As tensions rise across the Taiwan Strait, the policy debate in Washington remains fractured. U.S. strategy broadly revolves around deterring China from attacking Taiwan, and for the past three presidential administrations, it has consisted of three central components: increasing the ability of the United States and Taiwan to defend the island militarily; using diplomacy to signal U.S. resolve to protect Taiwan while also reassuring China that Washington does not support Taiwanese independence; and using economic pressure to slow China’s military modernization efforts.
But there is little consensus on the right balance among these three components—and that balance determines to some degree how deterrence looks in practice. Some contend that diplomatic pressure—along with military restraint, to avoid antagonizing China—will keep Beijing at bay. Others warn that unless Washington significantly strengthens its military posture in Asia, deterrence will collapse. And a third approach, outlined recently in Foreign Affairs by Jennifer Kavanagh and Stephen Wertheim, emphasizes that bolstering Taiwan’s self-defense and enabling offshore U.S. support is the best route to sustaining deterrence while also mitigating the risk of escalation.
These prescriptions have merit but fall short of grappling with the paradox at the heart of U.S. strategy: deterrence can fail in two ways. Do too little, and Beijing may gamble it can seize Taiwan before Washington is able to respond. Do too much, and Chinese leaders may conclude that force is the only remaining path to unification. Navigating this dilemma requires more than a stronger military or bolder diplomacy. It requires a calibrated strategy of rearmament, reassurance, and restraint that threads the needle between weakness and recklessness. Combined properly, forward-deployed capabilities, diplomatic restraint, and selective economic interdependence can reinforce one another to maintain credible deterrence while avoiding provocation.
So far, however, the Trump administration’s approach to Taiwan has veered between harsh transactionalism, such as the imposition of a 32 percent tariff on most Taiwanese goods last month, and quiet reaffirmations of support for Taipei through bipartisan visits and a pause on the highest tariffs. The administration still has time to settle on a coherent strategy, but the window of opportunity is closing.
LOOSE LIPS START WARS
Currently, the U.S. military is improving its force posture in the vicinity of Taiwan, most notably through expanded access to bases in the Philippines and by reinforcing capabilities in southwestern Japan and the broader western Pacific. In the Philippines, thanks to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, the United States gained access to four new strategic sites, bringing the total there to nine. Several, such as those in Cagayan and Isabela Provinces, are just a few hundred miles from Taiwan.
The story is similar in Japan’s case. Washington and Tokyo agreed in 2023 to restructure the U.S. Marine Corps presence in Okinawa from the artillery-focused 12th Marine Regiment, part of a force of roughly 18,000 marines stationed in Japan, into a 2,000-strong Marine Littoral Regiment, a quick-reaction force designed to operate along the so-called first island chain encompassing Indonesia, Japan, portions of the Philippines, and Taiwan. To complement this effort, the U.S. military has increased joint military exercises and expanded integrated air and missile defense systems across allied territories.
But U.S. military capabilities in the Pacific need more than just quantitative upgrades; they require qualitative shifts to be able to block China from forcibly unifying with Taiwan. The United States needs a greater forward presence in the region, as well as specific capabilities that would prevent an invading force from making its way across the Taiwan Strait, such as strategic bombers, submarines, and antiship missiles. Once those were deployed, they would also require significant operational flexibility. For example, Washington should prioritize securing forward-deployed submarine tenders in Japan and the Philippines to enable submarines to reload, resupply, and rearm without returning to Guam or Hawaii. And it should work to establish permanent bomber bases in Australia and the Philippines and deploy antiship missile systems in Japan’s southwestern islands and the northern Philippines.
The trade war could make a shooting war seem more appealing to Beijing.
So far, the U.S. military has stopped short of seeking such changes because they are politically sensitive both at home and abroad: host countries worry they might become greater targets of Chinese aggression, and some U.S. policymakers worry that such moves could cross a redline for Beijing. But if Washington follows a few principles, such improvements will not necessarily provoke Chinese aggression. First, the United States should not make a public announcement or a spectacle of enhancements to its military force posture. As U.S. forces increase their activities around and in Taiwan, be they joint exercises, freedom of navigation exercises, or training, U.S. officials should refrain from making statements to which China might feel forced to respond. Military upgrades should be concealed or downplayed until they are fielded to minimize the likelihood that China will effectively launch a coercive campaign against their deployment.
