A Dangerous Game Over Taiwan

Still, China's belligerence reflected how the balance of military power had shifted since the late nineties, when the two countries got into a dispute over Taiwan, and China was forced to give way. He set no deadline for bringing Taiwan into China but suggested that he intended to be in office when it happened. Making Taiwan part of China, Xi has said, is one of his project's crucial chapters. Several times a year, David Ochmanek, a former Pentagon official who is now at the Rand Corporation, in Washington, assembles Navy and Air Force officers and officials to conduct war games between the U.S. and China over Taiwan. Like the war games, almost everything about a potential war with China over Taiwan is theoretical. For American policymakers, that means trying to determine what is required to dissuade China from attempting to change the status quo by force, or, if it does, how to make any war so painful that China would stop without achieving its goals. In testimony before Congress last year, Admiral Phil Davidson, then the commander of the Indo-Pacific Command, expressed concern that China could try to take Taiwan before 2027-the year its military modernization is scheduled to be complete.