemingly inclusive facade that is “pinkwashing” China’s reputation, but it also signals its drastic control over personal freedom and freedom of speech.
Why does it matter?
Pride celebrates the freedom to be; however, the dead silence around what should be a parade of inclusivity irrefutably highlights the Chinese government’s denial of pluralism. This crackdown is an embodiment of the CCP’s policy of “telling the Chinese story well(講好中國故事),” a movement endorsed by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), which, in essence, involves turning media into a state propaganda machine.
The chilling effects of these maneuvers are limited neither to China’s estimated 75 million LGBTQ+ individuals nor to the rest of its population; with the disruptive nature of AI and transnational repression, democratic societies are susceptible to attacks on freedom of expression and personal liberty. Extra caution is, thus, required, especially while China actively infiltrates major international organizations, while bluntly undermining universal human rights.
Článek Tarnished Pride and Tarnished Rights: China’s active crackdown on LGBTQ+ se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek New Front Opened: Clash over Waters East of Taiwan se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Photo: Canva.com
What is happening?
Over the course of this month, Beijing has intensified its maritime presence in the waters east of Taiwan, acting as though this region of the Pacific Ocean falls under the jurisdiction of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This behavior comes in response to recent negotiations between Tokyo and Manila on the delimitation of their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), a process promoted as another step toward strengthening relations between the two capitals. The proposed zones, however, also overlap with waters Taiwan declares a right to, while PRC simultaneously unlawfully claims them as its territory.
The following intensified activity from PRC vessels in the region can be interpreted both as an assertive territorial claim and as a warning to neighbors not to challenge Chinese territorial interests. Yet, this behavior has no legitimate legal basis and has been condemned by the U.S. as well as United Kingdom, France, and Germany due to the threat to regional stability and freedom of navigation.
What is the broader picture?
Since Beijing considers the Republic of China (ROC) part of its sovereign territory, it strongly criticized the announcement of official talks between Japan and the Philippines on the delimitation of the maritime boundary between Yonaguni Island and Mavulis Island, located in the waters east of Taiwan, arguing that without its own participation, such negotiations would be illegitimate. Nevertheless, this position has been called unreasonable by Japanese experts on maritime law, as it is common practice for two states to delimit their maritime boundary before addressing overlapping claims involving a third party. Although Taipei initially also sought to participate in the negotiations, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) later stated that Taiwan’s rights in the relevant waters are protected, citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as well as existing fisheries agreements with the two countries in question.
Chinese denial is not only rhetorical. Since the beginning of June, China’s Coast Guard (CCG) has intensified patrols east of Taiwan, describing them as “maritime traffic law enforcement.” By June 24, it had inspected around 200 passing vessels, demonstratively asserting PRC jurisdiction over the area. Taipei described the behavior as “harassment” of merchant ships and questioned the legitimacy of the Chinese presence.
Notably, two CCG ships also entered the Japanese EEZ off Yonaguni island and remained there for over a day. While trespassing by Chinese government vessels is not unusual, this case included a notable nuance. When confronted by the Japanese Coast Guard, for the first time the CCG crews boldly claimed that the waters fall under Beijing’s jurisdiction, significantly increasing bilateral tensions.
Lastly, Beijing dispatched a maritime survey vessel to the waters in question, presenting the mission as a “marine environmental survey.” Two CCG vessels escorted the expedition, which mapped undersea conditions, including marine chemistry and hydrometeorological patterns, officially labeled as efforts to protect the marine environment. However, at the heart of this supposedly noble cause there is a collection of data that could support submarine operations and undersea detection capabilities. This is particularly significant for the PRC, as the area forms a strategic maritime chokepoint that would be highly relevant in any future blockade or military operation involving Taiwan.
Why does it matter?
Beijing is continuously intensifying its efforts to expand maritime control over the South China Sea and beyond, gradually normalizing the presence of its vessels in disputed waters. Its assertive activities within the Nine-Dash Line ignore international law, while attempts to resist are met with economic pressure or targeted sanctions.
