Originally published by Foreign Affairs
Beijing Is Playing a Long Game on Taiwan
Amanda Hsiao and Bonnie S. Glaser
AMANDA HSIAOis a Director in Eurasia Group’s China practice.
BONNIE S. GLASERis Managing Director of the Indo-Pacific Program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
More by Amanda Hsiao
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Beijing Is Playing a Long Game on Taiwan
Amanda HsiaoandBonnie S. Glaser
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A Chinese military takeover of Taiwan is often portrayed as inevitable and imminent. For many observers, including those writing inForeign Affairs, U.S. President Donald Trump’s ambivalent public statements about the United States’ commitments to Taiwan’s defense and apparent indifference to the island’s fate might tempt Beijing to achieve unification with Taiwan through military force soon—possibly before the end of 2026. Washington’s war with Iran and the redeployment of U.S. defenses from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East have further raised concern that China could seize the island without having to fear a U.S. response.
But these speculations misunderstand Beijing’s strategy.Chinawants to unify with Taiwan at the lowest possible cost, and it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes. As China develops the military and economic capabilities to deter U.S. intervention to defend Taiwan, it believes that it can compel the island into capitulation without necessarily needing a full-scale invasion. And in the meantime, Beijing is confident that it can prevent Taiwan from trying to become formally independent.
Of course, China has not ruled out the use of force. There are circumstances in which it would still invade or blockade the island, including if Taiwan were to declare independence, if Washington were to give Taiwan official diplomatic recognition, or if Beijing were to become convinced that there is no pathway to unification that does not require force. But there is little risk of military action in the near term because Beijing increasingly believes that its long-term strategy to bring Taiwan into the fold is working. Polls, for instance, show decreasing support for independence among Taiwan’s youth. And in April,Cheng Li-wun, the chair of Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT), met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing and reaffirmed her party’s opposition to independence and support for the so-called 1992 Consensus, the political formulation centered on the idea that the two sides of the strait belong to “one China.”
Beijing’s belief that time is on its side will face a major test in 2028, when presidential elections inTaiwanand the United States could shake Beijing’s confidence in its strategy. If Taiwan reelects its current president and China judges that he is creating momentum and justification for formalizing the island’s independence, Beijing could reassess its approach—though it would still be unlikely to conclude that a military takeover is necessary—and decide to apply sharper forms of pressure, such as sending ships and aircraft into Taiwan’s territorial waters and airspace or imposing a quarantine around the island. For now, however, Chinese leaders see patience as a winning strategy.
Beijing’s strategy is rooted in the conviction that the balance of power is tilting in its favor against Washington. Over the past year in particular, China has become more assured of its rise and of the United States’ decline. Beijing believes that its model of governance delivers better outcomes than Western democracy, which it sees as increasingly dysfunctional. It also feels that it has the capacity to withstand U.S. economic and technological pressure and has amassed effective tools to shape Washington’s decision-making on trade, technology, and Taiwan.
China’s growing confidence stems partly from how it handled the Trump administration’s trade war in 2025. Beijing retaliated against Trump’s escalating tariffs by imposing its own reciprocal duties and implementing restrictions on exports of rare-earth elements—moves that it concluded quickly led Washington to capitulate on its threats. China has also become more optimistic about its ability to develop technologies that it sees as crucial to strengthening its national power despite U.S.-led sanctions and export controls. In artificial intelligence, for example, the emergence of DeepSeek, a Chinese large language model that rivals the performance of U.S. models but was made at a fraction of the cost, buoyed state and investor confidence that China could eventually close the gap with the United States.
Still, Beijing remains clear-eyed about the economic and political challenges it faces. The most recent five-year plan, which sets medium-term development priorities and targets through 2030, highlights the “risks and hidden dangers” in the Chinese economy, including mounting local government debt, persistent deflation, an ongoing property market crisis, and slowing productivity growth. It also identifies “threats of hegemonism,” an indirect reference to the many levers that Beijing worries Washington can pull to block China’s rise.
Chinese leaders see patience as a winning strategy.
Beijing’s assessment that its development path is both widening and perilous shapes how it approaches Taiwan. China is convinced that its eventual strength will dissuade theUnited Statesand Taiwan from putting up much of a fight, and its expanding national power will attract the people of Taiwan to the benefits of unification. Even if Beijing decides that using force to achieve unification becomes necessary, it is sensitive to the costs of doing so before China has realized its developmental potential and while the United States maintains economic and technological advantages.
China cannot rule out the possibility that the United States may respond to an invasion with military or economic measures or both. Trump, for instance, may interpret aggressive action as a personal affront and lash out. (Trump has publicly framed Xi’s restraint toward Taiwan as a personal commitment, claiming that Xi promised to not invade while Trump is president.) Xi’s unprecedented purges and the removal of about half of his top military commanders have also likely degraded the People’s Liberation Army’s ability to plan and conduct complex military operations and slowed its weapons modernization efforts.
A major conflict with the United States could thus result in a costly failure for China, with economic devastation on the order of trillions of dollars, domestic instability that could threaten the regime’s security, and deep international isolation. As long as Beijing is confident about its ability to win in the long term, the near-term risks are not worth the gamble. As Liu Guoshen, a professor at Xiamen University and a leading voice in China on cross-strait relations, argued at a forum in February, the United States’ relative decline means that Beijing should not “deplete too much national strength on the Taiwan issue” in the near term but instead allow China’s continued development to resolve the question of Taiwan’s status over time.
