Hong Kong, August 25 (ANI): China continues to tighten the thumbscrews on Taiwan - or perhaps it should be more aptly called the rack. Beijing is prosecuting a simultaneous, multi-pronged campaign against Taipei, using diplomatic, military, grey-zone, psychological warfare and espionage pressures.
Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continually remind everyone of their historical rights over Taiwan with phrases such as "belonging to China since antiquity". However, these are blatant lies, for Taiwan has never been part of the modern People's Republic of China (PRC).
The only time China ruled over Taiwan was during the Qing Dynasty when it annexed Formosa in 1683. It was then lost to Japan in 1895. After that, the Republic of China (ROC) government received control of Taiwan in 1945 upon Japan's defeat at the end of World War II. The PRC was only formed in 1949 after a brutal civil war, when the CCP drove ROC forces from the mainland onto Taiwan. This means a Chinese government has ruled over Taiwan for just 216 years in China's much-touted thousands of years of history.
Furthermore, the PRC/CCP has never controlled Taiwan. Indeed, Joseph Wu, Taiwan's National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General, noted, "The undeniable fact is Taiwan has never been under PRC rule since its founding on Oct 1, 1949. That's the status quo. The threat of invasion is expansionism that must be deterred. Taiwan's future can only be decided by its own people."
The NSC is taking on a more prominent role in preparing Taiwan for conflict with China. It is also liaising with other government agencies to garner greater international support for the country's plight. The NSC is bolstering Taiwan's asymmetric warfare capabilities too, as well as whole-of-society resilience. With China's deliberate strategy of merging grey-zone tactics and psychological operations to undermine Taiwanese morale and its will to resist, the NSC is taking on an increasingly important role.
In fact, Wu recently told Nikkei Asia, "In the old days, defense of Taiwan was a responsibility of the [Ministry of National Defense]. But nowadays, thinking about the resilience of Taiwan's government or Taiwan society as a whole, we need to coordinate among government agencies so that, when a crisis comes, whether it's a natural or man-made disaster, society can understand how they can survive, how they can help themselves and how they can help others."
Taiwan is facing numerous "attacks", including online and "commercial" ships that regularly snap internet and communication cables around Taiwan. Maritime and aerial intimidation is on the rise too. According to Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense, People's Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft conducted 3,764 air incursions into Taiwan's air defense identification zone last year. This figure was up 22.4% compared to 2024.
Military intimidation has become more frequent and brazen, with Beijing really ramping up the pressure around Taiwan after then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022. In December 2025, for instance, the PLA conducted a mock air and naval blockade of Taiwan. Nowadays, there are typically 5-6 Chinese warships around Taiwan on any given day. China has also unlawfully stopped and inspected at-sea commercial vessels.
However, that is not the only military threat to Taiwan, for Chinese tentacles have burrowed deep into Taiwan's armed forces. For example, on 19 August, Kaohsiung's High Court convicted two former non-commissioned officers for passing military secrets to China. Two ex-army and ex-air force sergeants were sentenced to years in prison. They had also attempted to turn other colleagues into Chinese spies as members of Wo Long Hui (the Crouching Dragon Society), an organisation linked to Chinese intelligence. One of them had also filmed a surrender video after being recruited into the society.
Wo Long Hui has been targeting Taiwanese service members with financial problems. After lending them money and allowing their debts to grow, they are then induced to betray Taiwan as a way of paying off their debt. What is worse is that the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office is currently investigating more than 20 people inside the military, including several army captains.
The government has thus considerably widened this particular spy probe, and many suspects are rising military stars with good records and grades from the Cheng Cheng Armed Forces Preparatory School and the country's military academy system. Worryingly, Chinese intelligence had contacted many of them when they were just lieutenants, and got its claws into them.
Beijing has been flexing its muscles and talking belligerently about Taiwan. This led Grant Newsham, Senior Research Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies, to comment, "The Chinese always telegraph their punches. When Xi Jinping says he will take Taiwan - by force if necessary - we should take him at his word. A far greater sense of urgency to prepare for war is needed in the US and the free world."
Newsham added: "A normal relationship with PRC is impossible. It takes a certain type of person to think a normal relationship is possible with the PRC/CCP. And there's often financial or other incentives involved in pretending the PRC is a regular country, and not a totalitarian, genocidal, expansionist dictatorship. This was obvious years ago."
That is why it is worrying that Taipei might become part of a wider grand bargain between China and the USA. Will Taiwan remain a core security partner for the USA, or is it up for negotiation by President Donald Trump? The mercurial American is already wavering on arms sales to Taipei. Trump said: "I may do it, I may not do it. I'm holding that in abeyance, and it depends on China. It's a very good negotiating chip for us, frankly. It's a lot of weapons."
Furthermore, the number of Taiwan Strait transits by US warships has dropped sharply. When taken in consideration of China's greater military antics, this sends a message of weakness to Chairman Xi Jinping. In fact, a study by the Heritage Foundation published in mid-August 2026 concluded that publicly declared transits of US warships through the Taiwan Strait have declined by 50% between Trump's first and second administrations.
