This commentary first appeared in Foreign Policy.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a double disaster for President Vladimir Putin, as he faces a poorly performing military combined with an inability to shield his country from economic punishment. Both of these possibilities historically have also been sources of apprehension for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). But China’s leadership turned its anxiety into action about 10 years ago, deliberately working to fix many of the problems and minimize the risks currently plaguing Russia in Ukraine.

One result is that the Chinese military is more likely to perform well even though it has not fought a war since 1979, when it lost thousands of troops in a punitive but brief invasion of Vietnam. Adding to that, China’s economy is both far larger and deliberately more diversified than Russia’s. A sanctions effort like the one presently aimed at Russia would be much harder to sustain against China. These two observations do not mean deterrence won’t hold, only that the unfolding events in Ukraine will likely do little to make Beijing more cautious.

Nearly everyone overestimated Russia’s military capabilities—including probably Putin himself. During its invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s air-ground coordination has been ineffective, and Russian forces have shown risk-adverse tendencies in the air. Russia has also struggled with logistics and keeping its military supplied. Notably, it appears that Russia acted on bad intelligence and therefore did not believe initial strikes that maxed out its firepower were necessary. Furthermore, many Russian weapons platforms are outdated (for example, its Cold War-era tanks), and modern Su-57 fighter jets and T-14 Armata tanks only exist in comparatively small numbers.

The Chinese military used to clearly exhibit the same deficiencies. But over the past decade, it has embraced significant reforms, creating a much more capable fighting force that should give even the United States pause.

Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive our experts' commentary and analysis.

First, while Russia allowed its conventional capabilities to atrophy, Chinese military spending has exploded over the past three decades, increasing by 740 percent (in comparison to Russia’s 69 percent) from 1992 to 2017. According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, China spent almost four times on its military in 2020 than Russia ($244.9 billion to $66.8 billion). In 1999, less than 2 percent of its fighter jets were fourth-generation, 4 percent of its attack submarines were modern, and none of its surface ships were. Twenty years later, not only did China have much more of everything, but the majority was the most advanced, modern versions available—with China exhibiting advantages over Russia, even in combat aircraft, a traditional area of weakness for China.

Indeed, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) commentators often refer to China’s economic might as one of the reasons their military would outperform Russia’s—Russia has been “stingy” with its military modernization and production of precision-guided munitions primarily because of a lack of resources. By contrast, China has more than 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles, making the PLA Rocket Force the world’s largest ground-based missile force. Estimates place the number of missiles positioned against Taiwan alone at around 1,000.

Russia’s poor performance does remind us that it takes more than just a lot of fancy systems to win a war (though having more advanced systems and more of them surely would have helped). The human element of Russia’s failures is front and center. Putin probably did not have an open and honest communication channel with the military, which was fearful of providing unfavorable information to the erratic leader. Russian troops were largely considered incompetent, but Putin thought superior technology could overcome human deficiencies.

Chinese President Xi Jinping identified similar training and competency issues in the PLA 10 years ago. But under his command, the PLA has been proactively implementing significant reforms to avoid similar pitfalls. And unlike Putin, who apparently believed technology could overcome deficiencies in personnel, Xi came to the opposite conclusion. When he came to power, he took one look at the military and recognized that with all its fancy equipment, the PLA probably could not fight and win wars and perform the missions it had been assigned. Of particular importance, according to China’s national military strategy, was to fight local wars under informationalized conditions. This meant that the network between platforms and people—the ease of connectivity—was the main feature of modern warfare. China needed the best equipment; an advanced command, control, computers, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) network; and tons of precision-guided munitions. But perhaps most importantly, it needed troops that could leverage these systems to conduct seamless operations across services and top-down through the chain of command.

What followed was a series of slogans—the two incompatibles, two inabilities, two big gaps, the five incapables—all designed to point out the organizational and personnel issues of the military and focus leadership attention and resources on fixing the issue. A massive military reorganization followed with moves such as reorganizing effective combat units to be smaller so that they can mobilize more quickly and can remain self-sufficient for long periods of time. This means, in contrast with the Russian military, the PLA will likely have less reliance on generals at the front lines. China also established theater commands to facilitate joint operations and prioritized realism in its military exercises to help it prepare for real combat. Part of all of this was Xi’s demand that the military communicate its failures and weaknesses so that they could be addressed. Moreover, to improve command and control, China has moved toward engaging in multidomain joint operations all while standing up a new joint operations center that will ensure that, unlike with the Russian military, orders will be communicated and understood at the lowest levels. Indeed, the main reason that Xi has not yet made a play for Taiwan is likely his desire to hone this command and control structure and practice joint operations in realistic conditions for a few more years—a cautious and pragmatic approach that the situation in Ukraine only encourages further.

The PLA itself acknowledges that it still has some distance to go with training, particularly with regard to joint operations, but it looks as if the hard work is paying off. The complexity and scale of China’s national military exercises are eye-opening. It takes a great deal of planning, synchronization, and coordination to take service-level operations to the joint level. China appears to have made great strides in this area. The United States has observed, for example, China executing deep-attack air operations in its exercises that have combined intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) with multi-domain strike; lift for rapid mobility and advanced fighter manuevers. Russia has relied heavily on artillery and tanks, now and historically, while the PLA is showing a more balanced approach to combined arms operations.

For all these reasons, we should not expect the Chinese military to perform as poorly in its first real military operation since 1979. The PLA is structurally superior to the Russian military. And the Chinese know it. Granted, it’s hard to know whether some of the outlandish claims in the Chinese media are true—that the PLA Air Force would actually “be able to take out the Ukrainian air force in one hour.” But one thing is for certain—the Chinese military is learning lessons from Ukraine, whether it is to stockpile more precision-guided munitions, ensure solid command and control, or cut off internet access to prevent the leaking of information to the West, which will only serve to improve its warfighting capability in the future.

