When Asia breathes heavily, the Adriatic trembles in Silence!

By Arian Galdini

When China and Japan test each other’s resolve over Taiwan, the screen shows distant waves while the world map shifts by millimeters that weigh decades.

At first glance we see statements, coast guard ships, diplomatic visits, press conferences.

In reality, the security architecture of the coming century is being redrawn.

The stage lies in Beijing, Tokyo, Taipei, Washington.

Yet every move on that stage reaches the Atlantic.

Every dilemma about Taiwan touches the sea that washes our own shores.

The Adriatic trembles in silence whenever that faraway Asian sea raises new waves.

Two Asias facing each other in the mirror.

Japan is closing an era of ambiguous pacifism and reshaping itself as a responsible power in a dangerous neighborhood.

Its self-defense laws draw new breath.

Taiwan appears as a direct test of Japan’s survival, not merely a concern about a neighbor across the water.

The words of Prime Minister Takaichi, calling for mobilization in the face of a possible attack on Taiwan, mark a mental shift, from simple territorial defense toward defending an ecosystem of freedoms and alliances that keep Japan safe.

Opposite her, China casts its shadow across the strait, the islands and the sea lanes.

Patrols around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, warnings to tourists and students, harsh rhetoric toward any Tokyo - Taipei link all reveal a consistent strategy, every sign of solidarity with Taiwan is treated as part of a single, unified pressure campaign.

Taiwan becomes a node of Chinese identity, Japan is seen as the gatekeeper of a door Beijing wants to force open.

The United States stands as an invisible pillar that holds up the roof.

The US - Japan alliance is strengthened through joint exercises, contingency evacuation plans, missile defense and logistical support.

Taiwan emerges as a litmus test of American credibility.

Beijing knows it. Tokyo understands it. Taipei feels it in its skies every day.

These are the visible threads of the scene. The backstage begins when the question shifts, what does all this mean for regions like the Balkans, for small states that have chosen Western freedom as their compass?

When the Indo-Pacific calls, the Balkans hear the echo.

Every great power has a limited field of attention.

Whenever one theater of crisis rises to the top tier, other theaters are rearranged in a new order of priorities.

The Indo - Pacific climbs higher in that order every year.

The United States maintains a presence in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, while at the same time reinforcing fleets, bases and strategic focus in the distant Asian sea.

For the Balkans this translates into three direct questions, are states predictable in their behavior, are their constitutional and energy foundations solid, do they keep their Euro - Atlantic word when it matters.

Where the answers appear clear, trust, investment and allied presence follow.

Where the signals turn mixed, the country becomes a testing ground.

Albanians enter this exam with long experience, an instinct toward the West, the memory of America’s embrace, a clear desire for the European Union.

Recent surveys of public trust show an overwhelming majority of citizens who place high confidence in the EU and the UN, far more than in any domestic political body.

This is political capital stored in the collective conscience.

That instinct now seeks a new form, moving from historical emotion to rational profile, visible in laws, in budgets, in the way alliances are built.

The Dependency Lab: China’s mark on the Balkans.

Chinese influence in the Balkans arrives through contracts and code.

In the past decade, the “16+1” format and the Belt and Road have extended a web of projects across the region, from roads to railways, from ports to energy.

The port of Piraeus, where a state-owned company from Beijing took control of most shares and turned it into a major European hub for Chinese goods, serves as a model of what Beijing seeks to replicate, entry into ports, control of logistics hubs, critical infrastructure.

At the same time, Eastern tech companies build 4G and 5G networks, data centers and “smart city” projects in several Western Balkan states, with Serbia as a gravitational center for this digital presence.

These investments bring technology and capital.

The risk begins when they harden into a dependency lab, a process by which capital enters as assistance and leaves as silent command.

A simple scene makes this lab visible.

In a government office on the Albanian coast, two files lie on a desk.

One Western consortium offers financing for a new port terminal, it demands full transparency, arbitration in European courts, verifiable environmental standards.

An Eastern company proposes a soft loan with few visible conditions, using the port itself as collateral and clauses that push any dispute beyond European jurisdiction.

On paper the difference looks technical.

In reality the decision determines whether that port becomes a bridge connecting the country to Western markets or a link in a chain of dependency.

Wherever such choices arise, roads and ports are designed by companies that report elsewhere, digital networks rely on equipment that opens invisible doors, long-term credits carry conditions that tighten political room for maneuver.

The first phase looks practical, lower costs, quick financing, grand projects staged for the cameras.

The next phase delivers a reality in which financial and technological conditions begin to constrain.

A region that seeks sustainable development and strategic freedom needs both capital and filters.

Investment that builds corridors to Western markets, respects transparency standards and opens multiple doors becomes a bridge.

Investment that ties the country’s future to a single external decision center turns into a chain.

The Albanian world, thanks to its geography and long tradition of open trade, can be shaped into an energy and transport corridor between the Adriatic and the heart of Europe.

The source of capital and technology determines which influence is invited in for the long term.

