Beijing is testing who will stand by Taiwan

In 2026, Beijing is making international engagement with Taiwan more costly. China has long sought to narrow Taiwan’s international space and make unification appear inevitable without resorting to force. But this year, that campaign has become broader and more aggressive.

Beijing is no longer only contesting Taiwan’s formal diplomatic recognition or its participation in major international organisations. It is increasingly targeting the everyday channels through which Taiwan engages the world: parliamentary visits, technical conferences, overflight routes, trade meetings, academic exchanges and subnational ties. None of these tactics is entirely new, but 2026 has seen a marked increase in significant incidents and a clearer effort to make routine engagement with Taiwan more difficult.

This is about isolating Taiwan. But it is also about testing US allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific. With President Donald Trump’s rhetoric injecting doubt into US commitments, Beijing is probing whether US allies in the Indo-Pacific are willing to absorb costs to maintain routine ties with Taiwan.

The pattern is a shift from formal exclusion to everyday obstruction:

—In March, Taiwan missed a World Trade Organization ministerial in Cameroon after documentation referred to it as ‘Taiwan, Province of China’ and replacement visas reportedly contained serious errors.

—In April, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te postponed a visit to Eswatini after Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar revoked overflight permissions, which Taipei attributed to Chinese pressure. Lai later made the trip via a circuitous route.

—In May, RightsCon, a major human rights and technology conference scheduled to take place in Zambia, was cancelled after its organizer, Access Now, said Chinese diplomats pressured Lusaka over planned Taiwanese civil-society participation.

—In May, Taiwan was again excluded from the World Health Assembly.

—In June, China imposed one-year entry bans on four New Zealand members of parliament after they visited Taiwan.

—In June, Taiwanese scholars were blocked from attending the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, where Taiwan says their passports and phones were confiscated and they were detained for more than 20 hours.

These cases differ in form but point in the same direction. Beijing is using visas, passports, accreditation, flight routes, conference access, naming conventions and entry bans to create friction around Taiwan engagement. The result is often a postponed visit, a withdrawn delegation, an embarrassed host, a delayed meeting or an official deciding that the paperwork and pressure are no longer worth it.

Each case may look manageable, but together, they create a chilling effect. Beijing wants the world to internalise the risk of engaging with Taiwan. It wants us to ask not ‘is this consistent with our one-China policy?’ but ‘will this create a problem with Beijing?’

That matters because most countries’ one-China policies do not prevent unofficial engagement with Taiwan. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the United States and most European countries do not recognise Taiwan as a sovereign state, but they maintain practical and substantive ties with Taipei.

The New Zealand and Kenyan cases show how far Beijing is trying to push countries to change their own policies. In one, Beijing targeted third-country politicians. In the other, it targeted technical and civil-society engagement at a conference on marine protection and ocean governance. The message is that engagement with Taiwan, even in low-politics spaces, can carry political and personal costs.

This serves Beijing’s long-term strategy. China’s preferred path to unification is not an amphibious invasion. It is to subvert Taiwan’s government and society, further isolate its people and further intimidate its partners. Military pressure remains important, but diplomatic coercion is often the more persistent instrument. It operates daily and below the threshold that would trigger a major response.

Timing also matters. Beijing is intensifying this campaign as Trump’s return raises questions about US commitments. Trump’s comments on Taiwan have risked making the island appear tradable – an issue to be weighed against tariffs, technology controls or a broader bargain with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Even if the US retains the military capacity to defend Taiwan, the question is whether Beijing believes Washington, and its allies, have the political will to do so.

That uncertainty gives Beijing room to test allied commitment without firing a shot. It can pressure states, sanction members of parliament, contest Taiwan’s participation in international forums and watch whether democracies push back, coordinate or treat each incident as an isolated irritant.

For Australia, a Taiwan strategy cannot be left for just a future military crisis. By the time a blockade, quarantine or invasion begins, Beijing will already have spent years testing which countries are willing to absorb costs over Taiwan and which prefer to avoid friction. Diplomatic coercion is part of that preparation.

Australia should therefore treat these incidents as matters of regional order, not protocol. Its one-China policy does not give Beijing a veto over unofficial engagement with Taiwan. Australia should continue supporting parliamentary visits, technical exchanges and Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international forums where statehood is not a prerequisite. It should also continue adding its voice to joint statements in support of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo.

Beijing wants governments and institutions to see engagement with Taiwan as a source of trouble to avoid. Democracies should do the opposite. They should make routine engagement with Taiwan normal, more resilient and harder for Beijing to disrupt. That is not a substitute for military deterrence. It is part of it. In 2026, Beijing is testing whether Taiwan’s partners will stay engaged when pressure rises. Those partners should make the answer clear.

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