This commentary was originally published by The Wall Street Journal.

A Russian invasion of Ukraine would be the most consequential use of military force in Europe since World War II and could put Moscow in a position to threaten U.S. allies in Europe. Many in the American foreign-policy establishment argue that the appropriate U.S. response to any such invasion is a major American troop deployment to the Continent. This would be a grave mistake.

The U.S. can no longer afford to spread its military across the world. The reason is simple: an increasingly aggressive China, the most powerful state to rise in the international system since the U.S. itself. By some measures, China’s economy is now the world’s largest. And it has built a military to match its economic heft. Twenty-five years ago, the Chinese military was backward and obsolete. But extraordinary increases in Beijing’s defense budget over more than two decades, and top political leaders’ razor-sharp focus, have transformed the People’s Liberation Army into one of the strongest militaries the world has ever seen.

Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive our experts' commentary and analysis.

China’s new military is capable not only of territorial defense but of projecting power. Besides boasting the largest navy in the world by ship count, China enjoys some capabilities, like certain types of hypersonic weapons, that even the U.S. hasn’t developed.

Most urgently, China poses an increasingly imminent threat to Taiwan. Xi Jinping has made clear that his platform of “national rejuvenation” can’t be successful until Taiwan unifies with the mainland—whether it wants to or not. The PLA is growing more confident in its ability to conquer Taiwan even if the U.S. intervenes. Given China’s military and economic strength, China’s leaders reasonably doubt that the U.S. or anyone else would mount a meaningful response to an invasion of Taiwan. To give a sense of his resolve, Mr. Xi warned that any “foreign forces” standing in China’s way would have “their heads . . . bashed bloody against a Great Wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”

The U.S. must defend Taiwan to retain its credibility as the leader of a coalition for a free and open Indo-Pacific. From a military perspective, Taiwan is a vital link in the first island chain of the Western Pacific. If Taiwan falls into Chinese hands, the U.S. will find it harder to defend critical allies like Japan and the Philippines, while China will be able to project its naval, air and other forces close to the U.S. and its territories. Taiwan is also an economic dynamo, the ninth-largest U.S. trading partner of goods with a near-monopoly on the most advanced semiconductor technology—to which the U.S. would most certainly lose access after a war.

The Biden administration this month ordered more than 6,000 additional U.S. troops deployed to Eastern Europe, with many more potentially on the way. These deployments would involve major additional uncounted commitments of air, space, naval and logistics forces needed to enable and protect them. These are precisely the kinds of forces needed to defend Taiwan. The critical assets—munitions, top-end aviation, submarines, and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities—that are needed to fight Russia or China are in short supply. For example, stealthy heavy bombers are the crown jewel of U.S. military power, but there are only 20 in the entire Air Force.

The U.S. has no hope of competing with China and ensuring Taiwan’s defense if it is distracted elsewhere. It is a delusion that the U.S. can, as Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said recently, “walk and chew gum at the same time” with respect to Russia and China. Sending more resources to Europe is the definition of getting distracted. Rather than increasing forces in Europe, the U.S. should be moving toward reductions.

There is a viable alternative for Europe’s defense: The Europeans themselves can step up and do more for themselves, especially with regard to conventional arms. This is well within Europe’s capacity, as the combined economic power of the NATO states dwarfs that of Russia. NATO allies spend far more on their militaries than Russia. To aid its European allies, the U.S. can provide various forms of support, including lethal weapons, while continuing to remain committed to NATO’s defense, albeit in a more constrained fashion, by providing high-end and fungible military capabilities. The U.S. can also continue to extend its nuclear deterrent to NATO.

The U.S. should remain committed to NATO’s defense but husband its critical resources for the primary fight in Asia, and Taiwan in particular. Denying China the ability to dominate Asia is more important than anything that happens in Europe. To be blunt: Taiwan is more important than Ukraine. America’s European allies are in a better position to take on Russia than America’s Asian allies are to deal with China. The Chinese can’t be allowed to think that America’s distraction in Ukraine provides them with a window of opportunity to invade Taiwan. The U.S. needs to act accordingly, crisis or not.

Ms. Mastro is a center fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, part of Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Colby is a principal at the Marathon Initiative and author of “The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict.”

In her recent Foreign Affairs essay, The Taiwan Temptation: Why Beijing Might Resort to Force, Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro argues that Chinese leaders now consider a military campaign to take Taiwan a real possibility and cautions that the United States cannot by itself alter Beijing’s calculus on Taiwan. The essay sparked a heated debate. In the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs, several scholars — Rachel Esplin Odell and Eric Heginbotham, Bonny Lin and David Sacks, and Kharis Templeman — provide counterarguments to Mastro's analysis and she responds to their criticism. Read her complete rebuttal below.

Sign up for APARC newsletters to receive our experts' analysis and commentary. 

Rachel Esplin Odell and Eric Heginbotham, Bonny Lin and David Sacks, and Kharis Templeman all argue that China is unlikely to attempt armed unification with Taiwan. Although I appreciate their perspectives, they do not present any new evidence that would make me reconsider my assessment that the risk of Chinese aggression across the Taiwan Strait is real and growing. To the contrary, they repeat many of the increasingly dangerous misperceptions that I sought to dispel in my original article—namely, that China does not have the military capabilities to pull off an amphibious invasion, that the economic costs of an invasion would be sufficient to deter Chinese President Xi Jinping, and that China can afford to wait indefinitely to achieve its most important national goal of unification. My critics assume that insofar as there are risks, they can be dealt with through relatively limited adjustments in U.S. policy and military posture — a position with which I still strongly disagree. 

