War over Taiwan among five likely conflict scenarios with PLA, US think tank says

Name: Taiwan holds urban, aerial combat drills amid threats of invasion by mainland China
Uploaded: 2022-02-12T06:00:32.000Z
Duration: 2 min 19 s
Description: Taiwan holds urban, aerial combat drills amid threats of invasion by mainland China

A bid to forcibly unify Taiwan, or escalations in the South China or East China seas, among scenarios seen as likely to trigger a major war

Analyst in Beijing calls reading ‘simplistic’, while fellow observer says report could inspire the building of guard rails to avoid such conflict

Reading Time:3 minutes

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A Taiwanese fighter jet shadows a PLA bomber over the Taiwan Strait. Photo: Handout

Kristin Huang

Published: 2:00pm, 12 Feb 2022Updated: 9:10pm, 12 Feb 2022

Beijing and Washington could go to war over Taiwan, or if four other scenarios in Asia came to pass, a US-based think tank said in a recent report.

Mainland Chinese observers, however, said US ties in their current state hardly heralded imminent conflict, and the two sides were expected to manage potential risks well.

The report by Stacie Pettyjohn, senior fellow and defence programme director at the Washington-based Centre for a New American Security, says other than any attempt to forcibly unify Taiwan or “less risky military approaches to try to compel a union” – escalations in the South China Sea or East China Sea, or a sudden collapse of the North Korean regime could trigger a possible “major war” with the People’s Liberation Army.

But none of the five scenarios to start a war would appeal to Beijing, thereby giving the United States and its allies time to ward off actual conflict, the report asserts.

02:19

Taiwan holds urban, aerial combat drills amid threats of invasion by mainland China

“China’s theory of victory is that it could gradually subordinate Taiwan through a series of small gains or fait accompli, and that Chinese punishment and intimidation would eventually inflict enough pain and psychological stress that Taiwan would capitulate to Beijing’s rule,” Pettyjohn said in her report published by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies in its bimonthly journal Survival, and released online last week.

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