China's Taiwan options

The future of Taiwan is consequential, including for India which trades heavily with all the major protagonists — China, Taiwan, the US, and Japan. In 2022, the Rhodium Group estimated that the global economic costs of a Chinese blockade of Taiwan would be $2 trillion “even before factoring in international responses or second-order effects”. War over Taiwan would be incalculably costlier.

Presuming that Taiwan continues to resist unification, the Chinese government has three choices — status quo, peaceful unification, and forceful unification.

Doing nothing on the Taiwan issue is implausible. China’s patience is running low for at least three reasons. First, the longer China waits, the greater the risk that Taiwan’s enjoyment of freedom will harden resistance to reunification. Second, if China eases off, global opinion may increasingly support Taiwan’s “independence”. Third, Chinese public opinion could turn against the communist party for “defeatism”. 

Grey-zone tactics

China’s second option, peaceful unification, consists of two possibilities — grey-zone tactics and economic sanctions.

Grey-zone tactics are already quite advanced in the form of coercive diplomacy (encroachments into Taiwanese air and maritime space, aggressive public pronouncements), influence operations in Taiwan, and moves to enlist the Kuomintang on China’s side. The “peace trip” of the Kuomintang chairperson to China in April, just before Trump’s visit, was a message to the US but was also aimed at roiling Taiwanese and Kuomintang politics.

A more aggressive policy of peaceful unification would be economic sanctions. China could stop all trade with Taiwan. In 2025, Taiwan sent over $100 billion worth of goods to the mainland. This amounted to 15 per cent of its total exports. The loss of the mainland market would be devastating.

Will grey-zone tactics and trade sanctions work? By itself, coercive diplomacy and subversion will not lead to capitulation given the strong sense of Taiwanese identity. As for trade sanctions, Taiwan could diversify its exports and compensate for the loss of the mainland market. In short, the prospects of peaceful reunification appear slim.

If peaceful reunification is unlikely, China will be drawn to forceful reunification, beginning with a blockade. Chinese authorities would issue a warning to commercial shipping to cease or to face seizure and destruction. This would precipitate a crisis, primarily with Taiwan but also with the US and Japan. Hectic negotiations would ensue. These negotiations could drag on for weeks if not months.

Would Taiwan survive weeks or months of a blockade while the main protagonists negotiate? The Iran war and US restrictions against Cuba have shown that even severe deprivations and pain do not necessarily bring capitulation. In World War II, despite massive bombing by allied nations, the beleaguered populations of Germany and Japan endured to the end. In Taiwan’s case, resilience will be bolstered by its food and other underground strategic reserves.

Still, a blockade would be an existential challenge for Taiwan. In1948-49, the US and the United Kingdom flew 250,000 supply missions over 15 months into the Western Sector of Berlin until the Soviets lifted the blockade. Could Taiwan’s partners — the US and Japan — sustain Taiwanese resistance by airlifting supplies?

An airlift is probably logistically, economically, and politically impossible over several months. The airlifted supplies for Taiwan would have to be sourced from Japan — no other country would risk antagonising China. With a population of 23 million, Taiwan is roughly 20 per cent of Japan’s population. It is hard to imagine Japan supporting such a large effort.

In the end, if no mutually acceptable solution is found and China does not lift the blockade, Taiwan, the US, and Japan must challenge the cordon by escorting commercial ships and daring China to initiate violence. China, then, must escalate or lose face.

In 2017, Michael Beckley of Tufts University considered the possibility of a surprise Chinese attack against Taiwan to enforce the blockade. He argued that unless China can destroy Taiwanese naval capabilities and air power, the island could disrupt the blockade. Things have of course changed militarily since 2017. Instead of a regular aircraft, missile, and naval attack, could hundreds of accurate and relatively cheap Chinese missiles and drones destroy Taiwan’s naval and air capabilities?

Given the rapid development of these new weapons, and China’s ability to build at scale, this seems more plausible. Taiwan has two possible responses. First, while it cannot compete with China on scale, it may be able to develop enough defences to counter the attack. Having said that, defensive systems are expensive. An alternative, as General H S Panag has argued recently for India, is to supplement active with passive defences — hardened military installations, subterranean facilities (to hide and produce weapons and other supplies), synthetic nets that ensnarl drones, camouflage, and so on.

If Taiwan is unable to disrupt a blockade, could the US break it by escorting shipping to Taiwan? In 2017, Beckley argued that US antisubmarine warfare capabilities were superior to China’s and could open a safe channel for commercial shipping.

The US forces would not have to succeed 100 per cent. During World War II, the allied nations lost commercial shipping and surface ships to German submarines, but by 1943, they had prevailed partly due to antisubmarine warfare. Beckley may of course be wrong on US antisubmarine effectiveness, especially a decade later, but conversely, a Chinese blockade is by no means guaranteed to succeed — and not winning is losing.