Let’s take these arguments in order. My critics say that I have exaggerated China’s military capabilities and understated the difficulties of an invasion. But their assessments rely on outdated or largely irrelevant comparisons. Odell and Heginbotham, for instance, note that the United States needed more naval tonnage to capture Okinawa from Japan in 1945 than China has today. But this example is inapposite. Japan’s military was more than six million strong in 1945 and had been fighting for over a decade; Taiwan’s military consists of 88,000 personnel and two million reservists, of whom only 300,000 are required to complete even a five-week refresher training course. Tonnage, moreover, is not a useful metric. Modern navies have moved to lighter, more flexible fleets. Odell and Heginbotham point out that civilian ships were of only limited use in the Falklands War, but the United Kingdom used just 62 of them in that campaign. The People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia has many thousands of ships and is closer to a naval force than a civilian one. If China were to mobilize all its naval vessels, including its new large amphibious transport ships and civilian ships, it could hypothetically carry hundreds of thousands of troops across the 80-mile-wide Taiwan Strait in a short period of time. Even if the United States had enough warning to optimally position its submarines, it does not have enough munitions to target such a large force. 

For their part, Lin and Sacks argue that to believe China can take Taiwan by force is to fall for a Chinese misinformation campaign. They warn that “analysts should not accept at face value China’s claim that it could easily win a fight against Taiwan.” But no one, not even the cockiest of People’s Liberation Army analysts, argues that a full-scale attack on Taiwan would be easy, only that the PLA could prevail at an acceptable cost. Moreover, my assessment of Chinese military capabilities is not based on Chinese discourse or the results of war games alone. Reams of unbiased and rigorous analysis—from the U.S. Department of Defense’s annual report to Congress on China’s military modernization to Congressional Research Service reports on Chinese naval modernization to hundreds of studies by think tanks and defense-affiliated organizations, such as the RAND Corporation—suggest that the PLA has made unparalleled advances in the past two decades and could take on the United States in certain scenarios. Indeed, Heginbotham himself argued in 2017 that “the balance of power between the United States and China may be approaching a series of tipping points, first in contingencies close to the Chinese coast (e.g., Taiwan).” 

I do not mean to suggest that a Chinese invasion would be a cakewalk. Taiwan could get some shots in, but it does not have the ability to defend itself. Luckily, the United States would, I believe, come to Taiwan’s aid and could still prevail in many scenarios. Taiwan is far from a lost cause. But ten years ago, the United States would have prevailed in any scenario. Because there are now some scenarios in which U.S. strategists think the United States could lose, it is not unfathomable to think that Chinese strategists have come to a similar conclusion. 

My critics also argue that economic considerations will deter Beijing. Should China attempt to use force to assert control over Taiwan, the international response would be severe enough to imperil Xi’s ambitious development goals. But as I argued in my original article, Chinese analysts have good reason to think the international response would be weak enough to tolerate. China could even reap economic benefits from controlling Taiwan, whose manufacturers accounted for more than 60 percent of global revenue from semiconductors last year. The United States is heavily reliant on Taiwanese semiconductors. Should China take Taiwan, it could conceivably deprive the United States of this technology and gain an economic and military advantage. 

But economic costs or benefits, while part of Beijing’s calculus, are unlikely to be the determining factor. Xi’s top priority is protecting China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity—as Beijing defines it. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, its militarization of the South China Sea, and its sanctions against countries that offend it, such as Australia or South Korea, all demonstrate that Chinese leaders are willing to subordinate economic considerations to considerations of power and prestige. In a speech marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in July, Xi warned against foreign attempts to bully or oppress China, declaring that “anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.” Those words should be taken seriously. 

Finally, my critics argue that China has no need to attempt to forcibly unify with Taiwan. Lin and Sacks think peaceful unification is working; Templeman believes China can wait indefinitely to resolve the issue. I disagree because I think unification is a top priority for the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan will not give up its autonomy without a fight. 

A Chinese invasion is by no means imminent or inevitable, but Beijing is now seriously considering initiating a conflict to gain political control over Taiwan, whereas in the past the only scenario in which it would have used force was to prevent Taipei from declaring independence. I agree with Templeman that China is unlikely to invade in the next four years (although I think this is largely because China could benefit from more time to prepare, not because it fears U.S. President Joe Biden’s resolve), but his argument that China can wait indefinitely is logically and empirically flawed. As I argued in my original article, Xi has made numerous statements that suggest he wants to achieve unification during his reign. It would be unwise to dismiss these as mere rhetoric, since he has repeatedly voiced his intention to assert control over other territorial claims before doing exactly that — in the South China Sea, by building military infrastructure and conducting naval drills, and in Hong Kong, by imposing a harsh national security law last year.

Templeman argues that if China believes the United States is in decline, then it has every reason to wait on Taiwan. But in the eyes of Chinese strategists, American decline actually hastens the need for action. Power transition theory, which holds that war becomes more likely as the gap between a rising power and an established great power diminishes, is also studied in Beijing. And although U.S. strategists fret that a rising China, dissatisfied with the U.S.-led international order, will become aggressive and start a conflagration, Chinese strategists fear a different pathway to war. They worry that the United States, unable to accept its inevitable decline, will make a dangerous last-ditch effort to hold on to its unrivaled great-power status. By this logic, a declining United States is more dangerous than a stable, ascendant one. 

Lin and Sacks make a different argument for why Beijing does not need to attempt armed unification. They believe that Chinese leaders remain committed to their long-standing approach of limited coercion coupled with economic incentives showcasing the benefits of unification because that strategy is working. As evidence of Beijing’s progress, Lin and Sacks point to polling that shows the majority of people in Taiwan support the status quo, not independence. But it is an enormous leap from not supporting independence to desiring or conceding to unification. As Lin and Sacks themselves acknowledge, China has employed this strategy of limited coercion and economic inducements for decades, but Taiwan is no closer to being a part of mainland China. In a September 2020 poll conducted by National Chengchi University, only six percent of Taiwanese citizens preferred eventual or immediate unification. So although Lin and Sacks are correct that Beijing will likely continue with its carrot-and-stick approach, it will still need to put boots on the ground to gain full political control of Taiwan. 