Aggressive Chinese policies have arguably strengthened the opposing bloc – one example being the development of the Japan–Philippines relationship into a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, which includes close military cooperation. In this game of chicken, however, it is important that the opposing states, including the European democracies, do not back down too soon and also strike back, for fear that China loses any remaining restraints on its expansionist behavior.
Článek New Front Opened: Clash over Waters East of Taiwan se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek Exclusion of Taiwan from the Interpol Structures Webinar se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>This webinar explores the implications of Taiwan’s exclusion from Interpol and its broader impact on international law enforcement cooperation, democratic resilience, and transnational security. Bringing together experts from Europe and Taiwan, the discussion examines how Taiwan engages with international partners despite institutional constraints and what lessons can be drawn for democratic cooperation in an increasingly complex security environment.
Participants discuss Taiwan’s international cooperation in law enforcement, including bilateral and multilateral mechanisms that facilitate judicial and legal assistance despite the absence of formal participation in Interpol. The conversation also addresses Taiwan’s practical cooperation with international police structures through information exchange, capacity-building initiatives, and operational coordination with like-minded partners. Finally, the webinar examines how the People’s Republic of China leverages Taiwan’s exclusion from international organizations as a tool of transnational repression and the broader implications of these practices for democratic resilience.
Although Taiwan remains excluded from Interpol, it continues to maintain substantive legal and judicial cooperation with democratic partners. Agreements such as the 2016 judicial cooperation and mutual legal assistance treaty between Taiwan and Poland and the 2019 memorandum of understanding on judicial cooperation between Taiwan and the Czech Republic demonstrate how effective frameworks for collaboration can be established outside formal international organizations.
Speakers:
- Kai-Chieh (KJ) Hsu (許凱傑), a judge in the National Security and Military Division of the Taipei District Court in Taiwan
- Athena Tong, a visiting Researcher at the University of Tokyo, Research Associate and Programme Lead at the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI)
- Matej Šimalčík, Executive Director of Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS)
Článek Exclusion of Taiwan from the Interpol Structures Webinar se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek Bilateral Cooperation Helps Taiwan to Offset Interpol Exclusion se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Photo: Taipei City Police Department patrol scooters, by Olimpia Kot
Taiwan’s exclusion from Interpol, alongside other international organizations, presents a persistent challenge to international law enforcement efforts. Not having access to Interpol’s policing infrastructure means that Taiwan is unable to rely on resources like criminal intelligence sharing and analysis, access to databases on criminal suspects and stolen property (including passports) and use the well-known Red Notice mechanism to secure arrests of suspects with a view to extraditing them to face criminal proceedings in Taiwan.
This is particularly worrisome given Taiwan’s position in global trade and logistics networks. Taiwanese ports are an important node in Indo-Pacific shipping lanes, connecting Taiwan’s vital industries with the rest of the world. However, as with anywhere else, the logistics sector attracts criminal activity — for example, drug trafficking or the smuggling of goods in order to circumvent export control measures, such as those aimed at preventing China’s access to AI chips.
Taiwan builds its own legal cooperation network
Combating organized transnational crime requires an organized transnational response. Barred from using formal Interpol mechanisms, Taiwan must rely on bilateral contacts through which it builds its own legal cooperation network.
The majority of Taiwan’s bilateral contacts with external partners in the field of criminal justice can be categorized as informal experience sharing. These activities are mostly focused on key partners such as the U.S., Australia, or the EU and its member states.
For instance, in 2023, Taiwanese Justice Minister Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) met with officials from the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust) — the bloc’s equivalent to Interpol — to spur closer cooperation on judicial matters and combating crime.
While criminal justice is considered a shared competence in the EU system, the bulk of the responsibility lies with member states. Thus, besides engaging Eurojust, engaging member state officials is a crucial element of Taiwan’s efforts to build a robust partnership network.
As recently as May 2026, officials from Estonia, France, Germany, and Poland participated in the International Conference on Strengthening Cross-border Cooperation in Transnational Crime, which was held in Taipei.
