Who would defend Kinmen and Matsu (and what is Wuchiu?): Taiwanese public opinion on outlying islands

Since the early 2020s, Chinese paramilitary activities, military drills, and on-water incidents have reopened a question that dominated the early Cold War: whether small Taipei-controlled islands in and around the Taiwan Strait could be a trigger for regional conflict. Yet little is known of how the Taiwanese public view such outlying islands, making it uncertain how Taiwan, the United States, and other regional states might react to contingencies there. This paper investigates and compares Taiwanese views of the Kinmen and Matsu archipelagos, the little-known Wuchiu islets that lie in between the two, Pratas and Taiping Islands in the South China Sea, and the Penghu Archipelago in the Taiwan Strait. Two waves of surveys fielded in 2023 and 2024 measured citizens’ approval of defending these various island groups, whether they belong to Taiwan, and their importance to its national security. Despite major differences in geographical distance and historical-administrative connections with Taiwan, respondents expressed surprisingly similar levels of approval for defending offshore islands and Taiwan itself, in the event of a Chinese attack or blockade. Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters and Taiwanese-identifying respondents expressed stronger willingness to defend each of the islands. The results suggest the islands form part of an emerging Taiwanese geobody, an imagined national space that extends far beyond the main island of Taiwan.