My critics also raise concerns about some of the policy implications of my argument. Odell and Heginbotham warn against focusing too much on the credibility of the U.S. military threat when it comes to deterrence, rightly highlighting the equal importance of reassurance. They warn that changes in U.S. policy toward Taiwan could convince Beijing that the United States now supports Taiwanese independence — a misperception that could lead to war. But my argument is for a change in posture, not in policy: the United States should develop the force posture and operational plans to deny China its objective in Taiwan and then credibly reveal these new capabilities. It should not make dangerous policy changes that would risk provoking a Chinese military response. Indeed, I have argued elsewhere that even if a war breaks out over Taiwan and the United States wins, Washington should not demand Taiwan’s independence as one of the terms of peace. 

Templeman raises a separate concern: that highlighting the potential costs of defending Taiwan could bolster the case of those advocating that Washington abandon Taipei. If this were a serious worry, I would be the first to shift my work to more private channels. But those calling for the United States to reconsider its commitment to defend Taiwan are still in the minority, and the Biden administration has been clear that it would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of an invasion.

Moreover, the reaction of the U.S. Department of Defense to the threat posed by China’s growing military power has been not to back down but to ramp up efforts to counter it. From new doctrines that enhance joint capabilities between the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy to base-resilience initiatives to efforts to improve U.S. early warning systems in the region, the Pentagon is firing on all cylinders to ensure it can deter and, if necessary, defeat China in a wide range of conflict scenarios. U.S. Cyber Command, the U.S. Space Force, and the Department of Defense’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center were all established partly to counter Chinese advantages in those organizations’ respective domains. If Lin and Sacks are correct that China exaggerates its capabilities to try to convince the United States to give up, Beijing has achieved the opposite.   

In the end, all my critics highlight an important truth: the situation across the Taiwan Strait has been relatively stable for 70 years because of the United States. Washington has managed to convince Beijing that armed unification would fail and that China would pay a hefty price for trying. But China is not the same country it was 70 years ago. Its rapid military modernization, spectacular economic ascent, and growing global influence have changed Beijing’s calculus on many issues. It has taken a more assertive approach to international institutions; built one of the world’s largest, most capable militaries; and extended its economic influence deep and far throughout the world. It would be wishful thinking to assume that China has not also changed its thinking on Taiwan.

Indeed, although my critics argue that China is unlikely to invade, they still recommend that Taiwan improve its defenses and that the United States enhance its military posture in the region — not exactly a vote of confidence in Beijing’s restraint. I had hoped to convince skeptics that China is now seriously considering armed unification, but at least our debate has yielded a consensus that more must be done in Taipei and Washington to enhance deterrence across the Taiwan Strait.

This essay was originally published in Foreign Affairs magazine.

Chinese leaders will continue to pay lip service to peaceful unification until the day the war breaks out, but their actions increasingly suggest that they have something else in mind. As tensions with the United States have heated up, China has accelerated its military operations in the vicinity of Taiwan, conducting 380 incursions into the island’s air defense identification zone in 2020 alone. In April of this year, China sent its largest-ever fleet, 25 fighters and bombers, into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. Clearly, Xi is no longer trying to avoid escalation at all costs now that his military is capable of contesting the U.S. military presence in the region. Long gone are the days of the 1996 crisis over Taiwan, when the United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to sail near the strait and China backed off. Beijing did not like being deterred back then, and it spent the next 25 years modernizing its military so that it would not be so next time.  

Much of that modernization, including updates to hardware, organization, force structure, and training, was designed to enable the People’s Liberation Army to invade and occupy Taiwan. Xi expanded the military’s capabilities further, undertaking the most ambitious restructuring of the PLA since its founding, aimed specifically at enabling Chinese forces to conduct joint operations in which the air force, the navy, the army, and the strategic rocket force fight seamlessly together, whether during an amphibious landing, a blockade, or a missile attack—exactly the kinds of operations needed for armed unification. Xi urgently pushed these risky reforms, many unpopular with the military, to ensure that the PLA could fight and win wars by 2020.

The voices in Beijing arguing that it is time to use these newfound military capabilities against Taiwan have grown louder, a telling development in an era of greater censorship. Several retired military officers have argued publicly that the longer China waits, the harder it will be to take control of Taiwan. Articles in state-run news outlets and on popular websites have likewise urged China to act swiftly. And if public opinion polls are to be believed, the Chinese people agree that the time has come to resolve the Taiwan issue once and for all. According to a survey by the state-run Global Times, 70 percent of mainlanders strongly support using force to unify Taiwan with the mainland, and 37 percent think it would be best if the war occurred in three to five years. 

The Chinese analysts and officials I have spoken to have revealed similar sentiments. Even moderate voices have admitted that not only are calls for armed unification proliferating within the CCP but also they themselves have recommended military action to senior Chinese leadership. Others in Beijing dismiss concerns about a Chinese invasion as overblown, but in the same breath, they acknowledge that Xi is surrounded by military advisers who tell him with confidence that China can now regain Taiwan by force at an acceptable cost. 

Battle Ready

Unless the United States or Taiwan moves first to alter the status quo, Xi will likely consider initiating armed unification only if he is confident that his military can successfully gain control of the island. Can it? 

