Taiwan has long been China’s inviolable “red line.” Reunification with the renegade province is a nonnegotiable political imperative. In recent years, whenever China senses the threat of a serious risk to reunification with Taiwan, it almost always responds with aggressive live-ammunition drills in the Taiwan Strait by the People’s Liberation Army. I will shamelessly borrow the title of my last book and claim that Taiwan risks could well be the ultimate tipping point for an Accidental Conflict.
Many believe that the Trump Administration’s early 2026 military action in Venezuela ups the ante in this regard—raising the risk that the extraction of President Nicolas Maduro might be seen as permissioning a similar, or even more aggressive action by China against Taiwan, or its leadership. That is highly unlikely for three key reasons:
False narrative. Consensus opinion in the United States presumes that Xi Jinping has set a 2027 deadline for a full-scale takeover of Taiwan. Never mind this conclusion is based on shaky evidence, like many other false narratives that shape American public opinion on China. This particular presumption stems from an unsubstantiated assertion in 2021 congressional testimony of Adm. (ret) Phil Davidson, former head of the US Indo-Pacific Command. At the time, Davidson made vague reference to a six-year window of vulnerability depicting the possibility of forceful reunification of Taiwan and the PRC. Yet if you follow the “expert” testimony that was subsequently presented to the House Select Committee on China, you would conclude that there is not the slightest shred of doubt to this unsubstantiated assertion. Concern over the “Davidson window,” coupled with Xi Jinping’s long-standing insistence that, “The reunification of the motherland is a historical inevitability,” has led many to make a compelling case for war if the US acts to prevent a fallacious 2027 Taiwan takeover threat from coming to pass.
Military. The Venezuela extraction was pulled off with exquisite precision by the world’s most powerful and seasoned military force. China also has a strong military force that has been significantly upgraded during the leadership of Xi Jinping. It now has the world’s largest land army, as well the largest blue-water naval force in the world, both of which provide China with extraordinary scale to its military clout. Couple that with recent dramatic progress in its modern weapons technology—hypersonic, stealth, cyber, and laser targeting capabilities—along with stunning advances in space technology, there can be no doubting the potential power of China’s military platform.
The key word in the previous sentence is “potential.” There is one critical thing missing in assessing China’s military might—seasoned battlefield experience. Does practice make perfect? China seems to think so with all of its drills in the Taiwan Strait. There has long been speculation over the preferred military tactics of a forceful Taiwan takeover—naval blockade, land invasion, missile and air attacks, or some combination of these. But the lack of hardened battle experience raises serious questions as to whether China could pull off the precise coordination between air and sea power, together with elite special forces, that were required to snatch Maduro. Moreover, there is good reason to believe that Taiwan’s military defense will be far more formidable than that encountered by the US in Venezuela.
Strategy. In China, strategy is everything. Dating back to Sun Tzu’s fifth century treatise, The Art of War, China has long thought of military conflict in strategic terms. That raises a critical question: How does Taiwan reunification fit into China’s long-term strategy?
Context is important in answering this question. China’s development miracle, initially sparked by the reforms and opening up of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s, is alive and well under Xi Jinping. It was and remains an export-focused economy that has moved swiftly up the value chain through constant upgrading of its manufacturing and technology prowess. Lacking in internal demand, China’s growth imperatives have long depended on increased penetration into foreign markets. Trump’s tariff war shifted the mix of Chinese exports away from the US to the Global South and Europe, but it did not alter the need for China to draw on external support to fulfill its overall growth imperatives.
With China’s 15th Five-Year plan likely to double down on this approach, the last thing it needs would be a military action in Taiwan that would seriously jeopardize the external connection that export-led China needs most to hit its economic growth targets. The same can be said for Xi Jinping’s global governance ambitions that would meet stern resistance from around the world in the event of a Chinese military action in Taiwan.
That’s where Venezuela enters China’s strategy equation. There is a key tradeoff here: What do Chinese leaders place the highest value on—the growth underpinnings of Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream or the reunification of the motherland? For China, while both objectives are desirable in theory, that may not be the case in practice. Deng Xiaoping put it best in the mid-1980s: stressing patience, he noted that, “if reunification … cannot be accomplished in 100 years, it will be in 1000 years.” By contrast, Xi Jinping’s steadfast emphasis on the Chinese Dream leaves him more focused on the immediacy of growth targets for 2049, the centennial anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. That means, at least for the time being, economic growth imperatives weigh more importantly on China’s strategic considerations than do the longer-term goals of Taiwanese reunification—unless, of course, there is a serious threat to the latter possibility.
Given the historical importance that China has always placed on strategy, one must ask why and how its strategic calculus might be affected by recent shifts in the global order. Donald Trump’s penchant for rogue aggression, especially the extraction and subsequent arrest of Venezuela president, Nicolas Maduro, weighs heavily on the countless China hawks in the West, prompting many to conclude a military action in China could well be in play, sooner rather than later. If America can do it, goes the argument, why can’t China?
It’s hardly that simple. Trump’s thirst for oil tells us the US acted purely on the basis of short-term mercenary considerations. Notwithstanding the post hoc claims of US Secretary of State (and National Security Advisor) Marco Rubio, Washington does not have a plan for the long-term governance of Venezuela. By contrast, it seems highly unlikely that Chinese leaders would rethink their deep-rooted strategic calculus just because Donald Trump opted to flex American military might for political reasons.
Other than tactical logistics of the Madura extraction, which, of course, China will study carefully, it is a stretch to conclude that the Chinese leadership would consider a copycat exercise in Taiwan. An added consideration is the likelihood that a predictable political pivot is about to occur in the United States away from MAGA, rejecting the geopolitical confrontation politics of Donald Trump. If that, in fact, comes to pass, a farsighted Chinese strategy is likely to be shaped more by perceptions of post-Trump norms than by the opportunistic aggression of a lame-duck. As Sun Tzu, counseled, “When your strategy is deep and far-reaching … you can win before you even fight.”