In a latest article for The Diplomat, Mor Sobol provided an even-handed evaluation of the talk set off by Simon Shuster’s piece in The Atlantic, which requested whether or not Taiwan would possibly merely “surrender” underneath rising strain from China. Sobol argued that each Shuster’s pessimistic reply and his critics’ assured rebuttals relaxation on thinner proof than both aspect acknowledges.
Sobol identified that telling a pollster “I’d defend Taiwan” may be very totally different from making that call when missiles are falling, and that Taiwan shouldn’t be a unitary actor. The query price asking is how the traits in public opinion, navy recruitment, protection spending and different metrics transfer over time, not what any single snapshot exhibits.
I agree. As a scholar who research Taiwanese protection attitudes with survey knowledge, I wish to add proof exhibiting why the much-discussed “willingness to combat” has, to a point, misled exterior observers. The issue with polling shouldn’t be that attitudes can’t be measured. It’s that pollsters preserve asking essentially the most superficial query. “Would you combat?” captures a sentiment. What decides whether or not that sentiment interprets into motion is whether or not residents imagine the circumstances for sacrifice are in place. These circumstances could be measured, tracked over time, and damaged down by group.
After we try this, the image is extra troubling than both the optimists or the pessimists counsel, although for various causes.
Residents by no means settle for the dangers of warfare unconditionally. They participate in what I name a Protection Social Contract, which rests on three pillars, all of them vitally essential.
The primary pillar is belief within the state. Folks will sacrifice for a authorities they imagine governs competently and pretty, and for a rustic they imagine has a future price defending. When residents really feel the state has failed them, its declare to extraordinary sacrifice loses legitimacy.
The second pillar is belief in each other. Protection is a public good, and public items invite free-riding. I’ll maintain the road provided that I imagine my neighbors will too. Meaning the burden have to be shared, fairly than some Taiwanese being anticipated to serve whereas others are exempt. Resistance should even be the frequent explanation for all Taiwanese, not the property of 1 political camp.
The ultimate pillar is belief that resistance can work. Going through a much more highly effective adversary, residents of a small democracy should imagine their very own navy is succesful and that allies will arrive in time. Sacrifice that appears futile turns into fatalism.
If anyone pillar offers means, professed willingness to combat stays a sentiment and by no means turns into motion.
What the Surveys Present
All three pillars could be measured. To take action, I used two nationally consultant waves of the Taiwan Nationwide Safety Survey (TNSS), fielded in June 2024 and September 2025, with 2,745 respondents in whole. This makes it attainable to do what Sobol recommends: monitor change over time and look inside the combination. The timing deserves emphasis. The 2024 survey was fielded a few month after President Lai Ching-te took workplace. The 2025 survey was fielded a few month after the ultimate spherical of Taiwan’s Nice Recall votes, a nationwide effort to recall all legislators from the Kuomintang (KMT) that in the end failed.
The TNSS immediately asks respondents what they’d truly do if China invaded. One choice is to “let nature take its course” (shun qi zi ran). That reply shouldn’t be give up, and it’s not a rejection of Taiwan. It’s withdrawal: wait and see. I name it fatalistic passivity. Between the 2 waves, the share of Taiwanese selecting it rose from about 26 % to almost 37 %.
From 2024 to 2025, the TNSS outcomes confirmed that each one three pillars weakened or got here underneath pressure.
On belief within the state, the share of respondents who mentioned the nationwide financial system had gotten worse rose from 31 to 48 %. Damaging financial evaluations are strongly related to passivity, though the affiliation weakens as soon as different elements are taken under consideration.
The share who doubt Taiwan’s navy might defend the island by itself rose from 69 to 74 %. Confidence within the navy and the expectation of U.S. intervention are among the many strongest and most constant predictors of decrease passivity throughout each mannequin. Passivity is highest amongst these pessimistic on each counts.
Lastly, there’s belief in fellow Taiwanese. Respondents who imagine “most Taiwanese would resist” are a lot much less more likely to choose to “let nature take its course.” Predicted passivity falls from about 36 % amongst those that assume their compatriots undoubtedly wouldn’t resist to about 25 % amongst those that assume they undoubtedly would.
Crucial discovering, nonetheless, shouldn’t be the numbers themselves. It’s the breakdown of the survey outcomes alongside political traces. Amongst respondents who recognized with the KMT, expressions of passivity rose from 22 % in 2024 to 40 % in 2025, an 18-point soar. That distinction holds after controlling for nationwide identification, unification-independence preferences, confidence within the navy, expectations of U.S. help, financial evaluations, and demographics. Amongst Democratic Progressive Social gathering (DPP) identifiers, it rose from 26 to 30.5 %, a change statistically indistinguishable from zero. The 13.6-point hole between the 2 trajectories is statistically vital.
