China is ratcheting up pressure on Taiwan amid signs that the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is getting ever more tenuous. Over the last several months, Beijing has made a series of statements and taken actions, like increased military drills, indicating a sharper focus on its long-term goal to “reunify” the self-governed island with the mainland. The statements suggest that it is ready to use coercive means, if necessary, in pursuit of that end. The actions have sent a similar message. On 29 December 2025, China launched its most extensive military drills around Taiwan to date, simulating a total blockade of the island. These two-day exercises were probably not the prelude to an actual military campaign. But they did demonstrate that Beijing is willing to flex its muscles to intimidate the Taiwanese authorities and deter other governments from deepening engagement with Taipei. Meanwhile, the United States has been sending mixed signals about whether it is committed to maintaining its longstanding support for Taiwan. Dissension in Taipei – where opposition parties have repeatedly blocked government efforts to increase defence spending – is straining U.S.-Taiwan ties, thus playing into Beijing’s hands.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned visit to Beijing at the end of March and beginning of April, when he is expected to discuss the Taiwan question, as well as trade, with Chinese President Xi Jinping, could be an inflection point. But the lead-up to the summit will also be a particularly sensitive time. With Trump’s intentions for U.S. Taiwan policy in doubt, and Taiwanese politicians at loggerheads, Beijing in particular might be tempted to push the envelope with its military exercises around the island. It is imperative that all three of China, Taiwan and the U.S. steer clear of unilateral action that might strain the status quo and lead to a crisis or even an armed confrontation in the Taiwan Strait. Displays of prudence and restraint on all three sides can help lower a temperature that is running high.

For decades, China has aimed at unification (or what Beijing calls “reunification”) with Taiwan, which it deems a wayward province under Chinese sovereignty, but the path to achieving this end has never been fully clear. Taipei disputes Beijing’s claim to its territory and argues that Taiwan has never been part of the People’s Republic of China.

In recent months, China has taken a number of steps to up the pressure on Taiwan and sharpen the perception that it means business. To begin with, it has changed the way it talks about its Taiwan policy in the Chinese Communist Party’s new Five-Year Plan, which governs the period 2026-2030. The 2019 Five-Year Plan vowed to “advance the peaceful reunification of the motherland and improve mechanisms for promoting cross-strait exchanges and cooperation”. By contrast, the communiqué for the new Plan, released on 23 October 2025, says the party will “promote the peaceful development of relations across the Taiwan Strait and advance the great cause of national reunification”. By disassociating “peaceful” from “reunification” in its new policy formulation, Beijing appears to be signalling that, while it would prefer to absorb Taiwan without employing military force, it is not precluding the use of coercion.

Why the change? Perhaps there is a perception that the clock is ticking. Beijing has long made unification with Taiwan central to its historical mission of attaining “national rejuvenation” by 2049. On top of that, President Xi has set 2035 as the year by which China needs to “basically realise socialist modernisation”. Official Chinese documents have framed unification as central to that mission. Chinese leaders, and Xi in particular, likely feel it is necessary to show they are marking meaningful milestones toward resolving the Taiwan question. The precise timetable that Xi has in mind is not known, but one can imagine him looking for concrete gains that he could tout in that vein by 2030, when the fifteenth Five-Year Plan will end. 

In the meantime, Beijing is creating a narrative and laying legal groundwork for justifying future actions it might take against Taiwan. On 24 October 2025, the National People’s Congress voted to establish an annual Commemoration Day of Taiwan’s Restoration – the purposes of which, according to Chinese state media, are to help facilitate “cross-strait participation” and “strengthen a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation”.

The Chinese government is also highlighting its legal claims – increasingly citing carefully selected historical documents, such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and 1945 Potsdam Proclamation, which stipulate that all the territories Japan seized from Chinese control before and during World War II, including Taiwan, should be restored to China. These legal arguments are not new, and nor are challenges to them. The U.S. and other countries contend that neither these historical documents nor key UN resolutions settled Taiwan’s political status. For its part, Taipei argues that the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco, which officially ended hostilities between Japan and the Allies, replaced both the Cairo and Potsdam declarations. This treaty says Japan renounces all right and claim to Taiwan and the outlying islands of Penghu, without specifying which country is to take control of these territories. Taipei also notes that the proclamations cited by Beijing did not designate a recipient of every piece of land Japan had to give up.

