On April 7, the United States and Iran formally agreed to a ceasefire, bringing the nearly seven weeks of fighting in the Middle East to a temporary pause. Still, the path to a more permanent peace remains uncertain, with a round of peace talks ending with no agreement and the U.S. announcing a naval blockade of Iran.
Although the tenuous ceasefire continues to hold, it is clear that the United States’ defense posture in the Indo-Pacific is being strained by competing operational demands. The conflict has seen the U.S. burn through billions of dollars in missiles, redeploy a Marine Expeditionary Unit from Japan, and shift 48 THAAD interceptors off the Korean Peninsula.
Replenishing the munitions inventory will certainly take time and money, as will the redeployment of weapons systems back to South Korea. Recognizing that the United States will possess fewer capabilities in the Indo-Pacific over the coming months, some commentators have expressed concern that China might view this as an opportune time to pursue unification with Taiwan. That possibility has raised alarm among some Taiwanese security officials, with one worried that “this is a moment for China to exercise influence.”
The evidence so far shows that while China has begun applying certain measures, most notably persuasion campaigns, it has not escalated militarily in the Taiwan Strait – and likely remains deterred from doing so. Even so, the conflict may create opportunities for Beijing to ramp up coercive tactics, short of war, to test new boundaries and establish a new status quo.
Taipei and Washington should assess how the conflict may shape Beijing’s pathways to unification. The Iran war’s trajectory and ultimate outcome will not only influence the prospects for a successful invasion of Taiwan but also impact Beijing’s effective employment of measures short of war, including persuasion, coercion, and limited kinetic operations.
Weighing the Risks and Rewards: Beijing’s Calculus for a Taiwan Invasion
In his first speeches as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Xi Jinping articulated the nation’s foremost goal as the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” – to be achieved by 2049, the nation’s centenary. Central to that vision has been the integration of the Chinese mainland with Taiwan. Beijing still has roughly two decades to meet that goal.
China, however, may seek to seize on the window of opportunity before then. Xi reportedly ordered the PLA to be prepared for a Taiwan invasion by 2027. With Washington preoccupied in the Middle East, Beijing could entertain the idea of seizing Taiwan sooner. Taipei has yet to acquire many of the military capabilities it seeks, with many U.S. weapons platforms purchased by Taiwan facing years of delays in delivery. Beijing could perceive Taipei as militarily vulnerable, backed by a Washington that is slow – or unwilling – to provide military support to the island. These factors could raise Beijing’s chances of success while limiting the casualties it may incur.
Nevertheless, an invasion in the near term seems ultimately unlikely, as there are three significant risks for Beijing. First, China’s ability to take Taiwan by force remains in question. Since 2022, Xi has purged over 100 high-ranking officials, and has removed officers in every service and regional command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Both the commander and the deputy commander of the PLA’s Eastern Theater Command, the regional command overseeing the Taiwan Strait, were removed in 2025. As of now, only 21 percent of key PLA leadership positions are filled.
The Department of Defense’s 2025 China Military Power Report assessed that the removals “very likely risk short-term disruptions in the operational effectiveness of the PLA.” Indeed, the dismissals of high-ranking operational commanders have negatively affected the PLA’s ability to coordinate large-scale, multi-domain exercises. Exercises in the Taiwan Strait have required longer planning periods and appear less organized than ones held prior to the purges. With a fractured command structure, the PLA’s ability to achieve the “strategic decisive victory” that Xi envisions appears improbable.
Second, the Trump administration has shown a greater appetite for kinetic action than its predecessors. Washington’s willingness to defend Taiwan – and Beijing’s perception of such – remains a decisive factor in China’s calculus. The Iran war demonstrates Trump’s willingness to employ military force to preserve “peace through strength.” That complicates Xi’s calculations, which have for years carefully balanced assertiveness with restraint. Beijing’s harassment of Filipino fishing vessels in the South China Sea, for instance, is intended to intimidate but stops shy of lethal force. Xi has been careful to prevent tensions from spiraling out of control. Trump’s unpredictability and willingness to use kinetic operations may turn Taiwan into a high-stakes gamble that Xi cannot afford to take.
Finally, the Iran war serves as a stark reminder of the PLA’s lack of combat experience. Recent U.S. operations – including the Venezuela mission that captured President Nicolás Maduro and prior strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities – have demonstrated the prowess of U.S. military might, showcasing exceptional coordination, lethality, and firepower. The Iran conflict so far has featured impressive AI-integrated operations, a high-risk extraction of a downed U.S. airman, and the ability to conduct deep-strikes against hardened targets.