The answer is a matter of debate, and it depends on what it would take to compel Taiwan’s capitulation. Beijing is preparing for four main campaigns that its military planners believe could be necessary to take control of the island. The first consists of joint PLA missile and airstrikes to disarm Taiwanese targets—initially military and government, then civilian—and thereby force Taipei’s submission to Chinese demands. The second is a blockade operation in which China would attempt to cut the island off from the outside world with everything from naval raids to cyberattacks. The third involves missile and airstrikes against U.S. forces deployed nearby, with the aim of making it difficult for the United States to come to Taiwan’s aid in the initial stages of the conflict. The fourth and final campaign is an island landing effort in which China would launch an amphibious assault on Taiwan—perhaps taking its offshore islands first as part of a phased invasion or carpet bombing them as the navy, the army, and the air force focused on Taiwan proper. 

Among defense experts, there is little debate about China’s ability to pull off the first three of these campaigns—the joint strike, the blockade, and the counterintervention mission. Neither U.S. efforts to make its regional bases more resilient nor Taiwanese missile defense systems are any match for China’s ballistic and cruise missiles, which are the most advanced in the world. China could quickly destroy Taiwan’s key infrastructure, block its oil imports, and cut off its Internet access—and sustain such a blockade indefinitely. According to Lonnie Henley, a retired U.S. intelligence officer and China specialist, “U.S. forces could probably push through a trickle of relief supplies, but not much more.” And because China has such a sophisticated air defense system, the United States would have little hope of regaining air or naval superiority by attacking Chinese missile transporters, fighters, or ships. 

But China’s fourth and final campaign—an amphibious assault on the island itself—is far from guaranteed to succeed. According to a 2020 U.S. Department of Defense report, “China continues to build capabilities that would contribute to a full-scale invasion,” but “an attempt to invade Taiwan would likely strain China’s armed forces and invite international intervention.” The then commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Philip Davidson, said in March that China will have the ability to successfully invade Taiwan in six years. Other observers think it will take longer, perhaps until around 2030 or 2035. 

What everyone agrees is that China has made significant strides in its ability to conduct joint operations in recent years and that the United States needs adequate warning to mount a successful defense. As Beijing hones its spoofing and jamming technologies, it may be able to scramble U.S. early warning systems and thereby keep U.S. forces in the dark in the early hours of an attack. Xi’s military reforms have improved China’s cyberwarfare and electronic warfare capabilities, which could be trained on civilian, as well as military, targets. As Dan Coats, then the U.S. director of national intelligence, testified in 2019, Beijing is capable of offensive cyberattacks against the United States that would cause “localized, temporary disruptive effects on critical infrastructure.” China’s offensive weaponry, including ballistic and cruise missiles, could also destroy U.S. bases in the western Pacific in a matter of days.

In light of these enhanced capabilities, many U.S. experts worry that China could take control of Taiwan before the United States even had a chance to react. Recent war games conducted by the Pentagon and the RAND Corporation have shown that a military clash between the United States and China over Taiwan would likely result in a U.S. defeat, with China completing an all-out invasion in just days or weeks.

Ultimately, on the question of whether China will use force, Chinese leaders’ perceptions of their chances of victory will matter more than their actual chances of victory. For that reason, it is bad news that Chinese analysts and officials increasingly express confidence that the PLA is well prepared for a military confrontation with the United States over Taiwan. Although Chinese strategists acknowledge the United States’ general military superiority, many have come to believe that because China is closer to Taiwan and cares about it more, the local balance of power tips in Beijing’s favor. 

As U.S.-Chinese tensions have risen, China’s state-sponsored media outlets have grown more vocal in their praise for the country’s military capabilities. In April, the Global Times described an unnamed military expert saying that “the PLA exercises are not only warnings, but also show real capabilities and pragmatically practicing reunifying the island if it comes to that.” If China chooses to invade, the analyst added, the Taiwanese military “won’t stand a chance.”

Go Fast, Go Slow

Once China has the military capabilities to finally solve its Taiwan problem, Xi could find it politically untenable not to do so, given the heightened nationalism of both the CCP and the public. At this point, Beijing will likely work its way up to a large-scale military campaign, beginning with “gray zone” tactics, such as increased air and naval patrols, and continuing on to coercive diplomacy aimed at forcing Taipei to negotiate a political resolution. 

Psychological warfare will also be part of Beijing’s playbook. Chinese exercises around Taiwan not only help train the PLA but also wear down Taiwan’s military and demonstrate to the world that the United States cannot protect the island. The PLA wants to make its presence in the Taiwan Strait routine. The more common its activities there become, the harder it will be for the United States to determine when a Chinese attack is imminent, making it easier for the PLA to present the world with a fait accompli.

At the same time that it ramps up its military activities in the strait, China will continue its broader diplomatic campaign to eliminate international constraints on its ability to use force, privileging economic rights over political ones in its relations with other countries and within international bodies, downplaying human rights, and, above all, promoting the norms of sovereignty and noninterference in internal affairs. Its goal is to create the narrative that any use of force against Taiwan would be defensive and justified given Taipei’s and Washington’s provocations. All these coercive and diplomatic efforts will move China closer to unification, but they won’t get it all the way there. Taiwan is not some unoccupied atoll in the South China Sea that China can successfully claim so long as other countries do not respond militarily. China needs Taiwan’s complete capitulation, and that will likely require a significant show of force. 

If Beijing decides to initiate a campaign to forcibly bring Taiwan under Chinese sovereignty, it will try to calibrate its actions to discourage U.S. intervention. It might, for example, begin with low-cost military options, such as joint missile and airstrikes, and only escalate to a blockade, a seizure of offshore islands, and, finally, a full-blown invasion if its earlier actions fail to compel Taiwan to capitulate. Conducted slowly over the course of many months, such a gradual approach to armed unification would make it difficult for the United States to mount a strong response, especially if U.S. allies and partners in the region wish to avoid a war at all costs. A gradual, coercive approach would also force Washington to initiate direct hostilities between the two powers. And if China has not fired a shot at U.S. forces, the United States would find it harder to make the case at home and in Asian capitals for a U.S. military intervention to turn back a slow-motion Chinese invasion. An incremental approach would have domestic political benefits for Beijing, as well. If China received more international pushback than expected or became embroiled in a campaign against the United States that started to go badly, it would have more opportunities to pull back and claim “mission accomplished.”  

