American Thought Leaders - Beijing Wants to Wipe Taiwan Off the Map—This Man Is Making Sure Its People Can Survive | Enoch Wu

Episode Date: June 20, 2026

🏆Sponsor: FreedomProject Academy enrollment open now!10% discount on tuition w/code: EPOCH10Click here: https://ept.ms/ATL—FPEWith Chinese leader Xi Jinping repeatedly stating his plans to take Taiwan by force if necessary, many are wondering: What might such an invasion look like, and how prepared is Taiwan to defend itself and withstand such an assault?Enoch Wu is working to tip the balance in Taiwan’s favor. Born in Chicago to Taiwanese parents, he decided to quit his lucrative career as a finance executive in Hong Kong to join Taiwan’s special forces in his early 30s. And he’s since devoted his life to preventing Taiwan from being wiped from the map by its large totalitarian neighbor.In 2020, he founded Forward Alliance to train ordinary Taiwanese in trauma medicine, search and rescue, establish communication networks, and organize shelters during a crisis.The group has now trained tens of thousands of ordinary Taiwanese to become de facto first responders through partnerships with local churches, schools, and other community groups.Wu explains his philosophy: while the military serves as a country’s sword, societal resilience serves as its shield.At the heart of our conversation is an urgent message: “The whole point of living in a democratic society,” Wu says, “is that we are all owners, and we have to take responsibility. We can’t treat democracy like a heritage that’s just passed down. You can’t take it as a given. You have to continue to nurture it. You have to invest in it. You have to improve it.”Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

Taiwan could feel that this democracy that our parents and generations before them had built for us was slowly getting chipped away. And it became clear that not only was this fight for democracy and freedom not over yet, but we are now facing our biggest challenge. It's become the mission of us here at Forward Alliance, me and my partners, our volunteers, to do something about it. Enoch Wu is the founder of Forward Alliance, a Taiwanese NGO committed to building up societal resilience in Taiwan. In a country of 24 million people, there are only approximately 16,000 first responders, meaning there is just one first responder per 1,500 civilians, whose goal is to flatten that ratio. We train them on emergency response, on trauma medicine, on search and rescue, on setting up redundant communication networks, on setting up shelters, These are all the skills that every community can and must do in a crisis.

Wu and his team have equipped tens of thousands of Taiwanese with skills they would need in a natural or man-made disaster. If we can make democracy work better, if we can make this country more resilient, that really is the only way to keep and protect our home. We can't treat democracy like a heritage that's just passed down. You can't take it as a given. You have to invest in it. You have to improve on it.

This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kelluk. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So you started, born in America, you ended up in Hong Kong at Goldman Sachs, an executive director, and then at a surprisingly late age, you joined the Taiwanese Special Forces.

So explain to me how this all fits together. First, I'm from Taiwan. Taiwan is my home. I was born in Chicago, incidentally, because my father was studying, was getting his PhD at the University of Chicago in political science. This was in the 70s and early 80s. And between studies, I came along. But after he got his degree, we came home. And I spent several years of my life abroad.

I attended high school eventually and then university in the U.S. and got a job overseas. but came back to Taiwan in my early to mid-30s. And folks often ask me, why did you come back to Taiwan, as if that is an odd choice? For me, it couldn't have been a more natural choice. I want to tell you about the Taiwan that I grew up in, which I think explains a big part of why it is

that I decided to come home, despite a career that, probably some folks might think would be more interesting or more worthwhile abroad. You have to understand, Taiwan was not always the place it is today. My parents' generation, they made a lot of sacrifices fighting for democracy. A lot of the uncles and aunties I knew growing up, they were political prisoners, they were beaten and tortured while detained. A lot of them are still are scarred even to the stay.

