China’s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan in 2024 as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade.
Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources, but had failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still an empty one, for now.
Xi Jinping’s determination to annex Taiwan under what the president terms “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and stridently promised to bring it under Communist party (CCP) control, subsumed into the Chinese motherland, by force if necessary, on multiple occasions including as recently as his 2025 New Year address to the nation.
But in an effort to force Taiwan’s hand without resorting to a direct military attack, the military – the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) – has targeted it with waves of harassment and intimidation, using anything from weather balloons to aircraft carriers.
This has all combined with continued non-military tactics, including legal and cyber warfare, disinformation campaigns, and the weaponisation of diplomatic and trade relationships.
But until China is capable of a full-scale invasion, such tactics are are “meaningless” as long as Taiwan does not surrender, a former head of Taiwan’s armed forces, Admiral Lee Hsi-min, told the Guardian.
“The overarching strategy is to make you capitulate,” Lee said.
The PLA’s Taiwan-focused tactics could be broadly categorised into four types, he said. “Intimidatory” tactics included grey zone warfare such as its near-daily incursions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ), “coercive” tactics could be a blockade or quarantine, “punitive” attacks included missile bombardments, and “conquest” was a full-scale invasion.
The coercive tactics include what Admiral Tang Hua, commander of Taiwan’s navy, told the Economist in October was an “anaconda strategy” by the PLA to squeeze Taiwan, trying to exhaust its response system, force mistakes and perhaps trigger an excuse to launch a blockade.
In several incidents – including as recently as last week – undersea communications cables to Taiwan have been cut or damaged, allegedly by Chinese ships. Severing communications is one key element experts expect would be part of a blockade or attack.
Lee said the intimidatory approach was designed to deter Taiwan from declaring independence, and had so far been successful. The aim of any coercive and punitive measures would be to force Taiwan’s government or people to capitulate on unification. Lee said the PLA was fully capable of those three types of measure but had yet to launch a blockade or attack because it wasn’t yet able to enact the fourth: conquest.
“If they don’t have capability to conduct full-scale invasion, then taking any one of the first three won’t work,” Lee said. “If Taiwan does not capitulate when they conduct this anaconda approach then what could China do?”
US intelligence reportedly believes Xi has given the PLA a 2027 deadline to reach capability of a full-scale invasion. Lee said no one can predict exactly when they’ll be ready because it was a dynamic assessment also involving Taiwan’s own defensive capabilities, and ongoing corruption issues in the PLA, but he believed it would be within a decade.