Aggressive nostalgia: Russia’s risk in our Region.

Russian influence in the Balkans appears through pipelines, media and stories.

For years, a large share of Europe’s energy came from gas flowing from the East.

Today that share has dropped sharply, EU states have tied themselves more closely to other sources and to liquefied gas from different Atlantic shores.

Yet many countries in Southeastern Europe still carry the marks of old supply networks and feel each price movement more intensely.

This opens a field of influence that stretches far beyond energy.

In symbolic terms, the risk takes the form of aggressive nostalgia.

The past is described as balance, annexations are portrayed as historical corrections, suspicion toward the West is painted as wisdom.

Old narratives, fed through media channels and networks of interest, seek to blur every breach of international law.

Without a living memory of what happened in Ukraine, in Kosovo, in Bosnia, every map becomes imaginable on paper.

Albanians have felt the arbitrariness of borders and the weight of silence when law was violated.

From that experience arises a burden, to sustain a political culture that names aggression as aggression in every case, that treats international law as a lifeline in every situation, that reads energy and financial dependencies as security questions, not merely as price issues.

The Adriatic Axiom and the Mature Nation.

Out of these circumstances emerges the Adriatic Axiom, whenever great powers measure themselves in distant seas, a mature nation on these shores is judged by the direction of its compass and the security it provides its allies.

This is the core of what we may call the Law of the Adriatic and the Mature Nation.

In March 2024, Kuçova proved this law in a single scene.

An airfield from another era, dried out and abandoned, was transformed into a modern NATO air base with substantial allied investment.

F-35s, F-16s and Eurofighters cut the Albanian sky, new radar, renovated runways, joint units created a new picture.

For a family in the nearby town, that picture appears as jobs, safety, connection to the wider world.

For the allies, Kuçova shows that Albania takes its NATO membership seriously, a piece of the common defense architecture is placed on a small corner of the Adriatic.

The national compass earns credibility when it can be seen in everyday life.

A pupil in Shkodër who sees their school linked to European exchange programs, a student in Prishtina who arrives on a scholarship at a Western university, a young officer in Kuçova who trains alongside allied pilots, an entrepreneur in Durrës who connects a shipment to the EU market through an integrated port, all these points show that the Law of the Adriatic is not just a figure of speech but a series of concrete choices.

The Principle of the Mature Nation.

From this law springs the Principle of the Mature Nation.

In an age of frequent crises, a mature nation is one that brings security to its allies and clarity to itself.

You recognize it in five simple scenes, in a law that leaves no room for hidden deals, in an energy bill that does not depend on a single tap, in a truck that leaves Durrës and reaches a European port without disappearing into a corrupt customs maze, in an ambassador who speaks in the same voice in allied capitals and before his own people, in a young person who builds a global career from their own city without abandoning their language and culture.

When these five scenes become everyday reality, the Principle of the Mature Nation steps off the page and into life.

The Law of the Adriatic and the Mature Nation can be gathered into a single sentence, when great powers measure themselves in faraway oceans, a mature nation on these shores is the one that keeps its compass set toward the West and provides reliable security for its allies.

The rest of this essay simply shows what that axiom looks like in practice.

Taiwan as a distant mirror.

Taiwan lives every day on the edge of anxiety, a free island surrounded by a power that sees it as part of itself.

It carries the pride of democratic development and the logic of survival in the shadow of a giant.

Its path differs greatly from the Albanian experience, yet one deep similarity remains, the awareness of a small space resting on history’s backbone, determined not to be swept away by the big waves.

Japan sees Taiwan as a keystone in the chain of islands that guard its sea approaches.

The United States sees it as a test of its fidelity as an ally.

China sees it as a wound of pride.

Each sees itself in that island.

Albanians can take Taiwan as a mirror.

Freedom treated as a gift evaporates quickly.

Freedom nurtured daily through institutions, the economy, culture and alliances grows deeper roots.

When the global sea begins to move, nations with such roots may sway, yet they remain standing.

From Object to Subject.

When media speak about Taiwan, it can sound as if history unfolds on a distant stage.

In truth, the new story of the world turns around four words, alliance, credibility, resilience, awareness.

The Balkans, and within it the Albanian world, enters this chapter.

Here, small states find themselves facing a single question, when crises break out in the Indo-Pacific, in the Black Sea or in the Middle East, is the house they live in built on sand or on rock.

The storm does not ask about size. It asks about foundations.

The age of new maps asks, who are you.

Not whom you mention in speeches, nor which slogan you repeat, but what system you have built, what economy you sustain, what justice you enforce, what loyalty you show when the test arrives.

Japan is measured by the ocean that surrounds it, Albanians are measured by the Adriatic that binds them to the West.

The distant waves of Asia will rise from time to time.

If the inner compass remains set on the same light, the Adriatic Axiom of the Mature Nation passes from metaphor into fact, the silent trembling of this sea becomes a test of maturity and the name of a people who know where they are headed and what they bring to the world.

Arian Galdini