But China could decide to escalate much more rapidly if it concluded that the United States was likely to intervene militarily regardless of whether Beijing moved swiftly or gradually. Chinese military strategists believe that if they give the United States time to mobilize and amass firepower in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait, China’s chances of victory will decrease substantially. As a result, they could decide to preemptively hit U.S. bases in the region, crippling Washington’s ability to respond.

In other words, U.S. deterrence—to the extent that it is based on a credible threat to intervene militarily to protect Taiwan—could actually incentivize an attack on U.S. forces once Beijing has decided to act. The more credible the American threat to intervene, the more likely China would be to hit U.S. forces in the region in its opening salvo. But if China thought the United States might stay out of the conflict, it would decline to attack U.S. forces in the region, since doing so would inevitably bring the United States into the war. 

Wishful Thinking

What might dissuade Xi from pursuing armed unification, if not U.S. military might? Most Western analysts believe that Xi’s devotion to his signature plan to achieve the “Chinese dream” of “national rejuvenation,” which requires him to maintain economic growth and improve China’s international standing, will deter him from using military force and risking derailing his agenda. They argue that the economic costs of a military campaign against Taiwan would be too high, that China would be left completely isolated internationally, and that Chinese occupation of the island would tie up Beijing for decades to come. 

But these arguments about the cost of armed unification are based more on American projections and wishful thinking than on fact. A protracted, high-intensity conflict would indeed be costly for China, but Chinese war planners have set out to avoid this scenario; China is unlikely to attack Taiwan unless it is confident that it can achieve a quick victory, ideally before the United States can even respond. 

Even if China found itself in a protracted war with the United States, however, Chinese leaders may believe they have social and economic advantages that would enable them to outlast the Americans. They see the Chinese people as more willing to make sacrifices for the cause of Taiwan than the American people. Some argue, too, that China’s large domestic market makes it less reliant on international trade than many other countries. (The more China economically decouples from the United States and the closer it gets to technological self-sufficiency, the greater this advantage will be.) Chinese leaders could also take comfort in their ability to quickly transition to an industrial wartime footing. The United States has no such ability to rapidly produce military equipment.

International isolation and coordinated punishment of Beijing might seem like a greater threat to Xi’s great Chinese experiment. Eight of China’s top ten trading partners are democracies, and nearly 60 percent of China’s exports go to the United States and its allies. If these countries responded to a Chinese assault on Taiwan by severing trade ties with China, the economic costs could threaten the developmental components of Xi’s rejuvenation plan.

But Chinese leaders have good reason to suspect that international isolation and opprobrium would be relatively mild. When China began to cultivate strategic partnerships in the mid-1990s, it required other countries and organizations, including the European Union, to sign long-term agreements to prioritize these relationships and proactively manage any tensions or disruptions. All these agreements mention trade, investment, economic cooperation, and working together in the United Nations. Most include provisions in support of Beijing’s position on Taiwan. (Since 1996, China has convinced more than a dozen countries to switch their diplomatic recognition to Beijing, leaving Taiwan with only 15 remaining allies.) In other words, many of China’s most important trading partners have already sent a strong signal that they will not let Taiwan derail their relationships with Beijing. 

Whether compelling airlines to take Taiwan off their maps or pressuring Paramount Pictures to remove the Taiwanese flag from the Top Gun hero Maverick’s jacket, China has largely succeeded in convincing many countries that Taiwan is an internal matter that they should stay out of. Australia has been cautious about expanding its military cooperation with the United States and reluctant even to consider joint contingency planning over Taiwan (although the tide seems to be shifting in Canberra). Opinion polls show that most Europeans value their economic ties with China and the United States roughly the same and don’t want to be caught in the middle. Southeast Asia feels similarly, with polls showing that the majority of policymakers and thought leaders from member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations believe the best approach to U.S.-Chinese sparring is for the association to “enhance its own resilience and unity to fend off their pressures.” One South Korean official put it more memorably in an interview with The Atlantic, comparing the need to pick sides in the U.S.-Chinese dispute to “asking a child whether you like your dad or your mom.” Such attitudes suggest that the United States would struggle to convince its allies to isolate China. And if the international reaction to Beijing’s crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang is any indication, the most China can expect after an invasion of Taiwan are some symbolic sanctions and words of criticism. 

The risk that a bloody insurgency in Taiwan will drag on for years and drain Beijing of resources is no more of a deterrent—and the idea that it would be says more about the United States’ scars from Afghanistan and Iraq than about likely scenarios for Taiwan. The PLA’s military textbooks assume the need for a significant campaign to consolidate power after its troops have landed and broken through Taiwan’s coastal defenses, but they do not express much concern about it. This may be because although the PLA has not fought a war since 1979, China has ample experience with internal repression and dedicates more resources to that mission than to its military. The People’s Armed Police boasts at least 1.5 million members, whose primary mission is suppressing opposition. Compared with the military task of invading and seizing Taiwan in the first place, occupying it probably looks like a piece of cake.

For all these reasons, Xi may believe he can regain control of Taiwan without jeopardizing his Chinese dream. It is telling that in the flood of commentary on Taiwan that has come out of China in recent months, few articles have mentioned the costs of war or the potential reaction from the international community. As one retired high-level military officer explained to me recently, China’s main concern isn’t the costs; it’s sovereignty. Chinese leaders will always fight for what is theirs. And if China defeats the United States along the way, it will become the new dominant power in the Asia-Pacific. The prospects are tantalizing. The worst-case scenario, moreover, is that the United States reacts more quickly and effectively than expected, forcing China to declare victory after limited gains and go home. Beijing would live to capture Taiwan another day. 