In March 2025, a delegation led by head of Germany’s Bamberg High Prosecutors Office, Wolfgang Grundler, visited Taiwan to gain insight into the country’s guidelines on combating fraud and the investigation of trade secrets crimes in the high-tech sector.
Three years earlier, in March 2022, Slovakia co-organized with Taiwan, Australia, Japan, and the U.S. a virtual workshop on combating digital crimes. Nearly 300 law enforcement officials from 32 countries took part in the initiative, which focused on best practices to counter cyber financial crimes.
Formal judicial cooperation and legal assistance still not the norm
While valuable, these engagements offer only a partial fix, as they do not constitute formal pathways for judicial cooperation and other forms of mutual legal assistance. Due to Taiwan’s lack of diplomatic recognition, and pressure from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to eschew official engagements with Taiwan, only a handful of states have signed international treaties with Taipei on judicial cooperation, legal assistance, and extraditions.
In Europe, six states have entered into formal arrangements with Taiwan: Denmark, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, and the UK. In case of the treaties with the UK (concluded in 2016), Denmark (2019), and Switzerland (2020), the deals are focused on transfers of sentenced persons. Taiwan has similar agreements in place also with other key partners, like the U.S. (its main security guarantor) or Paraguay (one of the few states officially recognizing Taiwan).
Only the agreements with Poland (2019), Slovakia (2021), and Germany (originally signed in 2012, expanded in 2023) can be considered relatively comprehensive deals. These treaties deal with a broader range of topics, including transfers of sentenced persons, provisional arrests, legal assistance (such as the serving of documents and taking of evidence, etc.), or formalized information sharing pathways. In the case of Poland and Slovakia, the treaties also includes extradition provisions.
Photo: Taiwan-Europe legal cooperation in criminal matters, source: CEIAS
Whether any country agrees to including an extradition element to their legal cooperation with Taiwan is noteworthy for three reasons:
- Criminal jurisdiction is deeply tied to a state’s monopoly on violence — a prerogative to lawful use of force on its territory — and thus its sovereignty. By agreeing to an extradition, a state gives up its judicial sovereignty in favor of another state. Extradition agreements with Taiwan therefore carry symbolic weight, as they imply de facto recognition of Taiwan’s statehood and expand its international space.
- Extradition is both a legal and political process. It typically requires consent from both the judiciary (as a court assesses the legal permissibility of an extradition) and executive authorities (as the minister of justice makes a political decision to carry out an extradition). While extraditions can proceed without a corresponding international agreement in place, purely based on domestic laws, a lack of treaty turns extraditions into a less predictable and potentially more politically arbitrary process. By signing an extradition treaty, the executive signals to the judiciary that it considers the other party a reliable partner with whom extraditions are expected to proceed in a smooth and predictable manner.
- In case of Taiwan, an extradition treaty can offer an extra layer of protection to Taiwanese citizens against surrendering them to the PRC. In 2017, PRC requested to extradite a Taiwanese national, Liu Hung-tao (劉鴻濤), from Poland on grounds of suspected commitment of telecom fraud. While Warsaw initially consented, the European Court of Human Rights later overruled the extradition over fears that Liu would be subjected to torture, or to inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment. Following the implementation of the Taiwan-Poland agreement, Liu was extradited to Taiwan instead for further criminal proceedings.
Way forward
As bilateral legal cooperation helps Taiwan to overcome, at least partially, its exclusion from Interpol, as well as to achieve goals of expanding its international space and shielding its nationals from extraditions to the PRC, broadening such collaboration should be among Taipei’s top priorities.
In Europe, countries that are already open to engaging Taiwan beyond economic cooperation would be natural candidates for this type of cooperation: France, Czechia, and Lithuania are among the most open partners of Taiwan in Europe, yet none of the have a criminal legal cooperation mechanism in place with Taiwan. Other prospective candidates would be the Netherlands (cooperation is crucial for enforcing semiconductors exports control and related prosecution of evasion attempts), Estonia and Romania (both of which recently signaled openness to broader engagements with Taiwan), or Belgium (which recently successfully carried out ad hoc evidence-taking cooperation with Taiwan in a drugs case).
