Taiwan Conflict Background
In any substantive transition from post-Cold War US hegemony to a multipolar order, the China-Taiwan conflict stands out as a critical bellwether, simultaneously a holdover of the previous order and a pivot point for what comes next. This is a local dispute of global strategic consequence, and as such could realistically trigger a conventional war between great powers in the Indo-Pacific.
A paradigm has prevailed across the Taiwan Strait for decades, where stakeholders accepted de facto if not de jure Taiwan sovereignty; the United States underwrote the island’s security by ensuring a qualitative military advantage via arms sales; and Taiwan was allowed to persist as the state that dared not speak its name. Diplomatic acrobatics like the 1992 Consensus – where each side accepted that there is one legitimate China without specifying whether that meant the Republic of China (Taiwan) or People’s Republic of China (China) – laid a groundwork for fruitful if basic cross-Strait economic and cultural exchanges. And the matter of political unification was punted down the line indefinitely.
This longstanding status quo is now collapsing. Decades of modernization efforts have closed the capability gap between the US and PLA Navy, blunting Washington’s former edge on arms sales to Taiwan. Creeping hybrid warfare tactics continue to shrink the sovereign space around the island, with PLA patrols and large-scale training exercises coming in ever greater scope, frequency, and proximity to Taiwanese territory. What remains of Taiwan’s official diplomatic relations are systematically being poached by Beijing, and the 1992 Consensus has been consigned to the dustbin of history as cross-Strait relations devolve into open hostility. The cross-Strait dynamic has entered an interregnum period, where past certainties are fracturing and new ones have yet to emerge.
