Taipei
As I discovered on a visit here last week, the most immediate problem confronting most students at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University is the macaque monkeys who occasionally descend from the forests to snatch sandwiches and snacks from careless humans loitering near the beach.
But that peaceful beach front is among the most likely landing zones for a People’s Liberation Army invasion force, and a debate over reintroducing the draft keeps students’ minds focused on the risks ahead. Those students are not alone. The extinction of liberty in Hong Kong, Xi Jinping’s rise to absolute power on the mainland, and the horrors of ’s war in Ukraine have combined to create a new and complex mood on the island.