WINNING WITHOUT FIGHTING
Beijing’s calculation of whether it can afford to wait also depends on the United States and Taiwan. A strategy of patience works only if Washington and Taipei do not take meaningful steps toward formalizing Taiwan’s independence as China accumulates strength. On this front, too, Beijing believes its campaign of legal, economic, military, and diplomatic pressure is increasingly effective. It also sees signs that its efforts to enhance its appeal to the people of Taiwan and push the island away from the United States are gaining momentum.
China continues to firmly believe that Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te is a diehard advocate of independence and fiercely opposes him. But Beijing sees him as weakened. Last summer, Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party supported an effort to recall KMT legislators in Taiwan’s parliament but failed to remove even one lawmaker—an embarrassing blow to Lai and the DPP. The KMT, together with the smaller Taiwan People’s Party, has a majority in the legislature and has become a formidable constraint on Lai’s policy agenda. It is blocking passage of a special defense budget totaling $40 billion, advocating instead for a significantly smaller allocation for arms purchases from the United States in the coming eight years. Cooperation between the KMT and the TPP also keeps alive the possibility of an opposition joint ticket winning the 2028 presidential elections and ushering in a more China-friendly presidency.
The rise of Cheng, the KMT chair who has unequivocally embraced a Chinese identity and the 1992 Consensus, has boosted Beijing’s confidence that China has a willing new partner to work with in Taiwan. Previous KMT leaders were more circumspect about their support for the 1992 Consensus, which is unpopular among Taiwan’s electorate because it is seen as tied to unification with China. Cheng’s readiness to stake out such politically risky positions has enhanced her appeal in Beijing, which sees her as an important conduit for countering the Lai government’s narratives that cross-strait engagement invites deeper Chinese penetration of Taiwan’s society and that strengthening the island’s defenses is the only reliable way to safeguard Taiwan’s future.
Beijing’s embrace of Cheng was evident in the high-profile visit to China it arranged for her in early April; Xi met with Cheng and even signaled patience on unification. Surveys conducted by a leading public opinion platform in Taiwan, My Formosa, suggest that the trip increased public trust in Cheng and improved the favorability of the KMT. Even if such shifts prove temporary, and although a majority still expressed distrust of Cheng, they reinforce Beijing’s view that its long-term strategy of cultivating ties with opposition forces in Taiwan can be effective.
Beijing assesses that Washington’s commitments to Taiwan likely will erode.
Although decades of polling show that an increasing share of people in Taiwan do not identify as Chinese and do not favor unification with China, Beijing has latched on to several emerging trends in public opinion. Surveys in Taiwan indicate growing skepticism toward the United States, driven by doubts about the reliability of Washington if a crisis were to break out. Opinion within Taiwan has also become more polarized on core security questions, including whether Washington would intervene militarily in a cross-strait conflict and how much Taiwan should spend on U.S. arms. This polarization helps Beijing because it creates political space for competing narratives about cross-strait security that China can exploit to weaken the ties between Taipei and Washington.
Young adults in Taiwan are also softening their views on the island’s sovereignty. Between May 2015 and November 2025, for instance, the percentage of 20-to-29-year-olds who agreed that the mainland and Taiwan do not belong to “one China” fell from 82.1 percent to 65.8 percent, according to My Formosa. (The percentages increased for every other age group.) Between October 2023 and November 2025, meanwhile, the percentage of 20-to-29-year-olds who favored independence dropped from 26.7 percent to 17.9 percent, while those in favor of unification increased from 1.4 percent to 6.8 percent. With overall support for independence and unification at 24.0 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, the youngest cohort is now less in favor of independence and more pro-unification than almost all other age brackets.
What is driving these shifts is unclear, but Beijing’s efforts likely play a role. China has recruited online influencers in Taiwan to produce content on platforms such as YouTube and TikTok that portray China in a favorable light, including lifestyle vlogs, travel diaries, and videos highlighting consumer affordability and urban modernity in cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen. Taiwan’s youth are drawn to Chinese apps such as RedNote, a social media platform that blends elements of Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. In December 2025, Taiwan banned RedNote for a year because of data security and concerns about fraud.
Changes in U.S. attitudes have further affirmed Beijing’s assessment that Washington’s commitments to Taiwan can and likely will erode over time.Trumphas refused to explicitly commit to Taiwan’s defense, demanded that the island pay the United States for its security, and accused Taiwan of stealing the U.S. chip industry. Beijing has been reassured by what it sees as signals that Washington is willing to exercise restraint over Taiwan to prevent backsliding in its relationship with China. Chinese leaders were encouraged, for instance, by Washington’s refusal to allow Lai to transit through New York in July 2025 and the reported postponement of an approximately $14 billion arms package for Taiwan in response to pressure from China. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s warning in 2025 that Taiwan’s dominance of high-performance chip production is “the single greatest point of failure for the world economy” and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s 2026 call for Taiwan to move 40 percent of its chip production to the United States have raised expectations in China that the U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s defense will flag once Washington reduces its dependence on the island and revitalizes domestic production of semiconductors.
Even if it does not seek a near-term resolution to Taiwan’s status, China will continue to develop new tools and pathways to advance unification and deter independence. Beijing is promoting what it calls “integrated development”—a suite of policies aimed at attracting businesses and talent from Taiwan—in hopes of deepening economic dependence and social integration. Over time, the goal is to increase Taiwan’s susceptibility to China’s leverage while sustaining a constituency on the island that favors closer ties. China will also continue to tighten its grip on Taiwan through its expanding toolbox of political, legal, and military tactics to constrain Taipei’s policy space, erode its autonomy, and shape conditions for eventual unification on Beijing’s terms.
In addition, China is looking to more actively shape Washington’s cross-strait policy. It has been hinting that Xi may ask Trump to affirm Washington’s support for peaceful unification or state that the United States “is opp
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