A new open letter challenging The Atlantic’s article “Will Taiwan Just Give Up?” identifies several points that require qualification, particularly Taiwan’s drone legislation, Starlink’s nonoperation and President Lai Ching-te’s travel. It does not establish that every disputed passage is false. Several broader claims about political identity, the context of a legislator’s military service and the meaning of Kinmen’s history remain matters of interpretation or unresolved factual dispute.
By Land Offset PAI
Sept. 22, 2026
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim said Taiwan would not provoke China but would not compromise its freedoms or democracy under pressure, as a dispute continued over a recent Atlantic article’s portrayal of Taiwan’s politics, defense preparedness and public resolve.1
In a Sky News interview aired Sept. 21, Hsiao said the Chinese Communist Party was coercing Taiwan and that the threat of force was unacceptable. Asked about Chinese gray-zone activity, she said: “We will not provoke, but at the same time, we will not yield by compromising our basic freedoms and our democracy.” She called for a more dynamic effort to strengthen and fortify Taiwan. The comments state government policy and intent; they are not a readiness assessment or evidence of how Taiwanese people would behave in a war.1
Sasha B. Chhabra’s Sept. 21 Formosa Review open letter asks The Atlantic to correct passages in Simon Shuster’s Sept. 8 article, “Will Taiwan Just Give Up?” The letter argues that the article oversimplifies the Kuomintang, or KMT, misstates the Starlink situation, uses an outdated account of drone funding and presents incomplete travel and historical context. The open letter is an advocacy document, not an independent fact-check, but some of its narrower corrections are supported by the public record.2 3
Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan did act on unmanned-systems funding before The Atlantic article appeared. On Aug. 27, lawmakers passed the Act on Strengthening Defense Autonomy and Developing the Unmanned Vehicles Industry. The law calls for six annual budgets totaling NT$240 billion in principle, normally NT$40 billion a year, and directs the Defense Ministry to prioritize Taiwanese-made low-cost, high-performance systems for military use.4
The vote did not appropriate NT$240 billion immediately or adopt the Cabinet’s separate NT$210 billion special-budget proposal. The measure still requires annual appropriations and implementation. Thus a description of parliament as still simply deadlocked over drone spending after Aug. 27 was outdated, while a claim that the law had fully funded or operationalized the entire program would be equally inaccurate.4
The Starlink dispute also requires narrower attribution. Starlink was not operating in Taiwan in July, but AFP reported that Taiwanese requirements for a local chairperson and a 49% foreign-ownership cap had deterred the company. Lawmakers were advancing a case-by-case exemption process, while Taiwan’s digital affairs minister said Starlink had indicated limited commercial interest in the market. The record supports a regulatory and commercial impasse; it does not establish either a unilateral Taiwan-wide ban or a personal decision by Elon Musk to deny service for a China-related reason.5
The official record confirms that Lai completed a state visit to Eswatini from May 2 to May 5 after what his office described as temporary external pressure. It does not, by itself, resolve the attribution for disruption to an earlier itinerary. The accurate formulation is that the planned travel was disrupted or postponed and that Lai later made the visit, with responsibility for the disruption attributed where claimed rather than presented as settled fact.6
Some of the letter’s other complaints cannot be resolved as simple corrections. “Kuomintang” and “Chinese Nationalist Party” are standard English renderings of the KMT’s name, while the political significance of “Taiwanese Nationalists,” Blue and Green labels, and current KMT identity requires more context than a single label supplies. The open letter’s assertion that DPP legislator Puma Shen was misquoted is an allegation about interview context; without a full transcript or recording, it is not independently verifiable. Likewise, calling the 1949 Battle of Kinmen part of “Taiwan’s origin story” is contested historical framing, not a literal claim that Taiwan’s history began in 1949.2 3
Survey evidence also does not support predictions of surrender or certain resistance. A March 2025 Institute for National Defense and Security Research survey of 1,285 Taiwanese adults found 41% said they were “very willing to fight for Taiwan,” 51% supported raising the defense budget and 59% supported continued U.S. arms purchases. At the same time, 65% considered a People’s Liberation Army attack within five years unlikely and 47% thought U.S. military intervention unlikely. The telephone survey, conducted by National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center, carried a stated margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.73 percentage points.7
Those responses measure attitudes under specified survey conditions, not future behavior under blockade, invasion, casualties or occupation. The evidence therefore supports a more limited conclusion than either side’s broadest claim: public confidence in outside support and Taiwan’s defense capacity is contested, but the available polling does not show that Taiwanese voters have accepted Beijing’s terms or that resistance in a war is assured.7
The original lead was Sasha Chhabra’s LinkedIn post linking to the Formosa Review letter.8