The Red Leaf Express

EP014 - The Strait of Hormuz Now Has Got a Price Tag

Joey Chou — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 23:44:51 GMT

Taiwan's economy is flashing red — and this week, red means boom. Record GDP forecasts, record stock gains, record labor fund returns. But in the same week: oil crossed a hundred dollars, a French container ship paid Iran in yuan to cross the Strait of Hormuz, and Taiwan's opposition leader flew to Beijing. Here's what it all looks like from Taipei.
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EP013 - China's strategy on all fronts

Joey Chou — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 23:40:27 GMT

But a 34-kilometer strait now has a toll booth, and the costs are already transmitting through everything from jet fuel, electricity bills and plastic bags. Meanwhile, China is running three simultaneous campaigns while the world watches Hormuz — AI-driven information warfare, yuan oil settlement undermining the petrodollar, and political influence reshaping the Indo-Pacific's architecture at Boao and in Beijing. No missiles required. The war in Iran is doing China's work on every front. Taiwan is watching from outside the room.
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EP012 - A Clean Break

Joey Chou — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 07:41:14 GMT

In 1996, a group of policy advisers wrote a strategy document for a newly elected Benjamin Netanyahu. It was called A Clean Break. It named Iraq, Syria, and Iran as targets to be removed — not negotiated with. Thirty years later, one name remains on the list. And the clock appears to be running.
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EP011 - The Insurance Playbook

Joey Chou — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 07:39:41 GMT

Iran closed the world's most important oil chokepoint without a navy — just drones, IRGC commanders, and insurance underwriters in London. Taiwan's waters carry nearly half the world's container fleet. This week, we ask the question nobody is saying out loud: has Iran just handed Beijing a playbook for something far cheaper than an invasion?
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EP010 - The Insurance Blockade

Joey Chou — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 07:34:00 GMT

Iran closed the world's most important energy chokepoint — not with a navy, but with cheap drones and the insurance market. Joey unpacks the paradox at the heart of the Hormuz crisis: a weapon powerful enough to send oil past $109 a barrel, but one that points at everyone — including the hand holding it. And what Taiwan should be reading in all of this.
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EP009 - Who's Burning What

Joey Chou — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Taiwan's stock market hit its year-end target in February. The HALO trade is real — hardware wins when AI can't replace the physical. But this week, the US lost in court and launched a war eight days later. Germany flew to Beijing underprepared. The architecture looks intact. The question is whether it still is.
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EP008 - Last Factory Standing

Joey Chou — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 08:00:00 GMT

America's Supreme Court just struck down Trump's tariffs. Taiwan's trade deal survived. The chips are still moving. So why does this feel like the wrong kind of good news? This week, the Red Leaf Express traces the historical pattern underneath the headlines — and asks whether Taiwan is making 1935 calculations in a 1939 world.
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EP007 - The case of Japan: key to the new order

Joey Chou — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Japan's Takaichi wins the biggest electoral mandate since WWII. Five days later, Taiwan commits $250 billion in overseas semiconductor investment. Everyone covered these as separate stories. They're not. Joey Chou examines how Japan is quietly becoming the anchor of a new East Asian order—and what that means for Taiwan.
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EP006 - China is Not Rushing, Should We Be?

Joey Chou — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 16:00:00 GMT

The U.S., Japan, and Taiwan launched their most coordinated rare earth move the same week seven European leaders flew to Beijing. One group's building for 2027. The other's hedging now. And Xi Jinping just purged his last rival while Trump fights midterm math. Guess who's racing whom.
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EP005 - The Price of Democratic Solidarity

Joey Chou — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT

As world leaders queue in Beijing and Canada's Mark Carney declares a new "values-based realism" that abandons democratic principles, what happens to those who bet on solidarity? Joey Chou examines the shifting global order and speaks with former Czech Parliament Speaker Markéta Pekarová Adamová about small-country survival in an era of great power deals.
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EP004 - My Big Fat Canadian Divorce: Mark Carney's Middle Power Doctrine

Joey Chou — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:00:00 GMT

When America's closest allies—Canada, UK, Finland, South Korea—make their first Beijing visits in seven years, it signals more than diplomacy. Mark Carney's standing ovation at Davos revealed the truth: middle powers are hedging against American unpredictability by building partnerships with China. The rules-based order isn't evolving—it's ruptured.
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EP003 - Hollowed Out: The Venezuela Lens on Taiwan

Joey Chou — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 05:22:33 GMT

Venezuela wasn't invaded because of Maduro—it was invaded because it was already broken. This week, we apply that lens to Japan and Taiwan. As the US retreats to the third island chain and economic cracks widen, what happens when small states lose the leverage that keeps them safe?

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EP002 - What the Maduro capture reveals about being a small state in a G2 world

Joey Chou — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 16:00:00 GMT

The US Venezuela operation wasn't about Maduro's crimes—it was a resource grab and capability demonstration aimed at China. But the real danger isn't that Beijing will copy this playbook for Taiwan. It's that we're normalizing decapitation operations as acceptable—and US allies are quietly jumping ship.
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EP001 - When drills become normal

Joey Chou — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 16:00:00 GMT

EP001 examines China’s Justice Mission 2025 drills around Taiwan and asks why escalation now feels routine. It breaks down what made the drills operationally significant, why international reactions were muted, and how a G2 world is reshaping crisis management. The episode warns that public numbness—not panic—is Taiwan’s greatest strategic risk, and previews an in-depth interview with defense expert Tony Hu.
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