Beijing was watching diesel deal (Taiwan) — Taipei Times
I wrote an op-ed for the Taipei Times titled “Beijing was watching diesel deal”. It ran in the Opinion pages on 21 October 2026.
A family in the bottom fifth
I start from a household in the poorest fifth of Taiwan’s income ladder. Those households lived on NT$397,000 on average last year, about NT$33,000 a month; the richest fifth had 6.17 times as much, the widest gap in nearly 14 years. This family cooks rice in a Tatung electric cooker and soup on a 20kg gas cylinder. Hsinchu City alone has more than 22,000 households that still rely on cylinders, whose price CPC froze in June and again in August.
A sanction that lasted 21 days
On 9 October, Washington waived its sanctions on Russian diesel, three weeks after Donald Trump signed a law to harden them, with diesel above US$6 a gallon and the midterm elections weeks away. Taiwan’s partners count on sanctions to deter a Chinese blockade. That threat deters only if Beijing expects the sanctions to hold when they hurt Western voters. Russian diesel was the easy test, and the sanctions lasted 21 days. Sanctions on China would hit American consumers on day one, and Beijing can time a crisis for the months before a US election.
What Europe learned
Taipei already diversifies its gas suppliers: the US share of its LNG imports is set to rise from about 10 percent to 25 percent by 2029. I argue that it should diversify its partnerships the same way, without turning against Washington. Europe cut its dependence on Russian gas from 45 percent of its imports in 2021 to roughly one-eighth last year, and requires gas storage to be 90 percent full before each winter. Taipei should work with the European Economic and Trade Office and the French Office in Taipei to reach European grid operators and gas storage companies. In August, I argued for the CEIAS that Europe’s chips depend on Taiwan’s grid.
The numbers behind the vulnerability
- Taiwan imported about 95 percent of its energy last year (Atlantic Council).
- Crude reserves stood at 140 to 150 days in May, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, against the 90 required by law. Cooking gas has its own floor, 25 days of sales.
- LNG produces about half of Taiwan’s electricity, yet the law requires only 11 days of stock, 14 from next year. Qatar supplies about 30 percent of Taiwan’s gas, and inventories were at about 12 days when the war with Iran disrupted Qatari cargoes.
A blockade therefore reaches this family through the plug before the cylinder. In May 2021, Taipower already rationed electricity district by district.
What I propose
Treat the 14 days of LNG as a floor, fund a strategic gas reserve from the national budget to take it off CPC’s books, and speed up the grid resilience plan Taipower launched in 2022. An LNG reserve in Japan or South Korea cannot guarantee that cargoes reach Taiwan in a conflict; only tanks on Taiwanese soil can. Reserves that outlast the first weeks force Beijing to hold a blockade longer, at its exporters’ expense. Other governments make sanctions promises on Taiwan’s behalf; Taipei can decide on its own how much gas Taiwan stores, and the Legislative Yuan can fund it in the next budget.