Thu, Jan 15, 2026 page8

• The warning to Beijing from Iran

  • By Simon Tang 湯先鈍
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  As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces.

  Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should command close attention in Washington and Taipei.

  Before the Iranian revolution, the shah commanded one of the best-equipped militaries in the developing world. Yet it disintegrated not in war, but in the streets. As mass protests expanded, conscripts were ordered to fire on neighbors, classmates and relatives. Psychological resistance quickly overwhelmed institutional discipline.

  Political sociologist Theda Skocpol described how state coercive power became paralyzed once urban civil resistance reached a critical scale. When social bonds between soldiers and protesters grew too strong to sever, the military opted for neutrality rather than internal fragmentation. The regime collapsed without a decisive battle.

  The lesson was simple: A military socially embedded in the population cannot reliably sustain large-scale domestic coercion.

  The CCP absorbed this lesson early. It deliberately structured the PLA less like a national army and more like Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — a force designed primarily to safeguard regime survival rather than defend borders.

  Two features stand out:

  First, ideological loyalty over national loyalty. The PLA is explicitly the armed wing of the ruling party. Political commissars shape recruitment, promotion and daily indoctrination to anchor loyalty directly to party ideology rather than national identity.

  Second, moral exclusion. To prevent the fraternization that crippled the shah’s army, the CCP systematically frames adversaries as hostile forces threatening a “sacred national mission.” This psychological boundary makes coercion easier and institutional defection less likely.

  At the same time, Beijing pursues a parallel and seemingly contradictory narrative toward Taiwan that “both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one family.” This softer identity framing aims to reduce resistance and encourage political accommodation without force from Taiwan. In practice, Beijing manages a dual-track strategy — conciliatory language externally, securitized enemy framing internally and during escalation.

  Effective coercion requires a clear psychological boundary between “us” and “them.” Framing the target population as socially and culturally intimate risks blurring that boundary, increasing hesitation, cognitive dissonance and internal friction. What functions as persuasion in peacetime can become a liability in wartime.

  Iran’s renewed protests this year offer a revealing stress test. Despite decades of indoctrination, Tehran has increasingly relied on elite security units to suppress unrest even in traditionally loyal sectors such as the Tehran Bazaar. Economic exhaustion and generational frustration are eroding ideological insulation.

  When a regime must treat large portions of its own population as internally occupied territory, the costs of repression escalate rapidly — financially, psychologically and politically. Even highly ideological forces face strain when coercion becomes permanent rather than episodic.

  For Beijing, this is an uncomfortable preview. No amount of political control can indefinitely shield a military from a deteriorating domestic social environment. Ideological loyalty is not infinitely renewable.

  For Taiwan, deterrence should not be defined solely by missiles and submarines. The psychological and cognitive dimensions of conflict matter just as much as kinetic capability.

  First, the porcupine strategy must include narrative warfare. If Taiwan demonstrates that resistance would be broad-based, societal and resilient — not merely a government project — it complicates the PLA’s internal psychology. A conscript-heavy force confronting a mobilized society risks precisely the social pressure that historically undermines coercive cohesion.

  Second, Taiwan should challenge Beijing’s moral exclusion framing. Strategic communication that humanizes Taiwanese society and highlights social, cultural and personal connections increases the psychological cost of repression. The CCP’s greatest fear is not battlefield defeat alone, but erosion of the enemy image that sustains ideological discipline inside the PLA.

  Above all, a failed invasion of Taiwan would almost certainly place Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — and potentially the CCP’s rule itself — in grave political danger. Deterrence therefore depends not only on Taiwan’s military resilience, but also on whether Beijing fully recognizes how profoundly such a failure could threaten regime stability.

  China’s long-term stability depends on whether the PLA remains a purely ideological guard force or gradually reverts toward the characteristics of a national military embedded in society. History suggests that ideological insulation can delay — but not permanently defeat — social reality.

  For Taiwan, security lies in ensuring that the cost of crossing the Strait is not merely operational risk, but the possibility of triggering a legitimacy and loyalty crisis that the CCP itself might struggle to contain.

  Simon Tang is an adjunct professor at California State University, Fullerton, who lectures on international relations.
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