No Exit

These realities make it very difficult for the United States to alter China’s calculus on Taiwan. Richard Haass and David Sacks of the Council on Foreign Relations have argued in Foreign Affairs that the United States could improve cross-strait deterrence by ending its long-standing policy of “strategic ambiguity”—that is, declining to state specifically whether and how it would come to Taiwan’s defense. But the main problem is not U.S. resolve, since Chinese leaders already assume the United States will intervene. What matters to Xi and other top Chinese leaders is whether they think the PLA can prevail even in the face of U.S. intervention. For that reason, successful deterrence requires convincing China that the United States can prevent it from achieving its military objectives in Taiwan, a difficult undertaking that would come with its own downsides and potential risks. 

One way to convince Beijing would be to develop the capabilities to physically stop it from taking Taiwan—deterrence by denial. This would involve positioning missile launchers and armed drones near Taiwan and more long-range munitions, especially antiship weapons, in places such as Guam, Japan, and the Philippines. These weapons would help repel a Chinese amphibious and air assault in the initial stages of an attack. If Chinese leaders knew their forces could not physically make it across the strait, they would not consider trying unless Taiwan took the truly unacceptable step of declaring independence. 

The United States would also need to invest heavily in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in the region. The attractiveness of a full-on invasion from China’s perspective lies in the possibility of surprise: the United States may not be able to respond militarily until after Beijing has taken control of the island and the war is over. Leaving aside the operational challenges of such a response, it would be politically difficult for any U.S. president to authorize an attack on China when no shots were being fired at the time. 

An enhanced U.S. military and intelligence presence in the Indo-Pacific would be sufficient to deter most forms of armed unification, but it wouldn’t prevent China from using force altogether. Beijing could still try to use missile strikes to convince Taiwan to bend to its will. To deter all Chinese military aggression, the United States would therefore need to be prepared to destroy China’s missile batteries—which would involve U.S. strikes on the Chinese mainland. Even if U.S. intelligence capabilities improve, the United States would risk mistaking Chinese military exercises for preparations for an invasion—and igniting a war by mistake. China knows this and may conclude the United States would not take the chance. 

The most effective way to deter Chinese leaders from attacking Taiwan is also the most difficult: to convince them that armed unification would cost China its rejuvenation. And the United States cannot do this alone. Washington would need to persuade a large coalition of allies to commit to a coordinated economic, political, and military response to any Chinese aggression. And that, unfortunately, remains a remote possibility, since many countries are unwilling to risk their economic prospects, let alone a major-power war, in order to defend a small democratic island. 

Ultimately, then, there is no quick and easy fix to the escalating tensions across the strait. The only way the United States can ensure Taiwan’s security is to make an invasion impossible for Beijing or to convince Chinese leaders that using force will cause them to be pariahs. For the last 25 years, however, Beijing has sought to prevent Washington from doing either. Unfortunately for Taiwan, only now is the United States waking up to the new reality.

There are strong indications that the Biden administration intends to continue strengthening U.S.-Taiwan ties. The Biden team invited Taiwan's representative Bi-khim Hsiao to the presidential inauguration, supporters of Taiwan now hold senior roles in the administration, and officials have pledged "rock-solid" U.S. commitment to Taiwan, warning that PRC military pressure against Taiwan threatens regional peace and stability. But Cross-strait deterrence is arguably weaker today than at any point since the Korean War, according to Chinese military and security expert Oriana Skylar Mastro, FSI Center Fellow at APARC.

On February 18, 2021, Mastro testified to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission at a hearing on Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan. Her testimony on the political and strategic dynamics underpinning deterrence across the Taiwan Strait is available to watch below.

[Subscribe to APARC's newsletters for the latest analysis from our experts.]

Beijing has turned to increasingly hostile and combative rhetoric and actions since the democratic election of Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen. PLA air and water operations around Taiwan, particularly in the Taiwan Strait, have increased significantly in the past year, and concern is growing that the Chinese Communist Party is imminently planning to use force to compel Taiwan to accept unification with mainland China.

Drawing on her expertise in both policy and military security, Mastro explains why deterrence in Taiwan must be based on military capabilities rather than signaling through policy.

Catalysts to Conflict

Foremost, Mastro argues that the basic circumstances of aggression towards Taiwan have changed. In years past, it was accepted that China would launch military operations against Taiwan in response to actions or policy positions taken there or in the United States. However, Mastro believes that China is now primed to force a campaign of reunification regardless of either Taiwan’s or the U.S.’s policies moving forward.

By Mastro’s assessment, China is now in a position where it could prevail in cross-strait military contingencies even if the U.S. intervenes in Taiwan’s defense. The reform overhaul and modernization of China’s military have vastly improved the quality it equipment and confidence in its capability. China now possesses offensive weaponry, including ballistic and cruise missiles, which if deployed, could destroy U.S. bases in the Western Pacific. Sophisticated cyber attacks on domestic infrastructure both in Taiwan and the United States are also a credible threat and viable form of retaliation.

As long as President Xi is confident that the PLA can successfully back a forced unification in Taiwan, Mastro argues that action of some kind against Taiwan is not a matter of if, but of when, and what severity.

Types of Escalation

Failure to reunify Taiwan is too high a political and military cost for the PRC to risk, but there is also growing agitation amongst the mainland Chinese population for a resolution on the half-baked status of the island and its governance. Mastro believes that this pressure will ensure that action will be taken on Taiwan in the next 3 to 5 years.

