From Geo to Astropolitics: How Taiwan Builds Outer Space Missions Amid Geopolitical Tensions
Yi-Ting Chang, RSAA Travel Awards 2024 recipient, 1 October 2025, 14.00 BST Online
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Positioned at the frontline of current geopolitical tensions, Taiwan has aimed to establish high-resolution satellite capabilities since the 1990s. Yi-Ting Chang’s research uses FORMOSAT-5, Taiwan’s first domestically produced high-resolution Earth observation satellite, as a case study to investigate how Taiwan mobilises its domestic capabilities to respond to geopolitical tensions. Drawing on seven months as a residential researcher at the Taiwan Space Agency (TASA), along with 44 in-depth interviews and document analysis, Chang will lay out the findings of her research in this lecture. It will seek to demonstrate how global export controls on dual-use space technologies have shaped East Asian astropolitics, outline how Taiwanese space engineers achieve their space missions through Taiwan’s strong semiconductor and manufacturing industries and identify how Taiwan’s space missions unfold through various actors and partnerships, connecting FORMOSAT-5 to the emerging new space age.
Yi-Ting Chang is a PhD Candidate in the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. She obtained a BA from National Taiwan Normal University and an MSc from National Taiwan University. Her research interests lie in critical geopolitics as well as science and technology studies. Her DPhil thesis entitled From geo- to astropolitics: How Taiwan constructs vertical territory within the global satellite network investigates Taiwan’s outer space history and politics against the backdrop of the ongoing cross-strait tension. Her PhD is fully funded by Clarendon Fund Scholarship with joint partnerships with St. John’s College and the Taiwan-Oxford Scholarship. She was previously an Associate Lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London.
Guest Host
Sze Miller is a PhD candidate at the Lau China Institute at King’s College London. Her research interests include East Asian security, US-China relations, and cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China.
In addition to her academic work, she serves as a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force. She received her commission from the United States Air Force Academy and has built a career as an intelligence officer with over 19 years of service. Throughout her career, she has gained extensive experience in the air, space, and cyberspace domains, providing critical intelligence analysis and threat assessments to commanders at all levels.
Her professional background includes overseas assignments in South Korea and Japan, as well as combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
