Click the link for a full transcript of “What We Need To Talk About When We Talk About Taiwan.“

The Likelihood of Invasion

In stark terms, Oriana Skylar Mastro, a center fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, believes there’s a 100% chance China will use some sort of force against Taiwan in the next five years. For the last twenty years, China has been making concerted efforts to modernize its military and increase its capabilities not only to assert force against Taiwan, but to deter intervention from the United States.

In the majority of scenarios, the United States wins in a conflict with China over Taiwan. But the United States also carries a distinct geographic disadvantage. The distance across the Taiwan Strait between the island and mainland China is approximately 100 miles, which is roughly the distance between Richmond, Virginia and Washington D.C. If China moves quickly, PRC forces could take Taiwan before U.S. forces have time to move into position.

When considering possible outcomes in Taiwan, it is equally important to consider the motivations driving Beijing’s ambitions. The leadership on the mainland has been planning and thinking about how to retake Taiwan since 1949. With the modernized capabilities coming online, the balance of power has shifted in China’s military favor, and the cost-benefit calculus favors Beijing’s ambitions. The long-term planning stage is now reaching its end, and the prospects of direct action are increasing.

The View from Taipei

Political leaders in Taiwan recognize the growing danger they face across the Strait. In Larry Diamond’s assessment, the end of Hong Kong's autonomy and the suppression of the “one country, two systems” model, the rising military incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone and coastal waters, and the whole rising pace of Chinese military intimidation has sobered Taiwan and visibly impacted Taiwanese public opinion.

Concerningly though, while the political elite recognize the real and present danger of the situation, polling of the general Taiwan public suggests that the vast majority of citizens still feel like an attack or an invasion by China is unlikely. Similar majorities suggest that they would be willing to fight in Taiwan’s defense, but volunteering for military service remains at a minimum.

To maximize safety, Taiwan needs to find ways to strengthen itself in its ability to defend, resist, and deter China, while still avoiding any appearance of moving toward permanent independence or any other action that could be deemed by Beijing as a provocation, says Diamond.

What the United States Can Do

When it comes to the defense of Taiwan, the strategic crutch hobbling the United States is geography. Most of the U.S. Pacific forces are not in Asia. The majority are in Hawaii and California, as well as a few bases and airfields in Japan. To be able to effectively deter China, the U.S. needs far greater forward deployed military capability in order to be able to either stop or stall the movement of Chinese troops into Taiwan, says Mastro.

Taiwan needs greater onshore military deterrence capabilities as well. One such strategy is the “porcupine approach,” which increases the number of smaller mobile lethal weapons. By Larry Diamond’s assessment, increased citizen participation in military training is also crucial, with an emphasis on weapons training and urban defense tactics. The U.S. could support these aims by overhauling the current system for weapons procurement to speed up the production and delivery of weapons systems not just for Taiwan, but to the benefit of U.S. defense and other contingencies as well. Working with leadership to create strategic stockpiles of food, and energy should also be a priority, says Diamond.

The U.S. also needs to put much more effort into its diplomatic efforts on behalf of Taiwan. Many U.S. allies and partners are reluctant to ostracize China because of economic ties and concerns over sparking their own conflict with China in the future. A key ally in all of this is Japan. If Japan fights with the United States on behalf of Taiwan, it is a guaranteed win and enough to effectively deter China. But much more needs to be done much more quickly in order to secure those guarantees and present them in a convincing way to Beijing.

“The clock is ticking,” Larry Diamond says. “And the problem is we don’t know how fast it’s ticking. “Taiwan is moving in the right direction. But we need to move faster than we're moving.”

The Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) is delighted to share that Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro is the recipient of the John H. McArthur Research Fellowship for 2022-23 in recognition of her outstanding scholarship.

Awarded by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada (APF Canada), the fellowship provides opportunities for exceptional mid-career scholars working on programs and research areas directly relevant to Canada and Canada’s interests in Asia. It honors the memory of John H. McArthur, a world-renowned Canadian business educator who, among other roles, was dean at Harvard Business School and chair of the APF Canada Board of Directors.

Mastro’s current research projects focus on the U.S.-China great power competition, deterrence in the Taiwan Strait, China’s maritime ambitions, and the China-Russia military relationship.

Prior to her appointment at Stanford in August 2020, Mastro was an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.