And it's because of that generation sacrifices that by the time I was in high school, Taiwan became a democracy. We elected our leader for the first time. This was in 1996, such a proud moment for the entire country because generation after generation sacrifices led to something.

had a voice, we finally had our vote, we could finally decide for ourselves what we wanted to do, where we wanted to go. We were finally free. We were citizens. And that's the time I grew up in, full of hope, full of promise. And after I graduated from college, you know, when I got my first job, this was in the early 2000s, China was all the rage. China had just joined the World Trade organization. Almost every company wanted to invest in China. Every government wanted to build and deepen trade relations. Almost every parent wanted their kids to study Mandarin. What I also saw was the Chinese government abusing that growing economic clout that it had. I mean, we're here sitting in 2026 having a conversation and it's clear to all of us now how the Chinese government has stolen

technology, stolen intellectual properties, how almost every single country that did business with China has lost out in the long term in terms of our national competitiveness. But closer to home, what the Chinese government was doing with this economic clout was diminishing Taiwan because to the Chinese Communist Party, Taiwan has always been that obsession that it wanted to control one way or another. And so by the time I entered the workforce, what we saw was China telling the rest of the world, if you want to do business with us, if you want to engage with us, while there are certain red lines that you can't cross, and Taiwan is among them, and you can't recognize Taiwan.

If you want to do business with us, you must exclude Taiwan from international organizations. You must bar us from public health conversations, even when Taiwan had the life-saving knowledge to help other countries. And that's what I saw. And I think every single son and daughter of Taiwan could feel that this democracy that our parents and generations before them had built for us was slowly getting chipped away.

And it became clear that not only was this fight for democracy and freedom not over yet, but we are now facing our biggest challenge. Once you see that, it's very hard to unsee it. It's very hard to look away. And it's become the mission of us here at Forward Alliance to do something about it.

And we do something about it by investing in the democratic experiment that was handed down to us by improving it. By calling for political reform, we do something about it by building resilience, organizing communities, and training volunteers. We do something about it by promoting citizenship. and encouraging folks to volunteer and to enter public service. Because if we can make democracy work better, if we can make this country more resilient, you know, that really is the only way to keep and protect our home. We're still fighting for our freedom.

We're still fighting for our democracy. When I was born, generations before us, we're fighting an autocracy, a dictatorship internally. And now the forces that we're dealing with are external, but it is the same fight. One of the things that comes to mind and regular viewers of American thought leaders might be tired of me talking about this, but I'm deeply enamored by civil society. And that's one of the reasons why I appreciate Taiwan so much and why we're having this interview to some extent because I think your organization is like a beautiful example of civil society at work. And the Chinese Communist Party has an entire department, one of the best funded, the United Front work.

department committed to subverting or destroying all civil society. And I want to, I want people to understand this and how different these types of efforts that you're doing are, tell me what it is that you do. What it is it that you train people to do and how is this helping in this civil society effort? First and foremost, our primary goal is to protect and continue to invest in this democracy that we have. And to do that, we have three lines of effort. One is, as you say, we're working with local communities on preparedness. We are working with local churches, local schools, local nonprofits, and their volunteers

to make sure that every parent, every family, every household is prepared for emergencies and contingencies. That whether you're a child or a grandparent, you're able to help. yourself, you're able to support your neighbors, you're able to be a constructive member of your community. Because in a crisis, whether it's natural or man-made, you can't rely on government. The whole definition of a democracy is that this is collective burden. The whole point of being in a democratic society is that we are all owners and we all have to take responsibility. And we see that spirit at the local level, right? Every pastor we work with, every

principle we work with, every head of that local nonprofit we work with. They understand that in a crisis they have to do even more. They understand that their communities will turn to them for support and for guidance as well. And so we train them on emergency response, on trauma medicine, on search and rescue, on setting up redundant communication networks, on setting up shelters. These are all the skills that every community can and must do in a crisis. That's a big part of our work. And on top of that, as I mentioned earlier, making sure that democracy continues to work and continues to improve is part of our mission as well. So we continue to call for electoral reform, campaign financing reform. A lot of this is familiar to your viewers around the

world because these are common challenges for every democracy. We can't treat democracy like a heritage that's just passed down. You can't take it as a given. You have to continue to nurture it, you have to invest in it, you have to improve on it. And I think that's also true around the world. If you're an American thought leader's regular, you know we spend a lot of time digging into the powerful forces trying to reshape America and the Western world. Everything from censorship and central banking to the growing economic pressure coming from Beijing. I'm not a financial advisor, but in uncertain times like these, owning something real, something you can hold, can provide stability and peace of mind. I myself am someone who likes to invest in gold because it's something

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Once again, that's 855-862-3377 or text American to 65532. Or you can also click the link in the description below. So as you're saying all this, I find myself thinking, you know, you decide at age 30, come to Taiwan, do your military service, but you pick. Somehow you get into special forces. How does that happen? And how does that connect with this work that you're doing today? It was saying that Taiwan was losing its international space day by day by day. I could see it in Hong Kong.

