Gaslighting on the Global Stage: How China Marginalizes Taiwan

Beijing’s campaign to marginalize Taiwan is a layered way of changing the status quo through language, procedure, and coerced compliance.

Taiwan's national flag is raised during an early morning flag-raising ceremony following China's People's Liberation Army saying it would conduct live-fire drills in five designated maritime and airspace areas around Taiwan, in Taipei on Dec. 30, 2025. Cheng Yu-chen/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

At the entrance, the first friction came quietly. Her passport—perfectly valid in the world she actually lives in—became a problem in the world she was trying to enter. Not because it was forged. Not because it had expired. Because the system at the desk didn’t recognize the legitimacy of the identity printed on the cover.