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I'm Christopher Lighten, this is open source.

Taiwan is the world-class puzzle we are inspecting this hour with some urgency.

It's world-class because the thriving,

boisterously democratic island of the coast of China lives geopolitically

at the junction of giant imperial interests and egos,

Chinese and American, both itching for a contest.

And still Taiwan is its own identity puzzle on an island

ruled for most of the past century by off islanders.

Who is Taiwan after all?

The formula for decades now is that Taiwan is a less than sovereign part of one China.

But it bristles also with heavy arms from America.

Could today's Taiwanese stand a fight for independence?

Could they stand to be absorbed by the people's republic on the mainland?

And how, at all events, does Taiwan escape the fate of Ukraine?

Our conversation begins with up close Taiwan watchers.

Left Nakban is in the capital Taipei.

First, Shaly Riger is at Davidson College in North Carolina.

I think it's hard to differentiate between the actual urgency of the moment

...