The Red Leaf Express

Taiwan's economy is flashing red — and this week, red means boom. Record GDP forecasts, record stock gains, record labor fund returns. But in the same week: oil crossed a hundred dollars, a French container ship paid Iran in yuan to cross the Strait of Hormuz, and Taiwan's opposition leader flew to Beijing. Here's what it all looks like from Taipei.

But a 34-kilometer strait now has a toll booth, and the costs are already transmitting through everything from jet fuel, electricity bills and plastic bags. Meanwhile, China is running three simultaneous campaigns while the world watches Hormuz — AI-driven information warfare, yuan oil settlement undermining the petrodollar, and political influence reshaping the Indo-Pacific's architecture at Boao and in Beijing. No missiles required. The war in Iran is doing China's work on every front. Taiwan is watching from outside the room.

In 1996, a group of policy advisers wrote a strategy document for a newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu. It was called A Clean Break. It named Iraq, Syria, and Iran as targets to be removed — not negotiated with. Thirty years later, one name remains on the list. And the clock appears to be running.

Iran closed the world's most important oil chokepoint without a navy — just drones, IRGC commanders, and insurance underwriters in London. Taiwan's waters carry nearly half the world's container fleet. This week, we ask the question nobody is saying out loud: has Iran just handed Beijing a playbook for something far cheaper than an invasion?

Iran closed the world's most important energy chokepoint — not with a navy, but with cheap drones and the insurance market. Joey unpacks the paradox at the heart of the Hormuz crisis: a weapon powerful enough to send oil past $109 a barrel, but one that points at everyone — including the hand holding it. And what Taiwan should be reading in all of this.

Taiwan's stock market hit its year-end target in February. The HALO trade is real — hardware wins when AI can't replace the physical. But this week, the US lost in court and launched a war eight days later. Germany flew to Beijing underprepared. The architecture looks intact. The question is whether it still is.

America's Supreme Court just struck down Trump's tariffs. Taiwan's trade deal survived. The chips are still moving. So why does this feel like the wrong kind of good news? This week, the Red Leaf Express traces the historical pattern underneath the headlines — and asks whether Taiwan is making 1935 calculations in a 1939 world.

Japan's Takaichi wins the biggest electoral mandate since WWII. Five days later, Taiwan commits $250 billion in overseas semiconductor investment. Everyone covered these as separate stories. They're not. Joey Chou examines how Japan is quietly becoming the anchor of a new East Asian order—and what that means for Taiwan.

The U.S., Japan, and Taiwan launched their most coordinated rare earth move the same week seven European leaders flew to Beijing. One group's building for 2027. The other's hedging now. And Xi Jinping just purged his last rival while Trump fights midterm math. Guess who's racing whom.

As world leaders queue in Beijing and Canada's Mark Carney declares a new "values-based realism" that abandons democratic principles, what happens to those who bet on solidarity? Joey Chou examines the shifting global order and speaks with former Czech Parliament Speaker Markéta Pekarová Adamová about small-country survival in an era of great power deals.