To improve the odds of this agenda being taken on by Europeans, Taiwan needs to better signal that it subscribes to same rule-of-law standards. Working with European states on achieving membership of the International Criminal Court would be one example of a relatively low hanging fruit. Adopting a moratorium on the use of death penalty — which the EU repeatedly voices concerns about — while pursuing a path towards full abolition, would be an even stronger signal of normative convergence, albeit domestically unpopular.
Matej Šimalčík
Matej Šimalčík, Executive Director, Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS). His research focuses on China’s economic and political influence in Central Europe, elite relations, corrosive capital, and the role of European legal instruments in mitigating risks posed by China. He has a background in Law and International Relations and was listed in the Forbes 30 Under 30 (Slovak edition) in 2021. He is also a member of the Expert Pool at the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE), and the European Think-tank Network on China. In 2025, he became a visiting fellow at the Institute of National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) in Taipei under the Taiwan Fellowship program.
Článek Bilateral Cooperation Helps Taiwan to Offset Interpol Exclusion se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek The locked door Beijing built se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Photo: Criminal Investigation Bureau, Taiwan. Source: Wikimedia Commons
When the world marks the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on June 26, law enforcement agencies will celebrate cooperation as the antidote to transnational crime. Yet, one of the Indo-Pacific’s most capable policing partners will, once again, be locked out of the room. Taiwan has been excluded from Interpol since 1984, and that exclusion is not the passive, regrettable gap it is often described as. It is a door Beijing deliberately built and bolted shut: an act of coercive lawfare that degrades global security while advancing the fiction that Taiwan does not exist.
The mechanics are worth recalling, because they reveal intent. Taiwan was an Interpol member from 1961 until 1984, when the organization recognized the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole representative of China. Since then, as neither member nor observer, Taiwan cannot access Interpol’s I-24/7 communications network or its 19 criminal databases. When Interpol’s 93rd General Assembly convened in Marrakech in November 2025, Taiwan was shut out once more, despite a sustained campaign by its diplomatic partners for observer-level access. Cut off from real-time data, Taiwan’s own police authorities report that the intelligence they can obtain is often “out of date and incorrect,” and that they are forced to rely on the police forces of friendly countries to relay alerts on their behalf. On World Drug Day the cost comes into focus, as synthetic-drug precursors, laundering networks and trafficking routes move through the Indo-Pacific faster than those workarounds can follow. The blind spot is mutual, when Taiwan cannot transmit an urgent alert, every member state loses the intelligence it would have carried, and the gap becomes one Beijing has engineered into everyone’s security.
What makes this more than a procedural dispute is the way exclusion operates alongside abuse. Beijing invokes the “One China” principle to bar Taiwan from any body that implies statehood, yet treats the same institution as a weapon when it suits. Interpol has been repeatedly weaponized against the diaspora — textbook transnational repression — with Red Notices and diffusions deployed against dissidents, Uyghur activists and former officials who expose corruption, often to coerce “voluntary” returns by pressuring relatives back home, a pattern that continues to draw scrutiny in 2026. The same logic reaches Taiwanese nationals abroad: In disputes from Kenya to Spain, fraud suspects holding Taiwanese passports have been deported to the PRC rather than to Taipei, with Beijing asserting jurisdiction over people Taiwan regards as its own. Repression of individuals and erasure of the polity are twin faces of a single project, and the exclusion does the quieter work in the form of cognitive warfare. A door kept shut long enough makes people forget anyone was meant to walk through it, and the same erasure across the Worls Health Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, and every comparable forum gradually turns absence into the appearance of non-existence. Each exclusion becomes the precedent for the next.
