A critical approach to techno-nationalism in the ‘New Cold War’: the case of Taiwan

The intensifying global technological rivalry of the ‘new Cold War’ has renewed scholarly interest in the relationship between technology development and nation-states. While the term techno-nationalism is widely used to depict these dynamics, existing scholarship offers little consensus regarding its definition or analytical scope. In response, this article maps two dominant approaches to techno-nationalism – the strategic-realist and critical-constructivist accounts – and advances the dialogue through a critical political economy perspective. It proposes an analytical framework that examines techno-nationalism through three interconnected dimensions: context-specific nationalist politics, social relations of technology production, and broader geopolitical-geoeconomic constellation. This framework is applied to Taiwan, the epicentre of the global tech war due to its pivotal role in global semiconductor production. The analysis demonstrates how techno-nationalism in contemporary Taiwan has been reshaped through the interaction of popular nationalism, labour-capital relations underpinning Taiwan’s high-tech economy, and competing geostrategic projects and discourses associated with the ‘new Cold War.’