By contrast, the PLA has not fought a major, sustained conventional conflict since 1979, leaving most troops without real combat experience. The PLA Navy’s real-world experiences remain limited to small expeditionary operations such as anti-piracy missions in the Gulf of Aden. Senior PLA officials have termed this deficiency the “peace disease.” Against the United States’ battle-tested forces, the PLA’s lack of real combat experience could give Xi pause.
Unification by Means Short of War: Persuasion, Coercion, and Limited Kinetic Operations
Armed invasion is not the only means by which China can pursue, and achieve, unification. The U.S. intelligence community in its 2026 Annual Threat Assessment judged that Chinese leaders “do not currently plan to execute an invasion of Taiwan in 2027” but are “probably… seeking to set the conditions for eventual unification with Taiwan short of conflict.”
Short of conflict courses of action include persuasion, winning the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese populace; coercion, leveraging economic and military threats; or limited kinetic operations, employing a restricted use of lethal force. Each of the three tactics holds distinct advantages and they can also be used in tandem.
On March 18, the Chinese government offered Taiwan energy guarantees in exchange for accepting peaceful unification. Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office remarked that China has “more than sufficient [power] to meet the electricity needs of Taiwan’s companies” and argued that unification would enable Taiwanese households to be free from “worries of power shortages and outages.” Taiwan imports 96 percent of its energy supply. Oil shipments are being restricted from passing through the Strait of Hormuz, even with the ceasefire in effect and Iran’s stated promise to allow vessels to pass. Taiwan is beginning to feel pressure on energy supply as imports are declining, making such an offer appear tempting.
Beijing proposed the offer through official diplomatic channels but has simultaneously sought to create bottom-up pressure by pushing misinformation on popular social media outlets. Two dozen posts made by Chinese-based accounts on Douyin falsely asserted that Taiwan would exhaust its liquefied natural gas supply in less than two weeks and begin experiencing electricity blackouts. Those videos have been reshared countless times, amassing thousands of views. This is part of China’s broader cognitive warfare campaign to shape the prevailing narrative and influence how people think and act. In the context of the Iran war, the aim is to paint Taiwan in a dire situation and to persuade the Taiwanese public that only unification can provide energy stability.
To date, China’s propaganda has been largely ineffective in Taiwan, with polls showing most of the Taiwanese public increasingly opposed to unification with the mainland. When persuasion does not work, Beijing often turns to coercion and reinforces its demands with threats. The most evident form of coercion in recent years has been Beijing’s increasing air and naval presence in the Taiwan Strait. By sustaining an elevated military presence around the island, Beijing can make its threats appear more credible.
To address this aggression, some observers have recommended that the United States adapt its force posture to the evolving level of Chinese coercion. But with the Iran war necessitating a redeployment of U.S. assets, the reverse could also take shape: changing U.S. force posture heightens Beijing’s coercion.
So far, the United States has redeployed the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, leaving only one other forward-deployed U.S. carrier in the Asia-Pacific. If the war drags on, the U.S. may continue shifting assets to support operations in Iran and begin limiting nonvital military operations, including maritime patrols and joint exercises. U.S. reconnaissance sorties in the South China Sea have already fallen by 30 percent since the war began.
Beijing could see this as an opportunity to incrementally intensify its baseline levels of coercion.
PLA incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone and past the island’s established median line have climbed every year since 2022, setting successive highs. Beijing may see an opportunity to further normalize PLA air and maritime activity in the Taiwan Strait. It seeks to make Taiwan believe that an invasion is imminent and use that threat to compel unification.
Still, these scenarios are only possibilities. So far, Beijing has not used the Iran conflict to meaningfully increase its military presence around the island or shown signs of mobilizing for a limited kinetic operation. Moreover, the U.S. continues to maintain a credible force posture capable of deterring Chinese aggression in the Indo-Pacific. It also retains a robust alliance network with Japan, South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines that is largely unaffected by the conflict and remains capable of contributing defensive support.
The war, however, has yet to reach a conclusive end. Whether the ceasefire holds and whether it leads to a permanent cessation of hostilities will impact the United States’ ability to redirect attention and resources back to the Indo-Pacific. At a minimum, the U.S., Taiwan, and the larger U.S.-led coalition should continue recognizing the importance of preserving the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. If the ceasefire collapses and the U.S. is drawn into renewed military operations in the Middle East, Washington should not lose sight of the existential dangers looming in the Taiwan Strait and should quickly move to reinforce its Indo-Pacific posture once the Iran conflict concludes.