Taiwan's defense establishment is sounding an alarm that China and other authoritarian states are coordinating to break the existing international security order — a warning aimed squarely at allies who might still see the Taiwan Strait as a local problem.

• China keeps using gray-zone pressure — coercion short of open war — as it tries to shift from a land power to a sea power.
• Authoritarian states are lining up together into what Taiwan calls an "axis of upheaval," making this a shared threat rather than one country's problem.
• Ukraine, the Middle East conflict, and the unsettled Strait of Hormuz are held up as proof that peace can vanish anywhere.
• Taiwan's answer is "integrated deterrence": a defense web built with partners so an attacker never risks the first move.
• Defense spending next year will top 3% of GDP, paired with civil defense drills across cities to link the military and the public.

Outlook: Expect Taiwan to keep raising defense budgets and pushing allies to treat the Strait as a global security issue, not a regional one.