China Won't Dare Invade Taiwan, Foreign Policy Analyst Claims

China officially ended its live-fire military exercises around Taiwan this week, but its Taiwan Affairs Office has issued a white paper emphasizing “peaceful reunification” with the self-ruled island—while reserving the right to use force.

Photo Insert: There are a few factors that keep things from kicking off in the Taiwan Strait.

In the aftermath of Pelosi’s visit, it’s worth considering just why China doesn’t invade Taiwan, despite near-constant threats to do so. There are a few factors that keep things from kicking off in the Taiwan Strait, James Palmer wrote for his China Brief in Foreign Policy.

First, there is China’s hope that Taiwan will return to the mainland without war. Polls in Taiwan make that seem like a fantasy: Just 2 percent of Taiwanese identify solely as Chinese, a figure that has fallen from 25 percent a decade ago, thanks to generational change and Beijing’s aggression and crackdowns on human rights.

Most of the Taiwanese public holds negative views of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Beijing’s destruction of legal freedoms in Hong Kong turned the “one-country, two systems” principle into a joke.

But it’s possible that Chinese leaders have convinced themselves Taiwan’s return might happen: The white paper paints the Taiwanese public as deceived by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the West and China’s ambassador to Australia has said the polls are misleading.

Chinese officials lie about their own system so regularly, they assume that others do the same. Furthermore, the Taiwan Affairs Office also can’t be honest even internally about its own failure to woo Taiwanese to the idea of reunification, because it would expose itself.

Perhaps more likely: The CCP leadership thinks it may be able to force Taiwan to surrender through coercion and subversion rather than outright war. The CCP has spent a lot of time and money building ties with groups in Taiwan, from the once-ruling Kuomintang to organized crime.

As I argued last week, Chinese leaders also hold out for the possibility of US collapse, leaving Taiwan without its main protector.

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