As part of our monthly TFCCxATJ Talk Series, we will be hosting a book talk with renowned Taiwan expert and former intelligence officer J. Michael Cole, author of The Taiwan Tinderbox, on Wednesday, April 15. The book explains how Taiwan has become a tinderbox that could ignite a full-scale global conflict. Cole draws on unparalleled access to Taiwanese government sources and two decades of on-the-ground observation as he explores the root causes of the conflict between Taiwan and China.
EVENT DETAILS
Date: Wednesday, April 15
Time: 7.15pm (doors open at 6.45pm)
Venue: Two Three Comedy Club (臺北市中山區林森北路286號B1)
Language: English (no Mandarin interpretation provided)
Admission: Free and open only to TFCC and ATJ members (Non-members are required to register in advance and may apply to join ATJ or TFCC membership on site)
Registration: https://forms.gle/Mpq5qKzo9nNUgEZX9
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based Senior Non-Resident Fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C., the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa, Canada, and the Taiwan Hub at the University of Nottingham, UK. He is also a Research Fellow and Executive Editor at the Prospect Foundation and a strategic consultant for governments and the private sector. Until May 2024, he served as Senior Advisor on Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence with the International Republican Institute (IRI).
Before moving to Taiwan in 2005, he was an intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in Ottawa. His books include Insidious Power: How China Undermines Global Democracy (co-edited with Hsu Szuchien); Convergence or Conflict in the Taiwan Strait (Routledge, 2016); Cross-Strait Relations Since 2016 (Routledge, 2020); and The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Center of the New Cold War (Polity, 2025).
The event will be moderated by TFCC Director-at-large and Domino Theory journalist Kris Lih.