My fellow Taiwanese could see it in the U.S., in Europe, around the world. Because this campaign to diminish Taiwan, this campaign to erase Taiwan, this campaign to remove Taiwan from the world map, it was being waged globally. Once you realize what's happening, you can't ignore it, you can't look away. And for me, it meant spending every day, every productive hours of my life to do something about it. We have a system of national service, and it's compulsory for every male to serve. I think the athlete and me wanted a challenge, wanted my experience to be as meaningful as possible.

And when I served, this was one of the options. I put my hand up and said, all right, I would like to give jump school a try. And so I had a very rewarding time in the military, in the army, made lifelong friends. And I saw, you know, firsthand, the men and women who not only served their mandatory time like me, but who devoted their entire lives to military service. And I saw that, you know, these folks are just like me and that they want the best. for our country. They want their contribution to mean something, and they want to improve. They're hungry for training. And so, you know, later on, as I entered, you know, my, as I entered

the government, as I did work in the national security space, oftentimes I would hear, you know, international friends ask, you know, what is the state of Taiwan's defense? To Chinese people really care about your security, about your future? For me, that was never a debate. I knew from personal experience that everyone in Taiwan, if given the opportunity, would help their neighbors, would help their community, would be happy to serve. Yet there were so many questions about Taiwan's willingness to defend itself. It seems so strange and so removed from reality that at some point I thought, why were people having this debate?

Why did people keep asking this question? Well, it's because citizens didn't really have opportunities to serve beyond military service. Citizens didn't have an opportunity to give back in a way that they want to in a way that gave them meaning. And so through Forward Alliance's program, we try to create that system to give people a meaningful way to serve. It doesn't have to be tied to war,

it doesn't have to be tied to any specific incident or contingency, as long as your community needs you, whenever your home needs people to step up and help, whenever the situation requires you to take action, this program helps you to do that. And so we've had trainees as young as eight, as old as 92, all learning how to help themselves,

how to help each other, how to be that helpful member of their community, learning the skills we talked about earlier. And for us, that debate has been put to rest at our first training, years later, tens of thousands of trainees later, we no longer feel the need to explain or to justify

or to argue why Taiwan is just like you, it's just like any country around the world where our citizens not only are willing, but embrace that responsibility to look after ourselves. I can't help but think that the main reason this is a question is purely mass propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party being pushed to every country where it operates. Just like a weird question, right?

Would you ask that question about other countries? I suppose you could. I think you're right. It's inherently a silly question, isn't it? The fact is Taiwan spent half a century fighting for freedom during colonial occupation and another half century fighting national... national dictatorship. And, you know, democracy wasn't handed to us. We earned it. Just like Americans

did 250 years ago. Now, granted, we're much younger at 30 years. But I think you're right. There probably is, there's a misunderstanding of history, of context of who we are and what things are like on the ground. I think many countries around the world, many liberal democracies around the world have this scenario where there are people in those societies are asking themselves questions is what we have built here good right this is a question people are asking in canada this is a question people are asking in america i think of it less of a question here than almost any other place that i'm aware of when these questions are being asked like are people ready to stand behind what we've built that's that's really the question we're talking

about. I find it fascinating that Taiwan needs to kind of reinforce and rededicate that commitment when, of all countries, you know, it's probably not as big an issue, you know, this question of whether what we've built is good and proper and valuable and decent and so forth. To suggest that as Taiwanese, somehow I don't care about my security. or that I'm not invested in the, you know, in my children's future, it's a little patronizing. Yeah. But our hope is that our work at the grassroots level and all the way up to the government's initiatives to reform the military, to build a more resilient public sector, a more prepared citizenry, our hope is that all of that can put this question to rest.