Beijing is also using increasingly strong-arm tactics with Taiwan’s East Asian neighbours that it feels are sending the wrong message vis-à-vis Taiwan. Its current diplomatic spat with Japan seems intended to warn others away from trying to get between China and its goals for Taiwan. That quarrel began after the newly elected Japanese prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, told parliament in November that a Chinese military operation against Taiwan would constitute “a survival-threatening situation” for her country. Since then, Beijing has sought to punish Tokyo by cancelling many commercial flights, conducting coast guard incursions into Japanese waters, holding military exercises near Japan’s Okinawa islands in the East China Sea, and imposing export controls on dual-use materials and rare earth minerals. But Beijing’s pressure tactics have only strengthened Takaichi’s domestic support, as her governing Liberal Democratic Party won by a landslide in 8 February parliamentary elections. In her first post-election speech to the legislature on 20 February, Takaichi cautioned that China could be attempting to unilaterally change the status quo in the East China Sea and South China Sea “through force or coercion”. She vowed to revise Japan’s core security documents. 

Beijing has also stepped up military pressure on Taiwan itself. Its biggest show of strength took place in late December 2025, when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) deployed more than 200 aircraft and dozens of naval and coast guard vessels to the waters and airspace around Taiwan. According to Taiwan’s defence ministry, all five of the areas that the PLA designated for live-fire drills as part of these exercises overlapped with the island’s territorial waters. Some of the Chinese ships also breached Taiwan’s contiguous zone (between twelve to 24 nautical miles from shore), before being driven away. Taiwanese officials say the Chinese moves were part of an attempt to assert Beijing’s claim that the seas around the island are its “internal waters” while testing the Taiwanese military’s capabilities and resolve.

But the exercises went further still. The PLA’s ground forces also conducted long-range strike drills in coordination with the navy, air force and rocket force in waters north and south of Taiwan. Taiwan’s defence ministry said the PLA fired 27 rockets during the drills, at least ten of which fell within Taiwan’s contiguous zone, closer to the island than Chinese projectiles have ever landed before. Tristan Tang, an associate fellow at National Taiwan University’s Center for China Studies, told Crisis Group that the PLA demonstrated its growing preparation for a possible invasion by simulating seizure of parts of Taiwan’s eastern coast and the Penghu islands. Taking control of the Penghu islands would give the PLA a forward staging area that it could use to launch an assault on the main island, while occupying eastern Taiwan would be a big blow to Taipei. This area, which is home to two air bases, has long been designated for sheltering and preserving Taiwan’s military assets in a conflict scenario.

To augment such exercises, the PLA is working on improving its troops’ “realistic combat capabilities” through joint combat readiness patrols – deployments of aircraft and naval vessels during which its personnel stand ready to respond to “accidental collisions or external attacks”. Unlike military drills, these patrols (which were integrated into the December exercises) are usually unannounced and do not involve live fire. The Chinese military describes them as important for testing “the integrated combat capability of multiple services”. Statistics shared by Secure Taiwan Associate Corporation, a Taipei-based organisation that tracks the Chinese military, show that the PLA carried out 40 such patrols in both 2024 and 2025, reflecting its efforts to make such activity around Taiwan seem routine.

The PLA is also expanding its capabilities to operate in the far seas. In June 2025, it conducted a thirteen-day training involving two aircraft carriers in the Western Pacific for the first time. The exercise involved early warning, reconnaissance, air and missile defence, fighter jet deployments and assaults on seaborne targets. That month, the Japanese defence ministry revealed that the two aircraft carriers had collectively seen more than 1,000 takeoffs and landings during the drills – which some defence analysts say are likely designed at least in part as practice for preventing U.S. intervention in a Taiwan contingency. The PLA’s far-sea capabilities got a boost in November 2025, when its third and most advanced aircraft carrier, the Fujian, entered service. Equipped with a flat deck and electromagnetic catapults, it can host China’s larger and more sophisticated fighter jets, including the fifth-generation J-35 stealth fighter and the KJ-600 early warning and control aircraft. With three aircraft carriers in operation, the Chinese navy could now routinely deploy one of them in the Western Pacific, which would heighten threats to Taiwan’s eastern coast and assets stationed there.

But at the same time the PLA is flexing its muscles, it is also facing internal challenges. In January, the government abruptly purged top military brass, announcing investigations of Zhang Youxia, the army’s highest-ranking general, and another senior figure. The probes are part of President Xi’s “anti-corruption campaign” targeting the PLA leadership, which started over a decade ago but has intensified since 2023. This campaign has already removed five of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission’s seven members, leaving only Xi himself and Zhang Shenming, the commission’s secretary of discipline inspection.

