2 weeks ago - Xi has tied his legitimacy to putting the PRC on an irreversible path toward the “China Dream” of national rejuvenation by 2049 and unifying Taiwan with the motherland is deemed essential to that goal. Yet a military conflict over Taiwan would risk massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions, all of which could turn his dream into a nightmare and undermine his political authority.

2 weeks ago - The Taiwanese rebelled on 28 February 1947, but the uprising was violently suppressed by the KMT. The seeds of the Taiwan independence movement were sown during this period. China was soon engulfed in full-scale civil war. In 1949, the conflict turned decisively against the KMT in favor of the CCP.

5 hours ago - Su Chiao-hui, a lawmaker from the ... resolve conflicts. “They changed the rules, and the referee is gone,” she said. The friction reflects growing divisions in Taiwan over whether to hold tight to its relationship with the United States or try rapprochement with Beijing. Mr. Lai’s party says that Taiwan is its own country, and stronger defense and deeper ties with the United States are the way to protect Taiwan against China...

4 days ago - Opposition-led alternatives to the Special Defense Budget: The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) announced on January 14 that it will propose a revised special defense budget, likely to break the legislative deadlock. BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Combined Military Exercises: The PRC led military exercises with Iran, Russia, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates from January 9 to 16.

2 weeks ago - The exercise rehearsed elements of a campaign to isolate Taiwan and was separately meant to intimidate and impose psychological pressure. PLA modernization: The US Department of Defense released its 2025 China Military Power Report, discussing major developments throughout 2024 and focusing primarily on PLA technological developments and Chinese posture toward Taiwan.

3 weeks ago - Too little pressure risks normalising separation while too much pressure strengthens Taiwan's case in Washington. The result is a calibrated approach: escalation without rupture, coercion without war. Military drills intensify, but stop short of blockade. Rhetoric hardens, but communication channels remain open. This produces a paradox. Tension rises, but outcomes remain static. Preparation accelerates, but decisive moves are deferred. All three sides appear to be preparing for a conflict they are simultaneously trying not to own.

3 weeks ago - PLAN vessels in the south assumed positions that could prevent foreign forces from entering the Taiwan Strait while interdicting Kaohsiung—Taiwan’s largest port.[6] The PRC media outlet Global Times claimed that PLAN forces arrayed east of Taiwan practiced blocking an intervention force from reaching the island, likely by blockading the port city of Hualien.[7]The PLA likely positioned assets in key maritime and air traffic routes to demonstrate its ability to disrupt these connections through military force and practice the movements necessary for doing so.[8] PLA documents discuss implem

A major military operation against Taiwan would likely take four times as long, and, said Mr Huang, China would effectively “squeeze Taiwan until it surrenders”. Beijing has been practising this type of coercion for years. It has routinely deployed hundreds of ships and planes around Taiwan as part of its “grey zone” pressure – activities that fall short of open warfare but aim to demonstrate strength in the lead-up to an actual conflict.

15 hours ago - The announcement of a U.S.-Taiwan trade agreement had a potentially ominous undercurrent.

3 weeks ago - China launched its most extensive war games around Taiwan on Monday to showcase Beijing's ability to cut off the island from outside support in a conflict, as U.S. President Donald Trump downplayed the threat behind the drills.

3 weeks ago - The Chinese military published a video on Monday showing warships being deployed as it announced drills in the Taiwan Strait · China is holding military drills around Taiwan simulating the seizure and blockade of the island's key areas, as a warning against "separatist forces".

3 weeks ago - Speaking the day after the conclusion ... times, is unstoppable.” · China claims Taiwan, a self-governing island, as part of its territory and has long vowed to annex it, using force if necessary....

Tensions between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) in the 1950s resulted in armed conflict over strategic islands in the Taiwan Strait. On two separate occasions during the 1950s, the PRC bombed islands controlled by the ROC.

December 19, 2025 - The two groups, superficially working together, successfully unified China from the warlords in 1928 but quickly plummeted into open violent conflict. Despite a brief period of cooperation against the occupying Japanese Army during the 1930s, fighting between the KMT and CCP continued throughout the Second World War. On December 1, 1943, the heads of state from China, the United States, and Great Britain jointly signed the "Cairo Declaration" stipulating that: "all the territories Japan has seized from China, such as Manchuria, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands, shall be restored to China."

2 weeks ago - Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday.

December 8, 2025 - China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has never renounced the use of force to take control of the island. Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims. The new U.S. document has been warmly welcomed in Taiwan, whose President Lai Ching-te wrote on X on Saturday: "Greatly appreciate that the U.S. National Security Strategy prioritizes deterring a conflict over Taiwan".

December 5, 2025 - "Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority," said the document, a periodically updated vision statement from the administration to Congress and the first since Trump took office in January. China views Taiwan as its own, and Beijing has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

1 day ago - In this gray zone, China is already mounting cyberattacks, cutting internet cables and sending planes and ships toward Taiwan. It also holds live-fire military exercises, most recently a couple of weeks ago, to try to bully the island into accepting a future as some kind of autonomous zone under China’s oversight.

Taiwan has always had a sense of connection but separation from the mainland. Of course, today, mainland China would stress the connection, and many people in Taiwan would stress the separation. Nonetheless, both sides come from a shared history, splitting at some key historical moments.