Let's say a conflict across the strait erupted tomorrow. What would that look like here and what would that look like for people across the ocean? Let's look at the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the invasion of Ukraine, and a couple years ago, the effect of a pandemic on supply chains, and how that disrupted the global economy, how that affected the price of grain and energy, and even whether you're able to buy your next car, right? All that effects combined would still pale in comparison to the effects of a conflict in the Taiwan Street. And it doesn't even have to be all-out war, right? Even a blockade scenario would have tremendous consequences.

You know, more than half of global trade passes through this region of the world. More than half of global trade goes through the Indo-Pacific. And so, you know... And there's a bit of an irony there, too, because this, of course, would affect, you know, Chinese shipping quite a bit, I mean, massively, right? Or it would affect the global economy, for sure. And people often tell me, oh, we should, we care about Taiwan, because of maybe chips or certain industry supply chains.

And I have to be honest, I don't think you should care about Taiwan because we make a certain product. But to your point, the fact that our economies are interdependent, the fact that our kids' college tuition funds are inextricably linked, I think that's reason enough for us to work together to ensure that there is peace and stability. everywhere. So you've gone to Ukraine and been inspired by a whole bunch of grass or what you've described as grassroots efforts there. Can you tell me a little bit about what you did and what you

figured out? So I went to Ukraine in 2024 and met with civil society partners to understand what we can learn from their experience. and also how we can help. And I came out of that trip with a couple of takeaways. Every single Ukrainian I spoke with told me that they had wished they had done more preparation in advance. They wish they had done more ahead of February 2022. They wish that if they had done more, if they had been more prepared, if they had mobilized sooner, then maybe, just maybe, this war wouldn't have happened.

We've absolutely been inspired by their resilience over the past years, not just since 2022, but since 2014 when the conflict really started. You know, just to see community groups self-organize, take action without government direction, to see neighbors stepping up, helping each other. You know, resilience can't prevent war. Resilience can't end the conflict. But resilience is so important because it's the ability

to withstand that first blow. And when you're resilient, you buy the time and the space to get your defense in order. It was incredible to see Ukrainians from all backgrounds, being offered a way to contribute. I'll give you an example. I saw software engineers getting recruited to help set up a cloud-based network

because the government's communication system was destroyed on the first day. I saw IT professionals and bankers joining the government reform office to help make their procurement process more transparent because they understood that reform needs to continue. The work of making democracy better can't stop because if you improve governance, it improves public trust. When you have public trust, there's more unity. When there's

more unity, you can continue to defend yourself and resist. These are all important lessons to learn. Now, having said that, Taiwan and Ukraine are quite different. You know, for one, geographically, Taiwan is an isolated island. And so to build the type of resilience in energy, in communication, in supply chains is going to be a very different challenge here than it's been in Ukraine. I'm inspired by everything that both you're doing and frankly by the vigilance and will of the Taiwanese people. This is all in the context of the Chinese Communist Party across the strait, waging what you would call cognitive warfare or, you know, demoralization strategies to try to, you know, basically subvert all of these efforts, to shift that, to make it a fait accompli, you know.

Actually, it just might be safer to just accept becoming part of China. I'm sure you hear these sorts of things often. The Chinese playbook is its total warfare. It is United Front's works and more. It is a totalitarian playbook that is being waged inside China. and outside China in Taiwan, but also in the States. You know, everything that you'd mentioned about Taiwan is happening in your borders as well. It's in your politics.