I wish to stress what this does not imply, as a result of the discovering is simple to misinterpret. On its face, it may appear to indicate that KMT supporters love Taiwan much less or are much less prepared to defend it. That’s not correct. In 2024, KMT identifiers had been truly barely much less fatalistic than DPP identifiers. In different phrases, in the beginning of Lai’s presidency, KMT supporters confirmed no signal of giving up on Taiwan’s protection just because the DPP had gained one other time period.
In neither wave is the partisan hole by itself statistically vital. Each surveys happened underneath a DPP authorities, with KMT supporters in opposition all through. The divergence between June 2024 and September 2025 subsequently means that one thing modified over these 15 months in how the opposition camp pertains to the DPP authorities.
Between the 2 surveys, Taiwan went by greater than a 12 months of fierce executive-legislative battle, ending within the 2025 Nice Recall. Advocates framed the marketing campaign to take away 31 KMT legislators as a protection of nationwide safety towards Chinese language infiltration. Opponents noticed it as an try to overturn an election end result. All 31 recall votes failed. The September 2025 survey was fielded weeks later.
The partisan hole was already there. In each waves of the TNSS, KMT identifiers had been about 20 factors much less possible than DPP identifiers to imagine most Taiwanese would resist (roughly 61-63 % versus 80-82 %). In each the DPP and the KMT, the share who imagine “most Taiwanese would resist” barely moved from 2024 to 2025. A considerable share of the citizens had already misplaced confidence that the burden can be shared.
However folks’s personal willingness to behave did change, and it fell most amongst supporters of the KMT, whose political opponents had been presenting nationwide safety as a partisan trigger.
Survey knowledge can not show that any single occasion induced the shift. However when the language of nationwide safety turns into a weapon in home political fight, this sample ought to come as no shock.
What We Ought to Be Monitoring
My studying is that the issue for Taiwan’s protection shouldn’t be a scarcity of will however a scarcity of unity. It is extremely exhausting to ask residents to threat their lives alongside folks they already dislike and mistrust in on a regular basis politics, or to sacrifice for a authorities they see as a political adversary. The TNSS doesn’t immediately measure cross-partisan belief, so this interpretation wants additional testing. It matches the proof, although: a society that also sees itself as one nation however is more and more uncertain it could actually combat as one.
To gauge Taiwan’s willingness to combat, Sobol argued for watching habits: recruitment, retention, reserve coaching, and civil protection participation. I strongly agree. I’d add three units of attitudinal indicators that come earlier than this habits and assist clarify it.
Do supporters of each occasion imagine that the federal government asking for sacrifice governs pretty and competently, and that the nation has a future?
Do residents imagine the burden is shared? Conscription reform, reserve obligations, and civil protection have to be seen as common, not selective. Nationwide safety should cease getting used towards political opponents. Leaders of all events ought to cease branding each other as Beijing’s proxies and will negotiate protection budgets and reforms as cross-party agreements.
Are allied indicators constant? Taiwanese should imagine they will maintain out till assist arrives. Combined messages from Washington or Tokyo harm the very pillar my knowledge determine as most important. Allies also needs to have interaction Taiwan’s main events evenly, in order that exterior help shouldn’t be seen as backing one camp.
These indicators ought to be damaged down by occasion, age, gender, and area, and tracked throughout survey waves. If habits and attitudes transfer collectively, throughout numerous segments of society, we will belief them extra. If the combination holds regular whereas a part of society quietly pulls again, we’re what I name “fragile resilience.”
So is Taiwan giving up? The proof says no. Taiwanese nonetheless determine with their nation, and most nonetheless count on their compatriots to withstand. What the information present is a society pulling aside. Fatalism rose most sharply amongst those that determine with the KMT, whose legislators had simply been focused in a marketing campaign that solid nationwide safety as a partisan trigger.
This polarization is more durable to see; the headline quantity on willingness to combat gained’t seize it. It’s additionally harmful. Beijing doesn’t want Taiwanese to embrace unification. It solely wants sufficient of them to resolve that the warfare belongs to another person.
However pulling aside can be simpler to repair than giving up. It’s a political downside, and political issues have political cures: a authorities that earns belief throughout occasion traces, a protection burden that everybody shares, and allies whose indicators don’t waver. The destiny of 23 million folks is dependent upon whether or not Taiwan’s leaders can rebuild a protection contract that residents throughout the political spectrum imagine in.
Nobody can save a small democracy that can’t stand collectively, nonetheless many polls say it’s prepared to combat.