Confronting the Chinese threat

Editor’s Note: This piece by Matthew Fulco features quotes from CSP Senior Fellow Grant Newsham.

The risk of a Chinese invasion remains low, but China’s gray-zone provocations are likely to test Taiwan’s mettle.

Tensions in the Taiwan Strait reached new levels after U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August. The massive live-fire drills by China that followed the visit have intensified concerns about Taiwan’s security, which have been growing ever since the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) stepped up gray-zone provocations against the island democracy more than two years ago.

China has been threatening military action against Taiwan for decades, and despite the recent heightened tensions, there is no evidence that Beijing has adopted a definite plan to resort to use of force. Nevertheless, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has ordered the PLA to be capable of invading the island democracy by 2027. This deadline coincides with the end of Xi’s third term and the centennial of the PLA’s founding.

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Moreover, U.S. involvement in a cross-Strait conflict would be almost a given, considering the strong bipartisan Congressional support for Taiwan. In addition, President Joe Biden has explicitly stated four times during his presidency that Washington would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked.

As for the impact on the aggressor, a recent RAND Corporation study found that a cross-Strait war would cut China’s gross domestic product by a punishing 25-35%. Even coercive action below the kinetic threshold could have harsh repercussions for Beijing.

“If China blockades Taiwan, it will face some consequences,” says Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine colonel and former Marine attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. “Spiking insurance rates will affect maritime and air traffic to the PRC, and some carriers simply won’t go to China as long as war risk is high. And that will also affect FDI decisions regarding the PRC for some foreign companies.”

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While any outright use of military force by China against Taiwan would incur significant expenditures for the attacker, gray-zone activity does not. On the contrary, Beijing’s martial muscle-flexing has few drawbacks, allowing the PLA to train for different military operations while scoring propaganda points with its domestic and global audiences.

The August live-fire drills are a case in point. “The Chinese showed they could declare ‘no-entry’ zones around the island and bracket it with missile shots, while also deploying aircraft and ships in positions to enforce a blockade if necessary,” says Newsham. “It was disruptive, even though the Chinese didn’t push the matter, for now.”

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