Amid US–China trade tensions, the international debate around China’s United Front activities and the crisis in Xinjiang, the perennial issue of Taiwan continues to simmer as a source of regional tension and as a potential flashpoint for conflict.Beijing’s efforts to isolate Taiwan diplomatically and notable expressions of support by the US are data points signalling the current state of cross-strait relations. Writing in The Strategist, Malcolm Davis highlighted growing military asymmetry and suggested 2021, the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, as a potential trigger for action against Taiwan.
Military action across the Taiwan Strait would be a catastrophe that would inevitably bring China and the US into direct conflict, the result of which would remake the international order as fully as the Korean War did nearly 70 years ago.