This volume charts Taiwan’s transformation from peripheral object to central player in the great-power competition between the United States and China. Combining offensive and neoclassical realism with first-hand diplomatic insight, it shows how Taipei shaped the Indo-Pacific balance of power.

Spanning the decade from Barack Obama’s pivot to Asia to the end of Donald Trump’s first term, the book reconstructs American, Chinese, and Taiwanese strategies in turn. Its central contribution is an account of Taiwan’s agency – seven instruments, among them the silicon shield, the broken nest doctrine, and the porcupine strategy – through which a diplomatically isolated polity influenced the calculations of both great powers. The author writes as scholar and practitioner alike, having served five years as the European Union’s representative in Taipei, and draws on multilingual primary sources, official data sets, and interviews with senior decision-makers.

Essential for researchers and graduate students in international relations, security studies, and Asian studies, and for diplomats, military professionals, and analysts working on the Indo-Pacific. Its explicit theoretical framing suits advanced courses on great-power competition and US–China relations.

Filip Grzegorzewski is a career diplomat and scholar of Indo-Pacific security. He served as the European Union’s Representative in Taiwan, heading the European Economic and Trade Office in Taipei (2019–2024), chaired the Council of the European Union Working Party on Asia and Oceania (COASI, 2015–2019), and directed the Asia–Pacific Department at Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2013–2015). Earlier appointments include Political Counsellor at the EU Delegation to China and Mongolia in Beijing.

He studied international relations and sinology at the University of Warsaw, with study periods at Nanjing Normal University and Hanoi University. He holds a PhD with distinction from the University of Warsaw, with which he remains affiliated. He has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on Chinese, Taiwanese, and Indo-Pacific affairs in English and Polish. His work sits at the intersection of diplomatic practice and academic research. He currently serves at the European External Action Service – the diplomatic service of the European Union – in Brussels.