Assessing Taiwan’s Cultural Readiness for a Potential Conflict With China

In 2025, Michael Hunzeker and Yuster Yu wrote, “Taiwan’s Biggest Problem in Steeling Itself for War With China is Cultural,” where they argued major cultural changes were needed in both Taiwan’s military and civilian society if it were to be competitive in a conflict with China. A year later, we asked them to revisit their arguments.

Image: Taiwan Presidential Office via Wikimedia Commons

In your 2025 article, you argued that major cultural changes must take place in both the officer corps of Taiwan’s armed forces and broader society if Taiwan is to be competitive in a contingency with China. A year later, have we seen any of the cultural changes you advocated for take place? If so, which ones? If not, what is holding these changes back?

We have yet to see a major shift in the culture of Taiwan’s armed forces or its officer corps. Not that we expected to, because changing organizational culture takes time. If anything, given how long it can take for cultural reforms to take root, we would probably be skeptical of anything that Taiwan’s government or military touted as evidence of a dramatic transformation. (The Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense has a habit of declaring that it has suddenly embraced new ways of doing business, often in response to American criticism).

Our goal was to get the conversation started and to identify a few practical first steps forward. What concerns us 18 months on is that the Lai administration does not seem to be doing anything to seriously address the cultural challenge. For example, we suggested that Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te reduce the number of generals and admirals. With roughly one for every 500 troops, Taiwan already had more than twice as many generals and admirals per servicemember as the United States. It should be self-evident that a

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