Beijing is challenging global 'rules.' But some are pushing back.

Liu Taiguang often walks along Taiwan’s windswept southernmost cape to the gleaming white Eluanbi Lighthouse, its beacon flashing from a fortified, cast-iron tower across the turquoise waters of the Bashi Channel. 

A fourth-generation Taiwan native, Mr. Liu is as steadfast as this lighthouse near his home in supporting Taiwan’s independence. He is defiant in the face of Beijing’s insistence on uniting it with the mainland – by force if necessary. And he is jubilant that Taiwanese voters delivered a landslide reelection to pro-independence President Tsai Ing-wen in January, despite Beijing’s interference.

“Look at this election!” the wiry taxi driver says with a laugh. “Taiwan people won’t do whatever the mainland says.”

Only 80 miles from the mainland, Taiwan has long been on the front lines of Chinese intimidation. Today, Taipei’s alarm – and readiness to push back – is shared in Washington and many other capitals, as China increasingly asserts itself as an autocratic economic, technological and military power following its own rules.

When China unleashed market reforms in 1979, Western leaders believed political liberalization would follow, bringing China into the fold of the international order that had held since World War II. But those expectations have unraveled since Chinese leader Xi Jinping took power in 2012, tightening the ruling

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