This essay won 2nd Place in the 2025 YRIS High School Essay Contest for its response to the following prompt: “Examine the evolution of a relationship between two countries in response to a global challenge. What lessons can other nations learn from their cooperation or conflict?”
“I’ve ended up going to the hospital twice for bad air quality … it feels like a sudden flu, headache, and sore throat, plus itchy eyes,” a Taiwanese complained. In the past few decades, Taiwan struggled severely with environmental pollution. However, the pollution didn’t start there. Meteorological data shows that fine particulate matter, P.M., has drifted hundreds of kilometers across the Taiwan Strait, carried by northeastern monsoon winds from mainland China’s industrial zones. As global industrial activity intensifies, environmental degradation has emerged as one of the most urgent transboundary challenges facing the East Asian region and the world at large. But in the context of escalating geopolitical tensions between Beijing and Taipei, environmental cooperation carries implications that extend far beyond its technical domain.
Through the lens of cross-strait environmental status, Taiwan, most poignantly, faces a transboundary environmental risk: air pollution. Government data reveals that during peak haze seasons, up to 30–40% of airborne pollutants in western Taiwan originate outside the island.iii In Taipei, rising PM2.5 concentrations are associated with a 12% increase in pneumonia-related hospitalizations, highlighting a significant public health impact that accumulates to broader health concerns. Meanwhile, marine pollution and maritime accidents have also emerged as shared challenges for both governments across the Taiwan Strait. Oil spills, as marine pollution, emerge as a major issue following the launch of direct shipping links across the Taiwan Strait.
Local responses to manage such issues started early in 2009. Environmentalists from Taiwan and China met on the outlying island of Kinmen to discuss the solutions for marine pollution. The director addressed, “Against this backdrop (of increased trade), the probability of marine accidents has increased, and we are holding this seminar as the first step toward cross-strait cooperation in the field of environmental protection.”
Though these exchanges are limited in scope, their mechanisms of non-governmental implementation offer broader insights. Depoliticized engagement, defined by low sensitivity and high mutual benefit, can foster short-term consensus and lay the foundation for long-term reconciliation. It has evolved into a microcosm of broader global dynamics, and it is a pragmatic path other divided regions might emulate. This model of incremental engagement holds broader relevance beyond the Taiwan Strait. Other conflict-prone or diplomatically frozen regions- such as the Korean Peninsula, Kashmir, or even Arctic disputes- can take inspiration from this template.
Still, the occasional flicker of collaboration cannot obscure a more sobering reality. For the majority of occasions, the governments on either side of the Taiwan Strait do not share the same willingness or the ability to collaborate. There are no formal mechanisms for data exchange, warning systems, or coordinated response. A lack of national-level agreements makes the cooperation unable to unlock funding for joint
projects and set long-term emission targets.
Beijing’s attitude has further created institutional obstacles. Taiwan is marginalized in environmental international instituitions. It’s not a member of the United Nations, and by extension, it is shut out from key agencies such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In comparison, Mainland China commands vastly greater economic and scientific capacities. Its Ministry of Ecology and Environment oversees expansive data networks, regional emission inventories, and air quality monitoring systems that are integrated with international platforms like the World Meteorological Organization.
Underlyingly, the promise of local collaboration is constrained by underlying asymmetries in power and recognition. In regional and international cooperations, Taipei is often relegated to observer or ‘participant status’—terms that dilute its agency and reinforce a symbolic hierarchy. In contrast, Beijing controls the dominant institutional narrative, framing cross-Strait collaboration as a matter of ‘internal affairs’ or ‘local integration,’ rather than as a dialogue between equal entities. This expression itself implies a dominant-subordinate relationship.
Engagement with mainland China remains politically fraught in Taiwan, particularly under the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), where even technical exchanges risk being interpreted as undermining the island’s de facto autonomy. As one protester in Taipei explained during a rally against pro-China stances, “our relationship with China, from Taiwan’s perspective, should be one country on each side (of the Taiwan Strait). If we don’t stand up today, this would lead to being swallowed up (by China).” Such prevailing public sentiment illustrates the deep political sensitivities that constrain environmental governance, and moreover, reflects deeper structural differences in political systems. Thousands of kilometers away, Beijing faces relatively few domestic consequences for pursuing selective
engagement. Framed as part of its “One China” policy, mainland participation in environmental dialogues with Taiwan is portrayed as a unidirectional act of assistance or integration, not bilateral compromise. This creates a dilemma where Taiwan must constantly negotiate between technical necessity and domestic backlash, while China retains the option to engage or withdraw at will, without paying comparable political costs.
In this uneven landscape, what unfolds is more than a local dilemma. Others, watching from a distance, begin to reassess the terms under which cooperation is extended, and to whom. For governments already inclined toward collaboration, cross-Strait environmental cooperation offers a compelling vision, which is that the absence of formal recognition does not paralyze cooperation. In domains such as air quality monitoring and marine waste management, technocratic engagement has built quiet momentum beneath the din of geopolitical antagonism. Addressing that even without treaties or embassies, shared ecological threats can create real, measurable cooperation.
Otherwise, for parties unwilling to engage in cooperation and entrenched in opposition, the stronger government can leverage environmental issues as bargaining chips in diplomatic negotiations. The mechanism lies in the fact that environmental issues result in disproportionate consequences, which comparatively benefit larger powers while leaving smaller or diplomatically constrained actors more vulnerable. China’s expansive industrial base and international representation give it significant control over the sources of environmental degradation, while Taiwan, despite suffering directly from the consequences, lacks the institutional power to meaningfully shape upstream decisions.
Taiwanese leaders have learned the lesson, and it seems like the marginalization of Taiwan is irreversible. Nevertheless, such a disadvantage could be rechanneled. By invoking these injustices, Taipei could potentially mobilize international sympathy and emphasize the urgency of more inclusive governance mechanisms in its diplomacy. Thus, global challenges, such as pollution, rather than silencing marginalized actors, can empower them with new forms of mechanisms. While pollution continuously deteriorates the living standards of both sides, no treaties govern its arrival, and no protocols decide who is responsible. And yet, these items speak. They speak to an ecological interdependence that diplomacy has to catch up with.
References
Featured/Headline Image Caption and Citation: Smog above Skyscrapers in City Downtown. Image sourced from Pexel | CC License, no changes made
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