KEY TAKEAWAYS
KEY TAKEAWAYS
There is much talk of China girding for war, whether it is an attack against Taiwan, a great power conflict with the United States or some other scenario. These are frighteningly plausible possibilities. Yet, obsessing about the specter of a devastating high-intensity conflagration risks downplaying the serious day-in-day-out challenge that China poses right now, particularly to Taiwan, via an array of hostile actions and influence operations calibrated below the threshold of actual military conflict. If the United States and its partners do not effectively push back against this coercion and intimidation now, China may strengthen its position in a way that directly harms American interests and threatens to pull the United States into a war.
While far from tranquil, since World War II, the world has been mercifully spared the tragedy of a cataclysmic military conflict between great powers. Nevertheless, brutal and bloody smaller wars are ongoing around the globe, mostly internecine domestic conflicts. Interstate wars may be less common but can be just as costly in terms of the toll on human life and scope of destruction. The fierce protracted campaigns waged between heavily armed combatants and horrific suffering innocent civilians endure in conflicts such as the war in Ukraine deservedly receive extensive attention.
Yet, all too easy to overlook is that many states, while spared the horrors of full-blown war, are subjected to daily intimidation, coercion and even violence. Too many societies function in a nether world where there may not be outright war, but neither is there real peace. Lives are lost, societies disrupted and inhabitants live in a climate of constant fear. People around the globe dwell in a “gray zone” under persistent threat of violence. In 21st century global power politics, conflict can play out almost imperceptibly at a slow boil without great spectacle, massive carnage or the media spotlight.
China’s Communist Party (CCP) rulers, along with their civilian and military leaders, are completely at home in a gray-zone world. By contrast Americans find it challenging to operate in such ambiguity for at least two reasons. First, Americans tend to conceive of war and peace as dichotomous and clearcut: the United States is either at war or at peace. By contrast, most Chinese Communist leaders tend to think of war and peace as existing on a continuum: at one end is all-out war while at the other end is absolute peace.
Most Chinese Communist leaders tend to think of war and peace as existing on a continuum: at one end is all-out war while at the other end is absolute peace.
In Chinese thinking, the real world operates on spectrum somewhere in between a condition of permanent flux, with states in constant competition and conflict. In short, the distinction between war and peace is fuzzy. Indeed, this seems a normal condition for leaders in a Leninist party system in which individual actors must constantly struggle both internally and externally to survive or prosper. Beijing’s calls for a “harmonious world” are best interpreted as aspirational rather than reflecting any conviction that harmony is a natural condition in domestic or global politics.
Officially, since the 1980s, the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s assessment of the global security environment has been that “peace and development [are] the theme[s] of our times.” Yet, this does not mean that successive generations of China’s communist leaders believed that wars are obsolete, or conflict is no longer conceivable. Rather, this mantra signals Beijing’s belief that while a catastrophic global conflict no longer seems likely, Chinese leaders fully expect interstate conflicts to bubble up around the world. However, these “local wars” will be smaller, geographically contained and with little danger of vertical escalation. Moreover, interstate competition would persist with attendant tensions and confrontation albeit mostly playing out below the threshold of outright war. Taiwan has the unenviable distinction of constituting ground zero for Beijing in the wider global nether world that exists between outright war and real peace.
Under Mao Zedong, who ruled the PRC until his death until 1976, Beijing was officially committed to liberating Taiwan by armed force. Since the 1980s, however, the PRC revamped its policy and strategy toward Taiwan and officially switched to “peaceful reunification.” Yet, this characterization is a complete misnomer. First off, since China has never controlled or ruled Taiwan, the policy is more accurately described as unification. Moreover, a more careful look at what Beijing means by “peaceful” reveals a very different understanding of the word.
China’s definition is more properly understood as conquest by coercion. Indeed, it is instructive that PRC analysts have drawn an explicit parallel between a desired “peaceful” resolution of the Taiwan Strait impasse and the “Beiping model.” This model refers to the 1949 surrender of Beijing (then named “Beiping”) by the Kuomintang mayor and military garrison to CCP armed forces besieging the city toward the end of the Chinese civil war. While occupation of the city was technically achieved by peaceful means, the episode is an example of bloodless capitulation under threat of overwhelming force. The garrison was fully aware of the fate that befell nearby Tianjin when the city refused to surrender and was captured after a bloody assault. In short, to the PRC, “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan really means first-time conquest by military intimidation and coercion.
To China, 'peaceful reunification' with Taiwan really means first-time conquest by military intimidation and coercion.
Indeed, even after the strategic rhetorical shift to “peaceful reunification” Beijing has never renounced the use of naked force to realize unification. In other words, the policy constitutes Orwellian doublespeak. This becomes clear once observers recognize that Beijing has been operating for many years against Taiwan in the gray zone in what has now become routine acts of coercion and intimidation. This persistent campaign of harassment and aggression has ramped up during the past two and a half years following then U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan.
In 2025, the most immediate challenge China poses to peace and security is the gray-zone operations that Beijing conducts below the threshold of actual military conflict against countries around the world. But the most extreme and dangerous target of China’s gray-zone coercion and interference in internal affairs is Taiwan. Beijing is comfortable operating in the gray zone because this milieu is fully compatible with its conception of war and peace on a spectrum. While the United States desires peace with China, it is not only prudent for Washington to be prepared if necessary to wage war in defense of itself and its allies, but Washington also cannot ignore the China challenge of now: multipronged hostile gray-zone operations against the United States and a multitude of other countries around the world.
The United States ought to work closely with partners in Taiwan, the Philippines and elsewhere to push back against PRC coercion. Failure to do so could allow Beijing to effectively gain control of key territory in the Western Pacific and undermine U.S. partnerships. These steps would gravely threaten U.S. interests and weaken Washington’s ability to promote peace, democracy and prosperity throughout the region.