In this article, the oceanographic data management of Taiwan is studied under the analytical framework of transnational legal ordering, whereby the evolution of transnational norm-making in the domain of oceanographic data management is being recast through the recursivity process. The status, issues and future challenges of Taiwan’s oceanographic data management can thus be displayed in following dimension: first, the diagnostic struggle between Taiwan’s oceanographic databases and their international counterparts for data standard congruence; second, the institutional contradiction exemplified in the uneven allocation of institutional resource required to advance data integration and exchange; third, the ideological contradiction inhered in different perception and understanding of academic professionals and governmental officials that manage these databases; fourth, wrestling between different professionals in the marine scientific research domain, the Navy and Coast Guard Agency that reifies the issue of actor mismatch and representativeness, and fifth, indeterminacy of law implied in the management of confidential oceanographic data, and rule of exchange with the international oceanographic community. Taiwan’s case also serves an opportune exemplification of how an absent state impacts upon the evolution of transnational norm-making in national oceanographic governance. •Oceanographic data has served an indispensable role for saving the degradation of marine environment and resources.•There have been repetitive rounds of effort in Taiwan in integrating the oceanographic data scattered country wide.•The oceanographic databases in Taiwan have widely adopted international data standard in their respective field.•Taiwan has encountered serious challenges from the unsettled maritime territorial boundaries in this regard.•Taiwan’s statehood debate entails conflict of authorities between security and scientific research governmental agencies.