China’s “Joint Sword-2024B” military exercises around Taiwan last week have sparked concerns in Taipei and allied capitals that Beijing’s risk tolerance is increasing, and rather than prioritizing efforts toward “peaceful unification,” it is ramping up efforts to bring about unification by force, whether that be a military quarantine, blockade or full-scale invasion.
Catherine Lila Chou (周怡齡) and Mark Harrison are right in their recent book Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order that the nature of Beijing’s one-party political system, in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is always right, means Taiwanese identity is explained away as being the product of “secessionist” or “foreign” forces, which precludes a serious reckoning with how its aggressive actions are counterproductive to its desired outcome.
“Beijing is thus locked into a cycle of tactical escalation, continuously increasing military and diplomatic pressure… which only strengthens Taiwanese resolve,” they write, leading “Beijing to conclude that even more pressure is needed.”
Beijing appears to be locked into a spiral of tactical escalation, and there are real concerns that China’s Central Military Commission, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) are driving a subordination of economic and diplomatic policy to military objectives, trading short-term “tactical wins” over more sustainable long-term goals, reminiscent of Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Prussian general staff before World War I.
Beijing’s growing appetite for risk is why international analysts believe the military should prioritize preparations to deter and, if necessary, defeat an invasion. Complicating matters is that Beijing’s symmetric “gray zone” air and sea incursions are designed to prevent the military from diverting resources to building up its asymmetric capabilities, such as with smaller and more dynamic weapons that are hard to destroy and crucial to fighting a full-scale invasion.
However, while Beijing is clearly becoming more aggressive, posing asymmetric and symmetric challenges to Taiwan’s military forces, which should not be minimized and need the full support of President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration to maintain security and morale, Beijing is still a long way from being capable of mounting a full-scale invasion, giving Taiwan time to prepare and boost its capabilities to deter an attack.
Militarily, the PLA is inexperienced, having not fought a war since 1978, and Russia’s botched invasion of Ukraine has “likely induce[d] greater caution” about the costs of the use of force, PLA analyst Taylor Fravel said.
With recurring corruption cases in the PLA, it will likely still take a while before Xi would trust his forces to pull it off.
Moreover, Beijing’s economy is in poor shape and beset by structural headwinds associated with weak consumer demand and deleveraging of the property sector. As Financial Times economist Martin Wolf said recently, the longer it takes China to tackle these problems, the more likely it is to enter into a Japan-style property crash deflationary spiral, which took Tokyo three decades to get out of.
Not only could an invasion end in the PLA’s defeat, but if launched before the CCP tackles its economic challenges, could destroy China’s economic rise, ushering in decades of stagnation.
This means Taiwan still has time to boost its deterrence fundamentals, such as training and command reforms, which Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) is working on, and the nation’s whole-of-society preparedness, launched by Lai in June.
Beijing’s latest exercises are intended to intimidate and bully, but do not presage an immediate attack. By working closely with the US and other allies to boost their capabilities, Taiwan and the democratic world could ensure that even after Beijing’s military and economic reforms, Xi would still feel the gamble is not worth the risk.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
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