The former mayor of Arcadia just pleaded guilty to being an illegal agent of the Chinese Communist Party of the People's Republic of China. They are in your networks and systems, right? Chinese state-sponsored cyber groups have infiltrated and compromised U.S. critical infrastructure. And they are also in your communities. The FBI, among others, have pointed out this network of secret police service stations being run in the United States, in U.S. cities, to monitor and to intimidate Chinese dissidents. So you're absolutely right. These tactics are happy. in Taiwan and they're happening in the U.S. And I think that's why it's the smart thing to do and the wise thing to do to exchange notes

because we are facing the same adversary, the same tactics. Whether you're living in New York or Taipei or Shanghai, we have to coordinate our defenses, we have to think of effective ways to counter and push back because we're in this together. You talked about how there's this sort of integration between aspects of the economy in the U.S. and Taiwan. But the Chinese Communist Party's strategy has been to integrate itself into the global economy, to make itself too big to fail. The argument might be, well, we really have to kind of, I guess, work hand in hand with the Chinese Communist Party because we don't want to create, you know, global economic mayhem, right? I think that might be the argument that Chinese officials might make when speaking with American officials or Taiwanese. I think you're absolutely right.

For the last 20, 30 years, the global consensus was indeed, let's partner with China, let's grow our markets together, and let's prosper together. What we found out, though, was that in the process, China wasn't playing by the same rules. China was compromising our economic security by unfair practices, by stealing technology, by taking our intellectual properties. And so I think what we did collectively was we prioritized short-term profits and we forgot and we lost sight of the fact that we were losing our longer-term competitiveness. And so that premise is no longer true. And so right now I think our goal should be to ensure that we are.

resilient not just conventionally but economically as well and that means diversifying our supply chains and making sure that we are not held hostage by the Chinese Communist Party. So this really is a form of resilience what you're describing here actually right you're building all this you know capacity among amongst civil society and just communities across Taiwan and here this is really the economic variant that now you're talking about. Absolutely. You know, resilience doesn't come cheap. And in our singular focus on efficiency and cost management, we've all lost sight of resilience.

And so Taiwan is building the redundancies in our supply chain that's required to ensure economic resilience and countries around the world are doing the same and they're looking at their key vulnerabilities and choke points in their supply chains and looking to to rectify this structural issue. And so the hope is that if we can make the right investments now, if we can bring back key capabilities and capacities within our control, that to all of our economies will be more resilient for it. And collectively, the world will be more stable. That is the aim. As I mentioned earlier, no one wins from conflict. And our mission, our collective agenda has to be to maintain peace and stability. But that doesn't mean we have to compromise sovereignty or give up on our values

in the process. As we finish up, If there's one thing that you would like to say to people that would entice them to come visit Taiwan, what would that be? I'm glad you made it here. I can understand for your viewer sitting in a U.S. city that they feel removed, somewhat distant and disconnected from what is happening to Taiwan. I get that. And, you know, I was thinking about this before we sat down today. And, you know, it occurred to me maybe one way to talk to that viewer sitting in that U.S. city, perhaps in New York, is to think about what that person is doing right now. And chances are that person's probably following a number.

number of sports teams. They may be a Mets fan or Yankee fan or they're following the World Cup right now. And, you know, I would tell this, I would tell your viewer that, you know, you may not know Taiwan, but we are just as crazy about baseball as you are. And we're following our home teams as well. In fact, in the last World Baseball, Premier 12 championships, Taiwan won the title and our team captain was voted tournament MVP. I bring this up because what your viewer may not know is that, you know, our national team, the day they won the title, they were wearing a jersey that was essentially blank. If you, like all of us here, had been following our national team on TV,

you would have seen a blank jersey and then on the left chest you have seen two letters C T that stands for Chinese Taipei in that is the jersey we wore in front of the world why is that the case well it's because of Chinese pressure we're not allowed we're not allowed to participate in international events under our name I don't know if you can imagine your U.S. soccer national team participating in this year's World Cup without the three letters USA across your jersey. But that is the reality of every single Taiwanese. And so to your viewer that's sitting in New York, I would welcome them to visit Taiwan. not because the food is great, which it is, not because we're friendly, which we are,

because you have an entire population of people here living with a set of circumstances that I don't think you could imagine, but that's never knocked us down. And we make a hell of a good set of partners. Well, Inakwu, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thanks, Jan. Thanks for having you. Thank you all for joining you. In the Enoch Wu and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders, I'm your host, Jan Ye Kellick.