A reading list to quickly get up to speed on China's threat to Taiwan
10 resources and 2 requests for more info
Over the last few weeks, I and a few others have spent time red-teaming a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The question we were asked to explore is: What would it look like if China invaded sooner than anyone expects, using unexpected means? Not being a China expert or military planner, the learning curve was steep and frankly still is.
We are not ready to share any earth-shattering insights or scenarios, but I do have some resources that I would recommend to anyone interested in getting up to speed on China’s threat to Taiwan and specific scenarios that could play out. Below are 10 of these resources, along with two questions I am currently looking into, in case you have any pointers. Check these out and let me know what you think in the comments section.
Useful Resources
Before diving into the specifics of invasion scenarios, it is helpful to understand the broader context of China-Taiwan relations. Any number of books and papers can help. For starters, check out Taiwan’s China Dilemma by Syaru Shirley Lin, One China, Many Taiwans by Ian Rowen, The Hundred Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury, and Destined for War by Graham Allison. I also recommend Chip War and Silicon Triangle for background on the dynamics of the semiconductor industry. This paper on “International Relations Theory and the Relationship across the Taiwan Strait” is worth reading to situate cross-strait dynamics in international relations theory. Also, CSIS just released a report on “The U.S. and Chinese Defense Industrial Bases in an Era of Great Power Competition,” which provides crucial context.
The best starting place for understanding the operational specifics of Taiwan’s invasion threat is with Ian Easton’s book, The Chinese Invasion Threat . Easton wrote the book in 2017 and updated it in 2019. I like it because it is comprehensive and draws extensively from original PLA source material. Chapters cover China’s war plans and planning problems, Taiwan’s defensive strategy, and the U.S.’s strategy when it comes to Taiwan. I found myself marking up the book with extensive notes. The chapter on warning indicators and the appendix section outlining five scenarios were particularly useful.
Easton’s report, “Hostile Harbors: Taiwan’s Ports and the PLA’s Invasion Plans”, is also very useful. He wrote it for the Project 2049 Institute in 2021. The report drills down on questions related to harbors such as: “How is the PLA preparing to exploit existing port facilities in Taiwan to support an island invasion campaign? What are the assumptions guiding these preparations? Based on known PLA assumptions and other factors, which ports in Taiwan might be targeted for seizure in the event of an invasion and why?”
In January 2023, CSIS released a report on their China-invasion exercise called, “The First Battle of the Next War: Wargaming a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan.” This is the leading unclassified wargame I could find, and it best articulates the prevailing thinking in Washington, DC on the subject. The scenario focused on a full-scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan. It was run 24 times. In most scenarios, the Taiwan, U.S., and Japan defeated the invasion and maintained an autonomous Taiwan, but it came at a high cost on all sides.
Another scenario planning exercise I found useful was a 2021 report by CNAS called, “The Poison Frog Strategy: Preventing a Chinese Fait Accompli Against Taiwanese Islands.” In this game, China engaged seized one of Taiwan’s outlying islands called Pratas/Dongsha rather than launching a full-scale invasion against Taiwan’s primary island, Formosa. In this limited-aggression scenario, the U.S. and Taiwan struggled to compel China to withdraw without escalating the crisis. One take-away from the exercise was to deter China from seizing any Taiwanese territory, however small, before it attempts to do so. Rolling back territorial aggression is difficult.
In 2021, Reuters produced an investigative report called “T-Day: The Battle for Taiwan.” Featuring slick multimedia graphics, the report show six possible strategies China could use to attempt to annex Taiwan. For each scenario, the report highlighted the situation, action, response, and outcome. I found this useful as a taxonomy of strategies and a jumping off point for new ones. The six strategies included:
Blockade of the Matsu Islands;
Invasion of Kinmen;
Customs quarantine;
Full blockade;
Air and missile campaign; and
All-out invasion
A key question I was curious about while researching was, how would we know when an invasion was coming? What would be the indicators? In addition to the chapter in Ian Easton’s book covering this, commentary by John Culver for the Carnegie Endowment offered useful perspective. In an article called “How We Would Know China Was Invading Taiwan,” Culver, a retired CIA analyst, suggested that the U.S. intelligence community would have at least a 60-day heads up — and likely much more — if any invasion scenario was underway. It would not be subtle, he suggests. He writes: “If China decides to fight a war of choice over Taiwan, strategic surprise would be a casualty of the sheer scale of the undertaking…. Any invasion of Taiwan will not be secret for months prior to Beijing’s initiation of hostilities. It would be a national, all-of-regime undertaking for a war potentially lasting years.”
Although the focus of this Policy Exchange report is not on Taiwan, I would strongly recommend “From Space to Seabed: Protecting the UK’s Underseas Cables from Hostile Actors” for those interested in Taiwan’s security. Published in February 2024 and originally authored in part by PM Sunak, the report highlights the threat to underseas cables and advocates for a space-to-seabed maritime strategy. There is a section discussing the Indo-Pacific security landscape beginning on page 33. With 14 underseas cables that connect Taiwan to the outside world, this is a vulnerability in any attempt to isolate or attack. In February 2023, two cables connecting Taiwan’s Matsu island to the Internet were severed.
For a more granular view of PLA activity on a day by day basis, I recommend PLATracker. The site is managed Ben Lewis, who tracks multiple PLA activities in the Indo-Pacific using useful “tracker” spreadsheets. One of them focuses on Taiwan ADIZ violations, drawing on open-source data from Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. Ben recently published an oped in the New York Times called, “China is Running Out of Lines to Cross in the Taiwan Strait.” We held an X Space with Ben to learn more about his work and perspective. He struck me as both professional and level-headed, and much less paranoid than I would be if tracking the PLA’s daily aggressions.
Although there is no Bellingcat-like open-source intelligence (OSINT) resource for China that I found (which should exist!), I did identify various people on X engaged in their own open-source research and commentary related to Taiwan’s security. Some are academic experts; others are investors or national security analysts. This list is not at all exhaustive, but here is a “starter pack” of accounts to follow: (feel free to add more suggestions in the comments section)
Ben Lewis (mentioned above)
Ian Easton (also mentioned above)
Bonus addition: I found tremendous information on YouTube and in Podcasts as well, and would recommend nosing around those platforms for anyone looking to get up to speed. I especially liked the Your Undivided Attention episode on “Future-Proofing Democracy in the Age of AI” featuring Taiwan’s Minister of Digital Affairs Audrey Tang. There’s a lot the U.S. can learn from Taiwan. I also appreciated the visual video storytelling on YouTube videos such as this, this, and this.
Questions on My Mind
Here are two questions on my mind, in case you have any info.
Could China annex Taiwan without a full-scale invasion within a 24-to-48 hour time frame? What would that scenario look like? (Also - why do none of the leading scenarios incorporate efforts to freeze or distract U.S. political decision-making in these instances? Seems like an obvious thing to consider.)
What are changes in warfare strategies and technologies that have emerged over the last five years, and how could these change China’s calculus? For example, how does China view the operationalization of drones?
Please share any other useful resources in the comments section — thank you!