Bolstering Taiwan’s independent military capabilities—a long-standing U.S. policy—presents an arguably even bigger risk of provocation. Beijing worries that Taiwan will become so certain of its ability to protect itself that it will consider declaring independence. In recent years, Taiwan has acquired defense capabilities with the aim of deterring potential Chinese aggression. It has bought asymmetric warfare systems, such as coastal defense cruise missiles and HIMARS rocket systems, moving away from traditional high-cost platforms such as submarines. It has also pledged that its defense budget will exceed three percent of GDP in 2025 and that it will prioritize precision-guided munitions, air defense upgrades, command-and-control systems, equipment for reserve forces, and anti-drone technologies. These are sensible steps, but they also pose a risk: the less Taiwan depends on U.S. assistance, the more China’s leaders worry that Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, could be emboldened to declare independence unilaterally—further incentivizing Beijing to invade sooner rather than later.
To prevent deterrence from morphing into provocation, the United States should provide Taiwan mainly with capabilities that rely on continued U.S. support. In 2024, for example, the Biden administration approved the sale of three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems to Taiwan in a deal that was brokered to increase U.S.-Taiwanese interoperability. In other words, this system was designed to function best in tandem with U.S. support. The United States should continue to encourage Taiwan’s asymmetric defense, particularly by prioritizing the speedy and reliable delivery of systems such as the highly mobile precision HIMARS rockets; advanced air defense missile systems such as the NASAMS; and antiship missiles such as the RGM-84L-4 Block II Harpoon. But Washington should also highlight the aspects of Taiwan’s military capacity that are linked to the United States, reassuring Beijing that the island cannot act alone.
WORDS AND DEEDS
Reassuring Beijing is a critical component of a successful deterrence strategy. But during both the Trump and the Biden administrations, the United States has relaxed its longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity,” wherein U.S. policy has avoided defining whether and under what circumstances Washington would intervene to defend Taiwan. Instead, the United States has been signaling to China its determination to defend Taiwan—especially by making incremental moves toward establishing formal diplomatic relations with the island, such as direct interactions between American and Taiwanese officials.
Joe Biden was the first U.S. president to invite Taiwan’s diplomatic representatives to attend his inauguration, for example, and he repeatedly referred to a U.S. “commitment” to Taiwan’s defense, even saying once that U.S. forces would defend the island in the event of an “unprecedented attack.” (White House officials stated at the time that there was no change to the official policy of “strategic ambiguity.”) Officials in the second Trump administration, including Mike Waltz before he was ousted as national security adviser, have advocated ending strategic ambiguity and moving toward “strategic clarity.” And in February, the State Department removed a statement about not supporting Taiwan’s independence from its website—a deletion that China interpreted as provocative.
Although they may seem merely symbolic, such diplomatic slights have real consequences, making it harder for Beijing to maintain a veneer of progress toward unification of the mainland with Taiwan. Chinese leaders see any drift toward Taiwanese independence as a threat to their legitimacy. So, far from deterring Beijing, U.S. provocations—official diplomatic interactions, references to Taiwan as a country, calls for a U.S.-Taiwanese alliance—could incentivize Beijing to undertake a cross-strait invasion.
Reassurance that Washington does not support Taiwanese independence should include public criticism when Taiwan’s leaders make statements or take actions that suggest otherwise. For example, in December 2003, President George W. Bush publicly rebuked Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian during a joint press conference with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, stating that the United States opposed any “unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo,” noting that Chen’s “comments and actions” had indicated “that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally to change” it. In 2006, after Chen angered Beijing by scrapping a government council that had been established to guide unification with China, the Bush administration once again signaled its disapproval, denying the Taiwanese leader’s request for a high-profile U.S. stopover during a presidential trip to Latin America. These sorts of reassurances helped convince Chinese leaders that future “peaceful reunification” remained possible, reducing the likelihood of an invasion.
The United States should also keep trying to build a multilateral consensus for peace in the Taiwan Strait. For instance, joint statements issued at the G-7 summit last month and at the Munich Security Conference in February reaffirmed cross-strait stability and expressed opposition to any unilateral actions that threaten peace in the Taiwan Strait, including through force or coercion. Washington should pair these diplomatic signals with a clear reaffirmation that its “one China” policy remains in place, that any resolution must be nonviolent, and that the United States is not against peaceful unification with Taiwan’s assent.
FROM TRADE WAR TO SHOOTING WAR
These changes to military capabilities and to U.S. diplomacy are easy compared with what is required in the third area of U.S. deterrence strategy: economic pressure. Economic pressure can undermine deterrence and reassurance alike. Since the first Trump administration, the United States has pursued an economic containment strategy to slow China’s long-term growth and deny it advanced technologies, with the aim of hampering its capacity to match U.S. military investments. This began with the first Trump administration’s tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods. The Biden administration not only kept these tariffs in place but also added export controls on strategically important technologies, such as semiconductors and telecommunications. The United States also pressured American companies to shift their supply chains and manufacturing operations away from China.