The most effective rebuttal to that narrative is that cooperation with Taiwan plainly works. Locked out of the multilateral system, Taipei has built its own web of bilateral judicial arrangements, anchored by a mutual legal assistance agreement with the United States, and extended through joint investigation, asset-forfeiture and videoconference-hearing mechanisms with European partners including Poland and Germany. The results are operational, not theoretical. Working with Montenegro in 2020, Taiwanese police helped arrest 92 suspects who had defrauded more than 2,000 victims; parallel operations with Turkey and Vietnam followed against rings coercing migrants into scam compounds. Taiwan’s cyber units and counter-narcotics police also sit astride the fraud and money-laundering networks now metastasizing in Southeast Asia. Momentum is building on the political track too, with bipartisan U.S. legislation introduced in November 2025 directing the State Department to develop a strategy for Taiwan’s Interpol membership, while observer status remains the realistic compromise.
For European partners, the lesson is direct. Every bilateral arrangement signed with Taipei chips away at the premise that Taiwan can be safely erased, and every forum that names the problem refuses Beijing the silence its strategy depends upon. The locked door at Interpol is not a sign of Taiwan’s failure to qualify, it is a vulnerability Beijing engineered into the shared security of democracies. The question facing those democracies is not whether to do Taiwan a favor, but whether they will keep treating its participation as a concession to be debated or recognize it for what it is: protection against a threat that is already at their doorstep.
Athena Tong
Athena Tong is a Visiting Researcher at the University of Tokyo, Research Associate and Programme Lead at the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI), Nonresident Vasey Fellow at Pacific Forum, and an Indo-Pacific Young Leaders Program Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Her research focuses on economic security, critical infrastructure resilience, and PRC political warfare in the Indo-Pacific, with particular attention to Taiwan, Japan, and the broader regional security landscape. She was previously a Visiting Scholar at Taiwan’s Research Institute for Democracy, Society, and Emerging Technology (DSET). Her work examines the intersection of geopolitics, information resilience, and strategic competition in East Asia.
Článek The locked door Beijing built se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek Taiwan, Interpol, and the Democratic Security Blind Spot se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Photo: AI Generated
While Taiwan’s exclusion from Interpol is often treated as a diplomatic dispute, it should be understood as a security vulnerability. Increasingly, it reflects deeper gaps in global security coordination, institutional resilience, and democratic responses to transnational threats.
As transnational crime, cyber threats, financial crime, and authoritarian interference continue to expand across borders, Taiwan’s exclusion from international policing mechanisms creates practical vulnerabilities within the broader international security system. This concern has already been reflected in bipartisan policymaking in the United States. In 2015, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation supporting Taiwan’s participation in Interpol as an observer by a bipartisan vote of 392–0. The logic behind such support is fundamentally pragmatic rather than symbolic.
Taiwan is the world’s 22nd largest economy and a major transportation and trade hub in the Indo-Pacific. Its passport holders enjoy visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to more than 130 jurisdictions. Taiwan occupies a central position within Indo-Pacific flows of trade, technology, finance, and logistics. Excluding Taiwan from international law enforcement coordination, therefore creates what is effectively a “data island” inside the global policing architecture. In practical terms, this means limited access to real-time databases, wanted-person alerts, stolen travel document information, and secure police-to-police communication channels.
What is the broader picture?
The recent European experience shows why such gaps matter. In July 2025, Eurojust and Europol coordinated a major cross-border operation against the pro-Russian cybercrime network NoName057(16), which had launched DDoS attacks against critical infrastructure and public institutions during politically sensitive moments, including events linked to Ukraine, European elections, and NATO. The operation involved authorities across multiple European jurisdictions, the disruption of more than 100 servers, searches and seizures in several countries, and the issuance of international arrest warrants. The case illustrates that modern cyber-enabled threats require rapid judicial and operational coordination, cross-border evidence collection, and real-time law-enforcement information sharing. Taiwan’s exclusion from international policing mechanisms therefore creates not only a diplomatic anomaly but also a practical security gap within the wider democratic security network.
