The alliance that puts a Taiwan contingency inside Japanese territory before it is a Japanese decision.
DefenceBasingInstitutionalDiplomatic
Open the full relationship record →Conflict coverage · Taiwan Strait · Relationships
Relationships
The standing arrangements between the actors in this module, each as a record with its own dates, sources and confidence: what the arrangement covers, when it began, what last changed it, and what remains unclear. Vigil publishes no measure of how strong or how hostile a relationship is — the description and its evidence are the record.
Everything in this module14 analytical layers in this conflict
Understand
Effects & resilience
A 1951 treaty, deepened since 2022, covering the southern approaches to a strait it does not mention.
DefenceBasingInstitutionalDiplomatic
Open the full relationship record →The recognition that makes every other relationship in this module unofficial.
DiplomaticLegal and treatyTrade
Open the full relationship record →A state whose economy, tax base and international standing rest on one industry — which is also the reason anyone would fight over it.
TradeFinanceInfrastructure
Open the full relationship record →Deep interdependence and sharpening security friction, held by the same two governments at the same time.
TradeFinanceInfrastructure
Open the full relationship record →Expanding technology contact with a partner that will not recognise it, from a bloc aligned on controls but not on defence.
TradeInstitutionalDiplomatic
Open the full relationship record →A supply relationship governed by one country's domestic statute, and in 2026 handled as something that could be traded.
Equipment transferDefenceTraining
Open the full relationship record →The most complete recent case of economic coercion against a democracy — real damage, no policy change, and a quiet wind-back.
Trade
Open the full relationship record →A demonstration, aimed at everyone else, that positions taken on Taiwan carry costs for third countries.
TradeDiplomatic
Open the full relationship record →A restriction architecture aimed at one country that regulates the industry of another.
TradeInstitutional
Open the full relationship record →A deterrent that is a belief rather than a commitment — which costs nothing to maintain and can be devalued by statements alone.
DefenceDiplomaticTrainingInstitutional
Open the full relationship record →Descriptive records, not ratings. There is no field anywhere in this layer for relationship strength, warmth, hostility or direction of travel, and none may be added. Change is carried by the validity period, the recorded last material change and the linked events — each of which a reader can check. See the methodology.