The second Trump administration has threatened to accelerate an economic decoupling from China with even wider-ranging, unconditional tariffs, although the prospect of financial pain for the United States seems to have given it pause for now. Nonetheless, these policies portend lasting damage to the Chinese economy, especially in view of China’s looming demographic and environmental challenges. For Washington, the hope remains that Beijing may be unable to keep pace militarily as its relative growth rate slows.
But the ongoing U.S.-Chinese trade war and escalating American export and investment restrictions have deepened Beijing’s mistrust and reinforced its claim that Washington seeks containment rather than peaceful coexistence. This economic pressure not only risks hardening China’s resolve but also enables Beijing to recast itself as a defender of global trade norms and to shift blame for any global economic slowdown to the United States. At the same time, the United States risks forfeiting its long-term leverage, as the tariffs may goad Beijing to deepen its commitment to what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) calls “domestic demand expansion,” or selling more products at home instead of exporting them. Such a shift in China’s economy would encourage domestic production and innovation and accelerate efforts to reduce reliance on foreign markets.
This U.S. strategy will also have limited effects on China’s long-term military prowess. China has pursued military modernization at historically low costs, avoiding the classic “guns or butter” dilemma. China has not matched U.S. defense spending dollar for dollar, as challengers did in earlier great-power rivalries. Nazi Germany, for instance, spent twice as much on its military as the United Kingdom did between 1933 and 1939. And during the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet defense budgets signaled direct competition: the United States spent an average of 32 percent more than the Soviet Union until 1970, when the Soviet Union took the lead, outspending the U.S. by an average of 26 percent until 1988. In contrast, China has made targeted investments intended to give it an advantage in a quick, limited war, while keeping its overall defense spending relatively modest: Beijing’s defense spending has risen from five percent of U.S. levels in 1995 to 32 percent in 2017. In this way, China has sustained both economic development and military modernization, but avoided a Cold War–style arms race. China will therefore be able to continue its military modernization program even with a stagnant economy, especially if it increases its military spending as a share of GDP.
Indeed, instead of hampering China’s military, the trade war could make a shooting war seem more appealing to Beijing. Currently Chinese leaders would consider an invasion of Taiwan only in a specific, narrow scenario: if China could take the island before U.S. forces could intervene. For Beijing, a larger-scale, protracted war would be too costly. This is partly because of the economic value of the U.S.-Chinese relationship. But if U.S. economic pressure increases, Chinese leaders could conclude that the benefits of continued economic engagement are low and that conflict with the United States is the only way to get out from under the American thumb. This would make them more willing to risk war over Taiwan.
Concrete economic and diplomatic concessions that increase China’s benefits from maintaining the status quo and credibly convey benign U.S. intent would be effective reassurances. Pausing or reversing the economic decoupling is an obvious place to start; Washington should rescind tariffs on Chinese imports (or at least make them conditional on reasonable Chinese reciprocation) and relax its restrictions on exports and on incoming investment in all but the most sensitive technologies and sectors. This would not only quell Beijing’s perception that the United States seeks to weaken and “split” China but also allay any brewing domestic instability that could threaten the CCP’s legitimacy and encourage Chinese leaders to forcibly take Taiwan to boost nationalist legitimacy. Perhaps most important, sustaining economic interdependence, especially the asymmetric sort that currently exists, gives the United States enormous leverage over China by allowing it to threaten heavier sanctions in the event of war. Unilateral U.S. sanctions could set the Chinese economy on a path of permanent decline. Pausing or circumscribing an economic decoupling would give U.S. sanctions maximum bite and bolster deterrence.
Of course, bolstering economic interdependence also requires limiting U.S. reliance on key Chinese imports, such as rare-earth minerals, transformers for the electric grid, scarce medicines, high-tech electronics, and other industrial, infrastructural, and military inputs. The United States should diversify its sources for these imports and reduce the proportion that China provides to acceptable levels. But Washington does not need to immediately reduce imports of Chinese consumer goods, even though substitutes can be found relatively easily. Allowing such imports to continue would enable the United States to avoid destabilizing China while retaining the threat of painful sanctions. Finally, to maximize its deterrent leverage against China, Washington should coordinate a sanctions coalition with allies, which may require offering them subsidies or other concessions.
For many in Washington, deterrence has come to mean projecting an uncompromising and even hostile posture toward China. But such gestures do not meaningfully augment Taiwan’s security. Instead, the United States should invest quietly in its military readiness and capabilities, speak carefully, and maintain economic resilience and even some interdependence. The dilemma of deterrence—the fact that it can so easily slide into provocation or procrastination—necessitates such a tightrope approach. And if there’s one place where striking the right balance could pay enormous dividends, it’s Taiwan.
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