Yet the deeper concern lies beyond operational inefficiency. When Taiwan lacks equal participation within Interpol’s framework and review procedures, Beijing gains greater opportunities to shape narratives, restrict information flows, and exploit asymmetries within international legal cooperation systems. Particularly concerning is the potential politicization of mechanisms such as Interpol’s Red Notices. Democratic governments and human rights organizations have repeatedly warned that authoritarian regimes may misuse international legal instruments to target dissidents, activists, journalists, religious groups, business figures, and diasporic communities abroad.
This demonstrates that transnational repression is no longer confined to covert intelligence activities alone — it also operates through administrative systems, legal procedures, and institutional manipulation. In this sense, international legal cooperation mechanisms themselves are becoming contested spaces within broader geopolitical competition. Taiwan’s exclusion therefore, illustrates a broader challenge facing democratic governance systems: whether international institutions can remain functionally neutral when authoritarian states treat governance mechanisms themselves as instruments of strategic competition.
Despite its exclusion from Interpol, Taiwan has developed alternative forms of international law enforcement cooperation that provide important lessons in democratic resilience. Mechanisms such as Criminal Liaison Officers (CLOs) and Drug Liaison Officers (DLOs) have become central pillars of Taiwan’s transnational security strategy.
Compared to traditional bureaucratic channels, these liaison networks often provide greater speed, confidentiality, and operational flexibility. Through direct cooperation with agencies such as the FBI, DEA, and regional counterparts in Southeast Asia, Taiwan has established effective channels for combating cross-border fraud, narcotics trafficking, money laundering, cybercrime, firearms smuggling, and organized criminal activity. These networks are built not only upon formal agreements, but also upon long-term operational trust and reciprocal cooperation between practitioners.
Why does it matter?
At a time when authoritarian states are increasingly attempting to penetrate international institutions and reshape global governance norms, Taiwan’s experience highlights the importance of decentralized democratic cooperation. Functional participation, trusted liaison mechanisms, and operational interoperability may prove just as important as formal membership structures in defending the integrity of international security systems.
Such “parallel cooperation architectures” may become important as authoritarian states attempt to politicize international institutions and distort global security governance. Taiwan’s experience demonstrates that democratic resilience can also emerge through practical trust networks and operational partnerships among like-minded democracies.
Ultimately, the issue is not only whether Taiwan deserves inclusion based on fairness alone, but also whether democratic societies can afford the institutional vulnerabilities, informational blind spots, and security fragmentation created by Taiwan’s continued exclusion.
In an era defined by transnational threats and authoritarian influence operations, politically motivated exclusion from global security cooperation mechanisms does not merely affect Taiwan itself. Over time, such institutional blind spots may weaken coordination, trust, and operational coherence across broader democratic security networks.
Kai-Chieh (KJ) Hsu (許凱傑)
Kai-Chieh (KJ) Hsu is a judge in the National Security and Military Division of the Taipei District Court in Taiwan. He previously served as a visiting scholar at New York University School of Law and as a visiting fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C. His work focuses on national security law, lawfare, gray-zone risk governance, and the protection of critical technologies and patent strategy in the context of economic security. He has been invited to engage in domestic and international policy exchanges on these issues. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Management at National Taiwan University.
Článek Taiwan, Interpol, and the Democratic Security Blind Spot se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek EVC unsuccessfully targeted by Chinese intelligence se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>In summer 2025, EVC was approached by a person pretending to be an American journalist working for news agency Associated Press. Later on, this person using a fake cover of a journalist tried to have EVC Director Jakub Janda log into a fake website and also offered funding for a possible consultative trip.
EVC was alarmed by this action, did not take the bait and notified Czech National Cyber and Information Security Agency (NÚKIB), which investigated this case. Later on, NÚKIB confirmed that the attacker indicators overlap with a Chinese state actor targeting entities cooperating with Taiwan.
Media reported about this case in detail:
POLITICO Europe story in English language
Článek EVC unsuccessfully targeted by Chinese intelligence se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek Seznam Zprávy se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
]]>Článek Seznam Zprávy se nejdříve objevil na European Values Center for Security Policy.
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