Michael E O’Hanlon, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, in a more recent modelling exercise (2023) is less sanguine than Beckley. He concludes that the outcome of a blockade escalating to a fight with the US is too close to call. Even if China attacks Okinawa, Guam, Taiwan, and US ships at sea, the outcome remains uncertain. Once again, for Taiwan and partners, the aim would be to force China   to consider if anything short of an outright victory is politically acceptable domestically. 

Chinese invasion

If China invades, everything points to an amphibious operation rather than a massive airborne paratroop-led shock attack to paralyse Taiwanese command and control and its resistance. If it is an amphibious invasion, Chinese forces confront four key challenges.

First, Beckley notes, only 10 per cent of Taiwan’s coastline “is suitable for an amphibious landing”. The east coast is too far, has steep cliffs, and features choppy waters. The west coast is better but has “severe tides”, and landing is only possible at high tide in a few locations well known to Taiwan’s military.

In any case, unless the PLA takes out Taiwanese (and possibly also nearby US air power) in a surprise attack, the invading force will face a hail of fire. The journey from Chinese bases in Fujian to the west coast of Taiwan will take 5-8 hours. If the US is in the fight, it will deploy submarines. Despite much-improved Chinese anti-access/air denial capabilities, it is uncertain if China can destroy Taiwanese and American naval and air power sufficiently and thereby disgorge enough forces on the beaches.

The second challenge for China is the logistics of sustaining thousands of Chinese troops as they attempt to break out from the beachheads into the island’s interior. For one thing, the supply ships and air drops will face massive attacks. Even if a logistical pipeline is established, as People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces proceed inland, their supply lines will lengthen and become more vulnerable. With its active fighting personnel of 100,000, plus 1.5 million reservists, Taiwan’s defence would be formidable. To pin down Taiwanese air and ground forces, China must gain command of the skies. This will necessitate suppressing Taiwanese air defences from the start, which is not a given. If the US joins the fight, Chinese command of the air may never be achieved. In an analysis going back to 2000, O’Hanlon had concluded that “China cannot invade Taiwan, even under its most favourable assumptions about how a conflict would unfold.” That conclusion may be less certain 26 years on from O’Hanlon’s original analysis, but the problems for China are structural — the distance to be travelled; the vulnerability of amphibious assault; the establishment and maintenance of beachheads under fire and of providing continuous supplies (from air and sea); and the advantage of interior supply lines for Taiwan’s forces.

The third challenge for China is Taiwan’s terrain. In 2026, a Stimson Center analysis showed that Taiwan’s mountains, rice fields and other open areas, and dense urban environments will make for a hazardous, slogging fight. The PLA must overcome hilly approaches, rice fields that will hamper tanks and armour, open roads and highways on which Chinese forces cannot hide, and bloody urban warfare. Fourth and finally, crucial for China is the US role. Will it intervene militarily? Former president Joe Biden said the US would defend Taiwan. By contrast, after the Beijing summit in May, President Trump musingly stated that he does not want to “travel 9,500 miles to fight a war”, suggesting that the US would be reluctant to fight. On the other hand, under questioning from the media, he said “I don’t talk about that (sending US forces to defend Taiwan)”, which was a more equivocal position.

It seems almost certain that if Taiwan declares independence outright, the US will not fight (even if it funnels military aid to Taiwanese forces). It has repeatedly warned Taiwan to stop short of such a provocation. On the other hand, if China were to attack “out of the blue”, the US must consider its future in East Asia.

The US has two possible responses. If the Chinese attack, the US could sue for peace, holding out a deal. The US would persuade Taiwan to surrender. In return, China would allow select Taiwanese leaders and officials opposed to the mainland safe passage to the US and its various allies (Japan, Australia, Canada, principally). China would also promise to govern benevolently and allow Taiwan a reunification transition with some guaranteed special rights. Plus, the US would be given, for a time, access to Taiwan’s semiconductor industry. Perhaps China would also agree not to station large naval forces on Taiwan to reassure the US about the security of its bases on the second island chain.

The second option for the US is war, at least to the extent of providing supplies and air cover. If it fails to protect Taiwan, its security guarantees to Japan and South Korea and protection of the Philippines could lose credibility. Without a credible American response, US allies might switch sides or go neutral, and the US military presence in the first island chain will end. Chinese forces would then have hegemony in Asian waters, including quite a long way towards the second island chain anchored by the US base in Guam.

What will the US decide? With China’s rise, it is a coin toss between the two US options. Can we essay a prediction on when China might risk more aggressive action, including either a blockade or invasion? The year 2035 may well be pivotal. In 2035, China’s nuclear weapons arsenal is projected to cross 1,500 weapons. The US would still have a clear lead in strategic nuclear weapons, but with 1,500 weapons (ICBMs, IRBMs, SLBMs, and bombers), China will be psychologically ready to look the US square in the eyes and dare it to intervene.

Finally, time is on China’s side. Even if a blockade or invasion fails, defeat would not be decisive. Taiwan must expect that China will try again and again. Unless the communist party passes from the historical stage, reconciliation with the mainland seems a distant possibility.