When "especially" is at the end of a list, does it apply to the whole list or only the last item

English is my second language, so be gentle if this seems silly ...

This sentence puzzles me:

China's prolonged silence about its destruction of the Feng Yun 1-C satellite, which it launched in 1999, has been almost as unnerving to its potential enemies (America, Japan and Taiwan especially) as the experiment itself.

In the parentheses does especially apply to only Taiwan or all three countries?

And how about in this sentence?

China's aim is to signal to America and its protégés in Asia—Taiwan and Japan especially...

Solution 1:

It is a little bit ambiguous, but it seems to apply to the whole list, especially as the list is already a subset of a broader category (e.g., America's "proteges in Asia").

If the list read, for example, "America, Japan, and, especially, Taiwan," the 'especially' would apply only to Taiwan.

Solution 2:

It's inherently ambiguous as written. In example #2 you could pause after Taiwan (put a comma there, in writing) to unambiguously indicate only Japan was especially being signalled (but that in the written form that wouldn't work if the reader interpreted it as an Oxford comma).

In short, it's trivial to disambiguate this one in speech, but not 100% certain in the written form.

Of course, you could move especially to an earlier position in the list to unambiguously indicate that all countries following that word were especially being signalled.