President Xi Jinping’s sees China-Taiwan reunification as a “historic inevitability”. In his public statements and meetings with United States (US) President Joe Biden, he has made his objective starkly clear and warned against American interference.
China has staged two major war games in the last one-and-a-half years around Taiwan, with one simulating attacks, using precision strikes, blockades and PLA Air Force (PLAAF) sorties.
Chinese fighters and bombers increasingly cross the Taiwan Strait’s median line to do joint combat readiness patrols with the PLA Navy (PLAN). China’s aircraft carrier Shandong sailed through the Strait in December. Though an alarmed America has slammed such intrusions, it sticks to its ‘One China’ policy.
The threat of China occupying Taiwan by force is real and can’t be ignored, especially after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If Donald Trump is re-elected, China could attack Taiwan considering his non-interventionist policy. If Biden returns, the danger remains as the US will be reluctant to open a third front in Taiwan after the Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars.
However, wars are unpredictable, and an American involvement in Taiwan can’t be completely ruled out. A direct conflict with nuclear-armed China will have catastrophic consequences for both nations. To avoid such an escalation, America needs an effective war strategy that ends in victory without an escalation.
In a February report titled ‘US Military Theories of Victory: For a war with the People’s Republic of China’, the RAND Corporation lists five theories of a US victory over China in a hypothetical war:
- Dominance: To use brute force to incapacitate China. However, it’s not possible considering China’s retaliatory power, nukes and superior missiles.
- Denial: To convince China that it lacks the means to take Taiwan by destroying its sea and airlift assets. But it requires sufficient power to blunt an invasion and the risk of escalation persists.
- Devaluing: To convince China that the benefits of taking Taiwan are too small by, for example, by destroying Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. However, China’s political interests in Taiwan and the American political obstacles to harming a partner make the option unviable.
- Brinkmanship: To convince China that the future cost of fighting for Taiwan may become intolerably high by threatening escalation, like using nukes. This option is also impractical as China can retaliate with its nuclear arsenal.
- Cost imposition: To use military instruments, like distant blockade of Chinese maritime trade at chokepoints or strategic air attacks, to persuade China that the costs of continuing the war outweigh the benefits. But the US must find and target pressure points at “a sufficient speed”. This will unlikely generate pressure quickly enough to stop a fait accompli.
According to RAND, the best options are denial, military cost-imposition, or a mix of the two. However, denial by a proxy war with China—like the military aid to Ukraine—entails a lower escalation risk but has “lower odds of operational success”. Besides, it could lead to a direct war due to deliberate, inadvertent or accidental escalation.