China's ruling Communist Party concluded its 20th National Congress on October 22, cementing Xi Jinping's status as the country’s most powerful leader in decades by awarding him an unprecedented third five-year term as party general secretary. The CCP also revealed the new lineup of the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s most powerful political body, made up entirely of Xi loyalists. APARC scholars outline the key takeaways from the Congress and consider its implications for China and the world.  

Xi's “Work Report” address to the party congress indicates continuity in policy direction. Xi’s long-term ambitions, driven by the grand “Chinese dream” of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” have not changed, but now he can be more assertive than before in pursuing them, writes APARC and Korea Program Director Gi-Wook Shin in a co-authored Los Angeles Times opinion piece. Xi has demonstrated that he does not shy away from conflict with the United States, and China will likely strengthen ties with Russia, North Korea, and other like-minded authoritarian nations, says Shin. With Xi at the helm for a third term, “we should expect a more aggressive China and increasing turbulence in the regional and global order."

Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro, an expert in Chinese military and Asia security, agrees that the next five years under Xi’s leadership look set to get more confrontational between the world’s two great powers. In coverage by multiple media outlets, Mastro explains the implications of the Party Congress for the United States and its partners.

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In Xi's report to the Party Congress, he called for further investments in the military and reaffirmed that China will not rule out using force to bring Taiwan under its control. His address indicates that, despite recent challenges, such as economic slowdown and the rippling effects of the COVID pandemic, the Chinese think their country is on track with its trajectory, whether it be toward reunification with Taiwan or having a world-class military, Mastro tells the Christian Science Monitor. “We will probably continue to see, in their minds progress, and in our minds disruptions and harassment.”

Along with securing a third term in office, Xi also named two top generals as vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission, the top body overseeing the armed forces, as he looks to modernize China’s military and keep up pressure on Taiwan. One vice chair role went to He Weidong, who led the military command responsible for Taiwan. There is speculation He played a role in planning China’s unprecedented military drills around the island following U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August 2022, Mastro says via Bloomberg. “The promotion of He Weidong is generally considered within China as a sign that Beijing is strengthening military preparations, or in the words of some Chinese military commentators, ‘strengthening combat preparations for military struggles against Taiwan,’” she notes.

China wants to reach the point where its predominant power allows its actions to go uncriticized and countries in its periphery accommodate Chinese preferences, Mastro explains in another interview with Bloomberg.

Under Xi’s watch, China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army, has undergone a tremendous modernization, with the goal of becoming a “world-class force” by 2049, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. One area in which the PLA appears to be making progress is in bringing forces together for more complex joint exercises, helped by interaction with other militaries, especially Russia’s. “We are observing an increasing complexity and sophistication in how they are performing in exercises,” Mastro tells the Wall Street Journal.

With regards to the Taiwan flashpoint, it is almost guaranteed we will see lower-level conflicts and disruptions, Mastro predicts. China does not have to impose a complete blockade over the island, and could do something like a blockade for a week or two “just to teach Taiwan a lesson if they don’t like what happens in the next election, for example,” she says in an interview with the Hindustan Times.

China’s consistent trajectory of improving its military capabilities means a heavier reliance on those capabilities to achieve its goals over time, Mastro explains via Radio Free Asia. “The bottom line is, the next five years are undoubtedly going to be rockier for U.S.-China relations and for other countries with security concerns in the region,” she concludes.

The scenes from the 20th Party Congress reinforce the idea in the Biden administration’s new National Security Strategy, which recognizes that “the PRC presents America’s most consequential geopolitical challenge.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, speaking hours after the strategy’s release, singled out China and did not mention Russia in his opening remarks to reporters, underscoring an intention to not allow Moscow’s war against Ukraine to distract from the Biden administration’s assessment that Beijing is a more crucial challenge to U.S. national security, Mastro tells the South China Morning Post. “I think the administration correctly assessed that in order to compete with China we have to stay focused, and we couldn’t be distracted by other challenges which are absolutely important but are not of the same severity or calibre as what China presents.”