This is concerning, as Trump seems to be making concessions to China that are not being reciprocated. By not conducting these freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPS), the USA is failing to implement one of its strongest voices against illegal Chinese territorial claims. This decline in FONOPS casts a pall over the USA's priorities and regional perceptions of its credibility.
And what about Trump's war in Iran? Apart from showing that Trump's promises and threats are empty, the US military has been denuded of vital weapons that might one day be needed to counter a rampant China if it ever decides to invade Taiwan.
Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), remarked: "A US defeat in the Iran war will have geopolitical consequences for the whole world, as confidence in US leadership wanes. Maybe if this were peacetime, the shock would be manageable, but the world is in a pre-war period, with China and Russia preparing for future opportunities to challenge liberal democracies. A major US failure in Iran now will only create greater incentive for Beijing and Moscow to become even more aggressive."
Despite denials from US politicians, American missile stocks have been seriously degraded by Trump's war against Iran.
Furthermore, vital assets have been diverted from the US Pacific Command to the Middle East. These include the Okinawa-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit of the US Marine Corps, and the Yokosuka-based aircraft carrier USS George Washington. This means there is currently no American aircraft carrier in the entire Western Pacific.
A Council on Foreign Relations report concluded, "The United States is increasingly ill- equipped to deter or defeat Chinese aggression in the Western Pacific, particularly a potential invasion or blockade of Taiwan. The US military no longer possesses the requisite quantity of warfighting systems - nor the industrial capacity to produce them at scale - needed to counter the People's Liberation Army's burgeoning arsenal."
The council also noted: "The US-Israeli war with Iran has severely depleted stocks of critical munitions, including air defense interceptors and precision-guided munitions. Although government and industry are working with newfound urgency to boost replenishment rates for these munitions - which are central to current US warfighting strategy in the Indo-Pacific - their efforts will take years to bear fruit."
Davis of ASPI further warned: "Watch China begin to ramp up coercive pressure on Taiwan in coming months. Xi sees an opportunity to move more aggressively, given that the Trump administration has apparently 'paused' arms supplies to the country. Also, Xi has a visit to the US later this year, so the Chinese will put more pressure on Trump to accommodate China's interests vis-a-vis Taiwan then."
Left wondering about Trump's commitment to traditional American values, Davis continued: "If China can convince Trump to walk away from Taiwan by the end of 2026, then two possibilities emerge in 2027. 1) China can manipulate and coerce Taiwan's political environment, particularly via the KMT in the Legislative Yuan, to allow for some sort of return to peaceful unification under China's 1992 Consensus from 2027 onwards. I'm willing to bet that the Taiwanese people (apart from the KMT) will resist any pressure for surrendering their democracy. Peaceful unification won't happen, so; 2) If a peaceful unification on China's terms is not possible, China will turn to the option of ramping up military coercion, through seizing offshore islands like Pratas and Itu Aba, through a blockade, and ultimately by launching an invasion."
The Canberra-based academic wondered, "The question is when this happens? Xi may be tempted to exploit Trump's apparent compliance after the Beijing summit as a window of opportunity to move faster - especially if the US remains bogged down in the Middle East, which would suit Beijing's interests, providing Iranian and Middle Eastern oil to China is uninterrupted. And with the next National People's Congress convening in late 2027 to March 2028, and Xi wanting to be seen as surpassing Mao in historical importance, Xi is not going to tolerate the status quo on Taiwan indefinitely."
Alarmingly, Davis warned the PLA is getting ready "to decisively win in a Taiwan scenario and deter any US or allied intervention, or defeat such an intervention if it were to occur. With US readiness low, particularly given the poor state of guided-weapon stockpiles, that reinforces a perceived window of opportunity within this decade. I'd argue that the Taiwan issue is not going to be pushed back into the 2030s."
Of course, the fall of Taiwan to the PLA would have grave impacts on the USA and neighbouring countries like Japan, the Philippines and South Korea. Dr. Andrew Erickson, Professor of Strategy at the US Naval War College's China Maritime Studies Institute, explained: "The First Island Chain and its Taiwanese linchpin have long been in Beijing's crosshairs. With strategic stakes as high as they have ever been, geography and Taiwan's critical place within it continue to matter greatly."
China has traditionally viewed these so-called island chains as unwelcome but unavoidable suppression, and it regularly accuses the USA of containment. Erickson noted, though, that of late "Beijing has striven to flip the script. The island chains have evolved for China respectively as barriers, springboards and benchmarks. PRC strategists consistently portray Taiwan as both a potential threatening bridgehead for PRC enemies and a critical gateway to sea power for China." In other words, if China can capture Taiwan, then the First Island Chain is irrevocably snapped.
Erickson added, "PLA sources similarly emphasise Taiwan's supreme strategic value. PRC strategists, viewing the near seas as vital and mutually reinforcing, want to control them as a singular sea. Already, China has captured or outflanked key southern reaches of the First Island Chain in the South China Sea - including by building what might be termed a 'mini- island chain' there."
"If China ever became able to forward-base submarines on Taiwan's east coast in the future, it would allow them to break out into deep, open ocean with the Kuroshio current and its strong temperature gradients and sound-bending thermocline layers - without running a gauntlet of shallow chokepoints, a significant improvement over their operational situation today," Erickson elaborated. (ANI)
China threatens Taiwan from every angle
