Shelley Rigger is a professor of East Asian politics at Davidson College and a non-resident fellow at the Taiwan Studies Program at Nottingham University. She is the author of numerous books and articles about Taiwan’s society and domestic politics as well as cross-strait issues, including Why Taiwan Matters (2011), and most recently, The Tiger Leading the Dragon (2021). The following is a lightly edited transcript of an interview that took place largely before Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Shelley Rigger.Illustration by Kate Copeland Q: The international media is paying closer attention to Taiwan and the threat of an invasion from China at some point. Do you think this closer media scrutiny matches the reality of the situation? A: It gives me a conflicted feeling because I think it's important for Taiwan to have more attention. It's no joke that for a long time if you said you're going to Taiwan or you study Taiwan, people would think you were talking about Thailand. And so