The PLA’s leadership crisis could disrupt its chain of command, hindering plans for a major military operation, at least in the short term. There are also longer-term considerations that could give Xi pause about an invasion – including Washington’s plans to deploy advanced weapons systems to Japanese and Philippine islands close to China, as well as Taiwan’s efforts to strengthen its asymmetric defence capabilities. That said, some Taiwanese analysts worry that Xi could pick a new generation of military leaders who lack the experience to handle an unexpected crisis or the authority to offer him realistic assessments that might contradict his own views. These factors could heighten the risk of a consequential miscalculation concerning cross-strait operations. 

Intensified Chinese pressure on Taiwan also comes amid swirling questions about the direction of U.S. foreign policy. The second Trump administration’s words and deeds have left both Taipei and Beijing wondering if Washington might alter its decades-old approach to Taiwan policy. The U.S. has long supported Taiwan with arms sales and defence training, while adhering to a “one China” policy that tacitly acknowledges – but does not endorse or accept – the mainland’s claim to the island. It has been ambiguous about whether Washington would take up arms in Taiwan’s defence if Beijing were to pursue unification by force, simply insisting that Taiwan’s status should be resolved peacefully.

While the Trump administration has not yet moved away from these traditional policy pillars, Taipei worries that it might do so, particularly if Beijing appeals to Trump’s penchant for transactionalism in foreign policy. Even as his administration treats China as a strategic competitor – it has been working with partners and allies to reduce reliance on rare earth minerals from China and cooperating with Taiwan to bolster its domestic semiconductor manufacturing – President Trump has made better commercial relations with Beijing a foreign policy priority. At present, the U.S. is focused on upholding the temporary trade truce that Trump reached with Xi at their first summit in South Korea in October 2025. While an adverse Supreme Court ruling has required the administration to adjust its legal basis for tariffs, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a 25 February interview that Washington is aiming for “continuity” in its approach to China. But Trump could well seek a warming of relations when he meets with Xi in Beijing, and the Taiwanese worry that he will sign a major trade agreement that will undermine Washington’s longstanding support for the island. 

Adding to Taipei’s anxiety, the Taiwanese government lacks a rapport with the Trump administration. Many think that Washington has on occasion snubbed Taipei, such as by reportedly denying Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s request to stop over in New York during a planned July 2025 trip to Central America and cancelling a meeting originally scheduled the same month between Taiwanese Defence Minister Wellington Koo and U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby. Other recent events have sown further concern. The Taiwanese were alarmed by Trump’s remark in January that Xi views Taiwan as “a part of China”, adding that “it’s up to him what he’s going to do with it” but that he would be unhappy if Xi “did that” (ie, invade Taiwan). He also assured the media that Xi had promised not to invade Taiwan when Trump is in office. In comparison to its predecessors, the Trump administration seems less fixed on emphasising Taiwan’s strategic importance. The 2026 National Defence Strategy does not even mention the Taiwan Strait, instead describing more generally the challenges the U.S. faces in the Indo-Pacific and vowing to “erect a strong denial defense along the first island chain”.

Some signals point in the opposite direction, but even here there is confusion. In December 2025 the administration approved the largest arms sales to Taiwan in history, at $11.1 billion, suggesting that Trump is maintaining U.S. defence support for the island. The administration at the same time developed a separate arms sales package that would include the advanced surface-to-air missile system NASAMS and would amount to around $13 billion. But on 16 February, Trump casually said he had mentioned Washington’s arms sales to Taipei with Xi during their last telephone conversation. If he did, it would be a departure from long-time U.S. practice of not discussing arms sales to Taiwan with Chinese leaders. Two days later, The Wall Street Journal reported that the new package under discussion was now “in limbo” given administration worries that it could derail Trump’s trip. 

Meanwhile, as it grapples with increasing external pressures, Taiwan is facing domestic political gridlock that is testing Taipei’s relationship with Washington to Beijing’s advantage. Since President Lai came to power in May 2024, politics has been locked in a clash between the government’s executive branch, run by the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and the legislature, controlled by two opposition parties, the pro-engagement Kuomintang (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). This dynamic has led to political paralysis, stalling legislative approval for increased defence spending, national security reforms and the 2026 government budget.

The KMT’s new chairwoman, Cheng Li-wun, wishes to see Taiwan give more priority to pursuing engagement with the mainland, repeatedly calling for resuming cross-strait dialogue to ease tensions. Cheng’s rise indicates a return to the KMT’s traditional advocacy for deepening engagement with Beijing, which it believes is the best way to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy and the cross-strait status quo, after a decade of Beijing refusing to deal with DPP-led governments. In a move viewed as paving the way for Cheng to meet with Xi, the KMT sent a 40-member delegation to Beijing on 2 February for a three-day think-tank forum with the Chinese Communist Party, marking the first such interaction between the parties in nine years.

