Summary
China’s military is intensifying its campaign to pressure Taiwan through record airspace incursions, joint military drills, cyber warfare, and blockades, as it aims to exhaust Taiwan’s resources and deter independence.
Analysts say Beijing employs an “anaconda strategy” to squeeze Taiwan without full-scale invasion, though U.S. intelligence suggests China may achieve invasion capability by 2027.
Despite escalating PLA activities, Taiwan resists capitulation, maintaining strong defense responses.
Experts predict continued PLA provocations in 2025 as Beijing practices for its long-term goal of reunification under Communist Party control.
Unhindered access to global shipping, mostly.
And why wouldn’t that be possible to negotiate without threats? How is their traffic in international waters not already unhindered?
HongKong is the 5th biggest registrar of commercial vessels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_merchant_navy_capacity_by_country
China is the worlds biggest exporter, and I never heard about Chinese shipping being hindered.
So it seems like a solution looking for a problem.
The danger, from Beijing’s perspective, is that the US can cut off or constrict maritime trade in the event of conflict or high tensions. China is a major importer of both, fossil fuels and food, as well as dependent on exports for its economy, as we all know. So controll over Taiwan and the South China Sea is seen as absolutely crucial, obviously to China, but naturally to the US too.
Yes but those transports are all doing fine, and even if China takes control of the China Sea, it’s worth diddly in the event of war.
China is usually good with the patience game, with patience I’m sure these issues could be resolved. USA is clearly less interested in playing global police. And new political arrangements and agreements between China and USA together with the so called west, would have been just around the corner by now, if China had quit it’s conflict prone 1 China policy.
China used to be good on the patience game up to Hu Jintao
Well, agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on if you can’t enforce them when push comes to shove. I agree that the US is less interested in meddling in every affair all over the world, but it’s a mistake to think that they’re not interested in maintaining hegemony and their status as the pre-eminent superpower. That’s the whole reason for the pivot to Asia, and both the Dems and Republicans are in agreement there: The goal is to contain China.
Absolutely, but USA cannot expect to be the ONLY superpower. Because there is no doubt China will surpass USA at some point in the very near future.
That’s a naive goal, because they simply can’t. If they act to contain China, they should expect similar treatment when China is on top.
There certainly is doubt. The population is already declining and the economy has been growing far slower, as of late, than it should. The US also has more powerful allies, we’ll see how much damage Trump will afflict on that front. China’s ascent seemed certain a decade ago, now it is doubtful.
Well Xi absolutely hasn’t helped as far as I can tell. But despite declining population, it’s still multiple times bigger than USA. And even if the progress slows down, I’m pretty sure there is still way better room for growth in China than in the USA.
I think it’s naive to expect that China wouldn’t attempt to contain the US regardless of what the US does right now.