January 29, 2025: As much as China wants to conquer Taiwan and absorb the tiny Island state and its 24 million people, that is not likely to happen even though China has 1.2 billion people and the largest navy in the world. China lacks the experience to carry out such an operation and the Americans have pledged to aid in the defense of Taiwan.

This is nothing new. Twenty five years ago China was making plans to capture Taiwan. Back then China was very open in telling the world that it wanted Taiwan to be part of China again. A lot of this was pure nationalism, but the fact that Taiwan is one of the most advanced industrialized nations in the world also had something to do with it. Taiwan, a thriving democracy that has ruled itself for fifty years, has refused all offers of voluntary reunification.

So what is China up to? Quite a lot, it turns out. When China fired missiles into the waters off Taiwan, that made the news. Most of China's bellicose press releases got some play as well. There were news reports about the missile bases being built on the Chinese coast opposite Taiwan, as well as the new warplanes bought from Russia and the additional air bases and anti-aircraft units established near Taiwan. China was building nuclear submarines and new surface warships. The army and air force were training more frequently.

What you didn't hear much about was the diplomatic campaign China pursued. For years, China was using bribes and threats to get nations to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Until quite recently, Taiwan claimed to be the legitimate government of China. Many nations went along with this, as China was a bankrupt totalitarian state until economic reforms in the 1980s – 1990s industrialized China for the first time ever. Once China began to grow economically, it offered lucrative trade deals, as well as outright bribes, to get nations to cut off diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Why go to all this trouble? Well, if you are going to try and conquer Taiwan, you don't want a lot of commotion worldwide by nations upset with this naked aggression. If you have most of the world's nations agreeing with you that Taiwan is not an independent nation, but rather a renegade province, then there won't be much support for American intervention.

America has always been the major obstacle to China's trying to take Taiwan by force. China's diplomatic campaign to isolate Taiwan makes it more likely that America would have to go it alone in defending Taiwan. And China is well aware that U.S. policy has increasingly been one of only undertaking military action with a lot of allies along for the ride (even if American troops are doing most of the work). China also makes no secret of its increasingly capable weapons. China bluntly announced that it now had nuclear missiles that could reach the western U.S. Or, as one Chinese general was heard saying (openly), "does America want to trade Los Angeles for Taiwan?" We'll never know if the threat is real, but the mere existence of such a threat creates a debate in America if China ever does move on Taiwan. This could slow down the American military response, and that might make the difference between victory and defeat.

China has been using its diplomatic weapon in other ways. Fences have been mended with neighbors and trade increased. While treaties with neighbors are nice, what really keeps them on your side is the fear of losing trade deals. Local unemployment is more important than missiles falling on Taiwan. Vietnam, both Koreas, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Russia have all been schmoozed, bribed and encouraged to be nice to China, and ignore anything that might happen in Taiwan.

And then there are the Taiwanese themselves. There is a small minority that would like to be part of China again. But some 80 percent of the population wants nothing to do with unification, at least as long as the communist party is still running China. And most of those, mainly the ethnic Taiwanese, want nothing to do with China, ever. That's another point the Chinese take great pains to avoid, that before the defeated Nationalists descended on the island in the late 1940s, Taiwan was populated by a separate ethnic group. And these people still comprise the majority of the population. Taiwan is a democracy, and the ethnic Taiwanese want nothing to do with the Chinese. And they have a case. For most of the last few thousand years, China has largely ignored Taiwan and left it to fend for itself. The Taiwanese never had much chance to be Chinese, because they were only part of China now and then when the Chinese forced their way in for one reason or another. But the Chinese have addressed that problem as well by offering a carrot and a stick. The carrot is Hong Kong, where the Chinese have largely kept their pledge to allow local customs and government once Chinese rule replaced the British. The stick is the threat of a destructive military campaign to retake the island. Even if the Chinese fail, much of Taiwan's wealth would be destroyed, and many of its inhabitants killed or injured. So the implicit offer is; become Chinese and little will change. Refuse us and we will destroy all that you hold dear.

While on the surface it appears that the Chinese have established a perfect plan for taking back Taiwan, one must not forget what the Taiwanese are doing to avoid this, and the emerging US strategy of blockading China to force it give Taiwan back if they ever do take it or, better, to destroy the Chinese Communist Party outright. Taiwan is a major economic power, particularly in electronics. Despite Chinese threats to trash the place, Taiwan has convinced some of its customers that Taiwan can defend itself. Lately, Taiwan has been making noises about creating a nuclear deterrent. Taiwan is one of those nations that possesses all the resources and skills to design and build its own nuclear weapons. Longer term, many Taiwanese believe that democracy will soon come to China, a process that they have convinced themselves the communists have unleashed and even encouraged. Once China is democratic, it is felt that an economic, and then political, union can be worked out.

But for many Chinese leaders, it has become a matter of personal, and national pride to take back Taiwan sooner, rather than later. That was in 2000, now it’s 2025 and China still threaten and plans to take Taiwan by force. Though in 2023 Chinese President Xi made the awful discovery that his underlings had stolen the money which was supposed to have been spent on developing the military means of conquering Taiwan. It will take years more to fix this disaster, assuming that is even possible.

Back then Taiwan announced that it was developing missiles and electronic devices to defeat the increasing number of modern weapons purportedly being acquired by China. Taiwan has increased its inventory of weapons since 2000. Taiwan also realized that what made them safe from Chinese attack was the high risk of failure and the realization that even if China did take Taiwan they would be confronted with massive disruption to their economy and economic sanctions imposed by the major trading nations, especially the United States. Chinese forces have not been in a war since 1953, and that was a ground war in Korea that ended in a stalemate. China suffered over half a million casualties. In 1979 there was a brief battle on the Vietnamese border and the battle-hardened Vietnamese repulsed a Chinese attack. China suffered over 20,000 casualties, declared victory and lost all interest in fighting the Vietnamese again.

Getting beaten trying to invade Vietnam was survivable. A failed invasion of Taiwan would losses of ships, aircraft, lots of military personnel and any doubts that China is not ready to wage a modern war. Better to threaten Taiwan with a potential invasion that to try to invade and reveal how weak the Chinese military actually is.