Will China invade Taiwan?

Taiwan is bracing itself for an escalation in hostilities with China following the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump next week.

China is reported to be building large-scale landing barges that could be used to transport troops on to Taiwanese shores. Beijing is emboldened by the prospect of an incoming Washington administration willing to depart from previous US foreign policy – including that China should drop its military threats towards Taiwan.

Taiwan split from the People's Republic of China during a civil war in the 1940s, but Beijing has always viewed the island as a rogue breakaway territory to be brought back under control, by force if necessary, making it arguably "the most dangerous place on Earth", said The Economist.

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'One family'

In his new year speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated China's claim to Taiwan, calling the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait "one family" and saying no one could stop reunification. His words came after a year in which China increased its military operations in the skies and the seas around the island.

However, while the "relentless harassment" hit Taiwan's resources, it failed to make Taipei give in, largely because the threat of invasion was "an empty one", said The Guardian, adding: "for now".

Invading Taiwan by sea has, until now, been considered too difficult and costly for China. The Taiwan Strait is more than 90 nautical miles wide and "incredibly choppy", said the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) think tank. Two annual monsoon seasons and other extreme weather mean a naval invasion would be limited to a handful of narrow timeframes.

Transporting hundreds of thousands of troops would require "thousands" of ships and each crossing would take several hours, giving Taiwan the time to defend itself. The new barges reportedly being built at Guangzhou Shipyard, in southern China, could give Beijing the advantage it needs as each vessel has an "unusually long" road bridge extending from the bow, said Naval News.

Chinese forces could use the bridge to transport tanks and supplies over previously uncrossable land, said The Telegraph, giving them multiple fronts for an invasion and "thinning out" Taiwan's line of defence.

The US is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to "provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character" and discourage China from using force or coercion to achieve its goals regarding the island. Which is why a second Trump presidency is creating a stir.

"If Greenland is annexed by the United States, China must take Taiwan," Wang Jiangyu, a professor of law at City University of Hong Kong, wrote on microblog site Weibo.

Trump voiced strong support for Taiwan during his first term. However, during his election campaign last year, he accused the country of "stealing chip jobs" from the US and said it should pay Washington for its defence. He has also called for Taiwan to increase its defence spending to as much as 10% of GDP to counteract any Chinese aggression. But with a low tax rate making increased defence spending difficult, and the country seeking to maintain its strong position in chip manufacturing, Taiwan is "ill-prepared" for the demands of "Trump 2.0", said The Diplomat. Bloomberg added that China was "watching all of this closely".

When could an invasion happen?

Beijing's new barges have only one conceivable purpose, said David Axe in The Telegraph, "to carry People’s Liberation Army vehicles over Taiwanese beaches as part of a full-scale invasion of Taiwan". Indeed, he added, the vessels are "the latest warning sign" that an attack "is probably imminent".

This month's damaging of undersea communications cables to Taiwan, allegedly by China, could be another indicator of imminent action, said The Guardian. "Severing communications is one key element experts expect would be part of a blockade or attack."

Speaking during his Senate nomination hearings this week, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said he anticipated an invasion before the end of this decade unless there were "dramatic changes".

Experts "disagree about the likelihood and timing of a Chinese invasion", said the CFR. In March 2024, the top US military commander in the Indo-Pacific said that Beijing is maintaining its goal of being able to invade Taiwan by 2027. That year is seen as "magical" because it marks the centenary of what was to become the People's Liberation Army (PLA), said Robert Fox in London's The Standard.

"Others believe 2049 is a critical date," said the CFR, as China's President Xi Jinping has "emphasised that unification with Taiwan is essential to achieving what he calls the Chinese Dream, which sees China's great-power status restored by 2049".

How could an invasion start?

Chinese military drills last May and October surrounded Taiwan's main island with joint exercises by all branches of the PLA and "for the first time, the increasingly militarised Coast Guard", said The Guardian.

The likely strategy is to overwhelm Taiwan with a massive attack with little warning, Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told The Washington Post last June.

That would mean in the early hours of a Chinese invasion, the narrow strait separating the island from the mainland would likely be "transformed into a ferocious battlefield", said Business Insider. Aside from deploying more traditional weapons such as missiles or warships, "vast fleets of unmanned aerial and naval drones will likely darken the skies and hide beneath waves, bringing with them a deadly threat that Taiwan and its allies are ill-prepared to counter". Under Joe Biden's presidency, the US strategy to counter this – dubbed "Hellscape" – hinged on deploying thousands of new drones that would swarm the Taiwan Strait and keep China's military busy until more help could arrive.

Further consequences

If a conflict were to break out it would be "a catastrophe", said the Economist. This is first because of "the bloodshed in Taiwan", but also because of the risk of "escalation between two nuclear powers", namely the US and China.

Beijing massively outguns Taiwan, with estimates from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showing that China spent about 23 times more on its military in 2021. The PLA also boasts more than two million active soldiers. However, Taiwan's defence pact with the US could see Washington drawn into any conflict – although Trump has pledged not to get involved in foreign wars.

That all means any invasion "would be one of the most dangerous and consequential events of the 21st century", said The Times, and "would make the Russian attack on Ukraine look like a sideshow by comparison".