Cheng’s desire for better relations with Beijing has led her to oppose the government’s proposal to significantly increase Taiwan’s defence spending, warning that it risks turning the Taiwan Strait into a “powder keg”. The KMT and TPP have also urged the government to provide more details and answer more questions about the proposed special defence budget, which at a mammoth $40 billion is spread out over eight years and mostly allocated to U.S. weapon systems purchases. Meantime, the TPP has proposed its own special defence budget bill, at a greatly reduced price tag of $12.7 billion, covering only some of the armaments the U.S. had already approved for sale. The KMT has said it, too, will put forward a budget before 6 March, when two parliamentary committees will convene to review all three of the proposals. Which party will prevail, or whether a compromise might emerge, remains entirely unclear.

The stalemate over defence spending carries significant implications for Taiwan’s relationship with the U.S. Since Trump returned to the White House, his administration has repeatedly pushed allies and partners, including Taiwan, to earmark more money for their own militaries. President Lai has warned that the KMT-TPP attempts to block such increases would cause other capitals to “misunderstand” Taiwan’s determination to strengthen its defences. Dozens of U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern about the opposition’s moves, with some accusing them of “playing with fire”.

The impasse is good news from Beijing’s perspective, which sees such rancour as favourable to its pursuit of unification. Chinese authorities believe deepening polarisation between the DPP and opposition parties not only complicates Taiwan’s efforts to bolster its defences, but also eats away at Lai’s domestic standing. More broadly, it finds in Taiwan’s political dysfunction revived hopes that unification may be achievable without resorting to force. Surfing the wave, Chinese state media has in recent months amplified the rhetoric from Taiwanese opposition critics of Lai and published three opinion pieces in October 2025 aimed at disseminating the notion among the Taiwanese people that “reunification” is “inevitable”.

The interplay of developments in Beijing, Washington and Taipei has pushed tensions in the Taiwan Strait to their highest levels in years, even if few think that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is imminent. All eyes are on the forthcoming Trump-Xi meeting, which despite a primary focus on trade is sure to touch on Taiwan. With the U.S. seeking to extend the trade truce and amid Taiwan’s domestic discord, Beijing likely views the coming period as a golden opportunity to turn up the heat on Taipei. But to the extent that China might heighten grey zone activity or envelope-pushing exercises in and around the strait, the danger of a confrontation caused by accident or miscalculation will continue to grow.

All three capitals should work to manage this risk and more broadly to avoid putting additional stress on the fragile status quo in the strait. Little suggests that Beijing will tone down its rhetoric on Taiwan or significantly scale back its military activities. It does, however, have an interest in reducing the risk of accidents and miscalculations that could lead to escalatory scenarios. Framing its recommendations as a mechanism for crisis avoidance, the U.S. should encourage China to reduce the frequency of its drills so close to Taiwan’s territorial waters and airspace, and China should refrain from moving its military drills or incursions even closer to Taiwan’s main island, as they increase the dangers of unintended confrontation with all the escalatory risks.

For their part, the Taiwanese government and the two opposition parties – none of which shares Beijing’s unification agenda – have a mutual interest in finding a compromise on defence-related issues. As all three political parties have now agreed to move the government’s proposed special defence budget, along with the two opposition parties’ versions, to a committee review, the KMT and TPP should consider the items listed in the government’s proposal and approve weapons and defence systems that meet Taiwan’s goal of strengthening its asymmetric capabilities. For his part, President Lai should demonstrate good-will by agreeing to answer opposition lawmakers’ remaining questions about the special defence budget. Through these steps, the three parties may be able to close the gap on that budget’s proper size and scope.

Finally, ahead of the Trump-Xi meeting, Trump’s advisers should reinforce with him the importance of message discipline to deterrence. If the administration’s public remarks – starting with the president’s – leave the impression that U.S. support for Taipei is negotiable, especially during sensitive periods leading up to major summits, China could try to press its advantage in ways that will escalate tensions, even if not necessarily leading to war. To make sure that its signalling is clear, the U.S. should through all channels and at every level also reiterate its opposition to any unilateral move that undermines the cross-strait status quo. In parallel, however, Trump should reiterate that the U.S. seeks only to deter China, not to “dominate or strangle” it, a message that his administration has repeatedly and helpfully voiced since 2025.