Will China invade Taiwan and force a reunification with the island nation? Or will Beijing stand down, knowing that such a move would trigger an American response and threaten the region with a war no one desires?

There is no answer to this question right now. But to judge by Beijing’s actions, war may very well be brewing in the Indo-Pacific.

Simulated Attacks and the Taiwan Dilemma  

Over the past 36 months, the Chinese military has carried out increasingly larger and more threatening military drills around Taiwan. 

Chinese combat and surveillance aircraft have repeatedly violated Taiwan’s airspace, while warships sail just off the coast. Beijing has even fired long-range missiles into the waters around Taiwan. 

On the face of it, these exercises are normal military drills like those conducted routinely by every country. However, Beijing has three aims: First, these military drills increase pressure on Taiwan and its allies. Second, they are extremely helpful to actually test the mechanics of a potential invasion. Finally, with each military drill looking like an invasion, the Taiwanese run the danger of being lulled into a sense of normalcy about them, only to be surprised by the real thing.  

“We have to think about how we differentiate between peacetime and wartime,” Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Koo told reporters last week. 

“The scale of [Chinese military] activity is getting larger and larger, and so it is harder to discern when they might be shifting from training to a large exercise, and from an exercise to war,” the Taiwanese defense official added. 

During the largest drills, Beijing commits thousands of troops and hundreds of aircraft and warships. Indeed, there have been times in which more than 100 Chinese aircraft are participating in provocative drills around the island nation. 

In July, the Chinese military launched multiple waves of long-range ballistic missiles from its bases in Inner Mongolia, which is about 1,200 miles from Taiwan. The Taiwanese military went on high alert just in case the missiles headed toward the island nation. They didn’t. But this is just one example of the military activity around Taiwan that has Taipei and the United States on alert. 

Speaking of the U.S., no one knows what Washington would do in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. With the Taiwan Relations Act in effect, the U.S. would consider any attempt to undermine the security of the island nation and force a unification through violent means to be a challenge. Although the law stipulates that the U.S. should provide Taiwan with weapons systems and munitions to maintain its defensive capabilities, it doesn’t force an administration to come to the aid of Taipei in war. That doesn’t mean that the U.S. wouldn’t fight China over Taiwan. It just means that it doesn’t have to. But Beijing isn’t certain at all that the U.S. would not intervene if Beijing attacked. 

About the Author: 

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a seasoned defense journalist specializing in special operations and a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ). He holds a BA from the Johns Hopkins University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work has been featured in Business Insider, Sandboxx, and SOFREP.

Image Credit: Creative Commons.