More media coverage:

• Report from the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China: What does Xi Jinping's Third Term mean for US-China relations and Taiwan? – VOA Chinese, October 22
• What Will Xi’s Third Term Mean for India-China Ties? – The Hindustan Times, October 17

Taiwan is currently the single biggest point of contention in U.S.-China relations, and U.S. allies have a crucial role to play in efforts to prevent a great-power war over the island. South Korea, however, has remained relatively ambiguous about its willingness to support U.S. efforts to push back against China’s growing influence in the region, including in the Taiwan Strait. As the Yoon administration is now creating an opening for a more proactive approach, what can South Korea do in a Taiwan contingency?

A new article in The Washington Quarterly provides a framework for analyzing South Korea’s potential role in this era of strategic competition through the lens of war over Taiwan. The authors — Oriana Skylar Mastro, a Center Fellow at APARC, and Sungmin Cho, a professor at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies — build upon traditional concepts of balancing to create a nuanced, operationally relevant strategy for South Korea to contribute to the defense of Taiwan.

They explain South Korea’s approach to the Taiwan issue to date; evaluate South Korea’s strategic importance and what it can do to support U.S.-led efforts to compete with China; explore how China and North Korea may respond to increased South Korean cooperation with the United States, along with the potential obstacles this cooperation could create; and recommend ways to leverage the US-ROK alliance to enhance deterrence against China with respect to Taiwan.

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Mastro and Cho recognize that it is operationally and politically infeasible for South Korea to fight side-by-side with U.S. forces against China in a Taiwan scenario or to build its military sufficiently to deter Chinese aggression against Taipei. South Korean strategists must also consider the costs of China’s and North Korea’s potential responses to greater South Korean involvement in defending Taiwan. Still, Seoul can play a significant role in deterring Chinese aggression.

According to Mastro and Cho, South Korea’s optimal strategy to navigate the U.S.-China rivalry should meet two conditions. First, it should contribute to the vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific, including deterring Chinese aggression against Taiwan. Second, it should be able to make China hesitate to take punitive actions against South Korea. Thus, South Korea can provide rear-area support to the United States, such as intelligence gathering, ammunition supplies, or noncombatant evacuation. It can also support the strategic flexibility of US Forces Korea (USFK) and be more proactive in deterring North Korean aggression and provocation to free up U.S. resources to focus on China in a contingency scenario.

Moreover, South Korea could contribute toward forms of “collective resilience” against China’s economic statecraft, such as collective economic sanctions, and leverage its position as one of the world’s leading producers of advanced semiconductors to complicate China’s calculus. Finally, Seoul’s diplomatic support of U.S.-led efforts to defend Taiwan can influence Beijing to take seriously the international community’s potential united response against any attempt to invade Taiwan.

“Given the heightened urgency over tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Washington and Seoul should pursue these options immediately to maintain peace and stability in the region before it is too late,” the authors conclude.

Over the past decade, as China’s might and assertiveness have grown, countries around the Indo-Pacific have increasingly embraced informal partnerships, or minilateral groupings, to deepen international policy action and defense coordination. Two prominent examples of the minilateral model are the Quad, which comprises Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, and AUKUS, which includes Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. However, deterring China with minilateral groupings is more complex than traditional deterrence theory might suggest. Can minilateral groupings deter coercion and aggression in the Indo-Pacific, and if so, under what conditions? 

A collection of essays in a new Asia Policy roundtable tackles this question. Shorenstein APARC South Asia Research Scholar Arzan Tarapore is a co-editor of the roundtable. Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro is the author of the first essay in the collection.

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The roundtable brings together six leading security experts to explore the nexus between deterrence and minilateralism in Indo-Pacific security politics. The motivation for this endeavor, Tarpore and co-editor Brendan Taylor of the Australian National University explain in the roundtable introductory essay, is to fill the gap in the existing literature, which has largely not addressed the possible convergence between these two increasingly dominant trends in the region.

The roundtable opens with Mastro's essay, in which she identifies the unique characteristics of the China challenge and considers how minilateral groupings can best enhance deterrence in these circumstances. First, she explains why minilaterals, such as the Quad, could address some of the challenges of “deterrence by punishment.” This traditional form of deterrence employs the threat of severe penalties — ranging from economic sanctions to nuclear retaliation — to prevent attacks by an adversary. Here, Mastro says, “economic or political costs may have greater deterrent value against Beijing than military costs, thus creating an opportunity for the Quad.”

