Lawfare Archive: How China Might Coerce Taiwan

China may not need to invade Taiwan to achieve its strategic goals—instead, it could use a coordinated blend of coercion tactics that are less visible, more ambiguous, and far more destabilizing than a full-scale war. In a provocative analysis from May 2025, Daniel Byman, Evan Braden Montgomery, and Toshi Yoshihara argue that Beijing is developing a sophisticated toolkit of non-invasion strategies: maritime and air blockades disguised as law enforcement, covert subversion campaigns targeting Taiwan’s political and military leadership, and nuclear signaling designed to intimidate the U.S. and Japan. The real danger lies not in any single tactic, but in their combination—where a blockade creates isolation, subversion sows doubt about Taiwan’s will to resist, and nuclear threats pressure U.S. allies into inaction. This 'triple coercion' strategy exploits existing skepticism in Tokyo and Washington about American reliability, turning the very uncertainty of U.S. commitment into a weapon. The authors warn that U.S. defense planning remains dangerously focused on invasion scenarios, leaving critical gaps in readiness for lower-level but high-impact coercion. The result is a new kind of conflict—one where victory may come not through force, but through psychological and political collapse. The episode underscores a fundamental shift in strategic thinking: the most dangerous threat to Taiwan may not be an amphibious assault, but a carefully orchestrated campaign of ambiguity, pressure, and institutional erosion. Taiwan must strengthen both its military resilience and its civil defense, while the U.S. must rethink its deterrence posture, invest in non-kinetic tools to counter subversion, and re-engage with nuclear crisis management. Without these changes, the U.S. risks being caught off guard in a conflict that begins not with a shot, but with a blockade, a whisper, and a red line.