Since Taiwan cannot withstand a sustained, active assault from China on its own, the deciding factor in when and how China moves against Taiwan is largely dependent on the signals the U.S. sends. And since China is increasingly confident in its own military, the signals the U.S. sends must likewise be ground in military capability, not policy, says Mastro.  

If China believes there will be little or no intervention or support from the U.S., it is likely to follow a graduated plan of attack, using economic blockages and targeted military action to bring about capitulation. If, however, it appears the U.S. will intervene, China is much more likely to move quickly and escalate violence and force rapidly to maximize damage before a full U.S. defense response can be coordinated.

Policy Recommendations

To effectively counter China on Taiwan, Mastro recommends crafting policy that creates doubt over China’s ability to successfully absorb Taiwan through military means. To do this, the United States needs to focus forces and develop operational plans that credibly off-set China’s goals while not triggering a panicked response from Beijing that could escalate into rapid conflict.

Mastro also urges the allocation of more resources toward intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), base development, and firepower in the Asia-Pacific region. Investing in these signals U.S. commitment to determent and the capacity to follow through if need be.

Finally, Mastro urges additional research into U.S. war termination behavior. Any involvement in Taiwan must be as limited and without the possibility for escalating levels of violence and long term unsustainable, unwinnable commitments. In preparing to potentially fight a war, she reminds policymakers that they need to know how to end one as well.

A recording of the full hearing is available courtesy of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

FSI Center Fellow at APARC Oriana Skylar Mastro joins NPR's Weekend Edition host Scott Simon to discuss the rising tensions between China and Taiwan and how the United States should respond.

Listen to the complete interview below. This conversation originally appeared on NPR's website.

In 2013, China’s president, Xi Jinping, launched a massive reclamation and construction campaign on seven reefs in the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. Beijing insisted that its actions were responsible and in accord with international law, but foreign critics questioned Xi’s real intentions. Recently available internal documents involving China’s leader reveal his views about war, the importance of oceans in protecting and rejuvenating the nation, and the motives underlying his moves in the South China Sea. Central to those motives is China’s rivalry with the United States and the grand strategy needed to determine its outcome. To this end, Xi created five externally oriented and proactive military theater commands, one of which would protect newly built assets in the South China Sea and the sea lanes – sometimes referred to as the Maritime Silk Road – that pass through this sea to Eurasia and beyond. Simultaneously, China’s actions in the Spratlys complicated and worsened the US-China rivalry, and security communities in both countries recognized that these actions could erupt into armed crises – despite decades of engagement to prevent them. A permanent problem-solving mechanism may allow the two countries to move toward a positive shared future.

You can read the full article from CISAC co-founder John Lewis and Xue Litai on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Web site.

In the wake of the recent historic meeting of the leaders of China and Taiwan, the Stanford News Service asked two of the university's Asia experts about the aftermath of that meeting and its possible effects on political relations between the two countries, the military situation and Taiwan's Jan. 16 presidential and parliamentary elections.

The first presidential meeting between the leaders of the communist mainland and the democratic island, split by civil war in 1949, was held in early November on neutral territory in Singapore.

Kharis Templeman is the Taiwan Democracy program manager at Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He recently wrote about why Taiwan's defense spending has fallen as China's has risen. Thomas Fingar is a distinguished fellow at Stanford's Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. He served as the chairman of the National Intelligence Council and in other key positions in Washington. 

Do you anticipate any lasting effects from the face-to-face meeting of Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou?

Thomas Fingar: At a minimum, the meeting appears intended by both sides to validate and lock in the much-improved cross-Taiwan Strait relationship that has evolved over the past several years.

Kharis Templeman: I do think the Ma-Xi meeting itself will have one lasting legacy: it has created a precedent for treating the directly elected president of the Republic of China as an equal and as the rightful representative of Taiwanese interests in cross-strait relations. From now on, leaders in Beijing are going to have a hard time arguing that a non-KMT (the Kuomintang, Taiwan's governing party,) president is illegitimate, as they did during the [former Taiwanese president] Chen Shui-Bian era, or to continue to insist on referring to Taiwan’s leaders as provincial-level officials. So, the next president will come into office somewhat strengthened by that precedent.   

Will the meeting have any effect on the January elections in Taiwan?

Templeman: I don’t think it will make much, if any, difference. Taiwanese public opinion is deeply divided about Ma Ying-Jeou’s meeting with Xi. Ma himself remains quite unpopular, the economy is barely growing, and the KMT presidential candidate remains at least 20 points behind in the polls. There’s little indication that this meeting has shaken up what has been a large and steady lead for DPP (Democratic Progressive Party) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-Wen, and I would be shocked if she didn’t win a comfortable victory in January.

Fingar: Probably not. Beijing seems to have learned that its past attempts to influence elections on Taiwan have been ineffectual or counterproductive, and the meeting is unlikely to change minds or votes on the island. 

How might the elections affect military spending on either sides, or China's aggressive island-building for military bases?

Fingar: The meeting will not have any effect on military spending or the building of artificial islands in the South China Sea, but Beijing may have hoped that agreeing to meet with Ma to demonstrate how "good" the relationship is might persuade Washington not to approve another round of arms sales to Taiwan.  Regardless of who wins the election on Taiwan, the next administration is likely to seek another round of U.S. arms sales in order to prove that it has the support of the United States.

Templeman: The meeting will have no impact on the security balance in the region. Ma reportedly raised the issue of PRC (People's Republic of China) missiles within easy range of Taiwan, but Xi claimed, implausibly, that they were not targeted at Taiwan, and that was the end of it. The broader trends are unchanged: the PRC’s military budget is growing annually by double-digit rates while Taiwan’s remains essentially flat. The consequence is that the PRC’s capacity to take coercive measures against Taiwan continues to expand, even as cross-strait cooperation has been improved and institutionalized.

Dan Stober is at the Stanford News Service.