Next is the category of “deterrence by denial,” which includes strategies that prevent or limit aggressive actions of an adversary by creating the perception that they will not succeed. Such denial-based strategies are more effective than punishment-based ones in circumstances where China could blunt U.S. attempts at punishment or choose to incur the costs. But the United States, Mastro says, “does not have the regional force posture to deny China its objectives.” 

Mastro then considers a third, less analyzed category, “deterrence by resilience,” where the goal is to encourage the perception that disruptive events such as military operations will not be effective in attaining the adversary’s objectives. Here, “resiliency is about signaling to China that the benefits of a particular action are less than China believes them to be.” By building resiliency, smaller countries can push back against Chinese coercion to abide by China's interests. Countries in minilateral groupings should therefore prioritize this form of deterrence as they consider ways to cooperate, Mastro concludes.

This commentary was first published by the Los Angeles Times.

The 104-minute speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the country’s 20th party congress reveals a leader who believes he is on a historic mission to save China’s self-described socialism in the 21st century.

Xi’s Oct. 16 speech launched the twice-a-decade meeting, which concludes this weekend, where the national Communist Party appoints its leadership and announces China’s policy direction for the coming years. The address reads very much like a sequel to his previous one five years ago. At that time, Xi cryptically said China had entered a “new era” of socialism. This time, he characterized his aim as “building a modern socialist country,” which the state media touted as the highlight of the speech. This statement clarifies his ambition to prove the superiority of socialism by 2049, with an implicit aim to surpass the U.S. by the centennial anniversary of the People’s Republic of China’s founding in 1949.

Xi is driven by the grand “Chinese dream,” the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” that he referenced in his 2017 and 2022 National Congress speeches. He appears to view himself as the sole individual who can achieve this dream in the 21st century, perhaps casting himself as a 21st-century Mao Zedong. His plans — including “common prosperity” and “socialist modernization” — are long term and unlikely to shift even following the recent turmoil caused by COVID-19, China’s harsh lockdowns in response and the resulting economic pains.

These ambitions are the same ones promoted by the Xi administration over the last decade. But by the end of this latest congress, Xi will have cemented an unprecedented third term as president, and he can now be more aggressive than before in their pursuit.

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It follows then that U.S.-China relations are unlikely to improve in Xi’s next term. He has shown, time and again, that he differs from his predecessors, except Mao, in that he does not shy away from conflict with the United States. Xi has felt comfortable declaring that “the East is rising while the West is declining” and positioning the U.S. as a challenge to overcome, rather than an obstacle to avoid, on the road to the Chinese dream.

On the other hand, China will probably strengthen ties with Russia, North Korea and other like-minded authoritarian nations, just as the U.S. is strengthening alliance networks in the region, including with Japan and South Korea. We are, as Henry Kissinger once said, in the “foothills of a Cold War.”

The Taiwan Strait remains central to how quickly and drastically conflict could escalate. Xi’s latest speech reiterated that China wanted to gain Taiwan peacefully but “will never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary.” He frames unification not as a choice but as a historical responsibility, which has been placed on his shoulders. Xi’s direct mention of Taiwan unification at the party congress suggests that he will use that issue as a justification for his long-term reign.

One factor that will help determine the actual longevity of Xi’s rule is whether meaningful protests against him will emerge. Xi’s policies and crackdowns against dissent have yielded sporadic protests that made international headlines. In China, however, the threshold for revolution is quite high, creating major barriers to a regime change. A large dose of state-led nationalism and indoctrination convinces people that the U.S. in particular is determined to torpedo China’s quest for modernity, creating an enemy to rally the country around.

China’s economic challenges pose another hurdle for Xi’s long-term agenda. The country’s rigid zero-COVID policy has limited growth, and Xi has displayed a heavy-handed approach toward private businesses, dampening entrepreneurial spirit. If Chinese people come to think of Xi’s anti-market tendency as the underlying problem, it will erode his authority.

To stave off such threats, Xi is likely to continue his iron-fist rule. He has purged enough rivals and earned enough grievances over the years that relaxing his power grip at this juncture will likely invite criticism, if not revenge, toward him. He is eager to turn China into a global power that will awe the West. As Xi put it at the 2017 party congress, China is increasingly taking “center stage in the world.” With Xi still at the helm, we should expect a more aggressive China and increasing turbulence in the regional and global order.

Gi-Wook Shin is the director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Seong-Hyon Lee is a senior fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations.