RIMPAC 2026:Why Are Taiwan and China Absent From World’s Largest Maritime Drills?|Taiwan Talks EP861

The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) Exercise 2026 is bringing together 31 nations, more than 25,000 personnel and some of the world’s most advanced naval forces for the largest maritime exercise on the planet. The drills come at a time of growing tensions across the Indo-Pacific, with China excluded from the exercise for a fourth consecutive iteration and Taiwan once again left on the sidelines, despite repeated support from members of the US Congress. At the same time, questions are mounting over how closely the US and Taiwan could actually operate together in a crisis and whether existing military cooperation is enough to close critical interoperability gaps. In this episode, we examine what RIMPAC reveals about deterrence, coalition-building and the evolving state of US-Taiwan defense cooperation.

*Recorded on June 18, 2026 at 3:15pm Taiwan Standard Time

Host: Wen-Ti Sung
Producer: Miguel Yang
Scriptwriter: Seth Peavey

Our guests:

Shen Ming-shih
- Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) Research Fellow
Bryce Barros
- Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) Visiting Fellow

Chapters:
00:00:00 – RIMPAC 2026
00:01:54 – Are Drills About Training or Messaging?
00:10:31 – China Disinvited Over Aggression
00:14:03 – Why Doesn’t Taiwan Participate?
00:19:56 – US and Taiwan Expand Cooperation




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