Can Taiwan Teach California How to Thrive Under an Authoritarian Power?
The Island Nation Knows How to Navigate Beijing's Threats. The Golden State Could Do the Same With Washington.
Is California becoming another Taiwan?
In asking that, I don’t mean that earthquakes will turn California into an island. Instead, what California and Taiwan share is a problem—the predicament of the halfway country.
Taiwan is in reality an independent nation—in its ambitions, its advanced economy, its democratic government. But many of the world’s countries refuse to recognize it as a separate nation, deferring to mainland China, which claims Taiwan as a possession and responds with bullying and threats whenever Taiwan goes its own way.
California shares some aspects of this half-country conundrum. …
