Xi Doesn’t Need to Invade Taiwan Right Now

As election officials across the United States were tallying votes Tuesday night, a Chinese Y-9 electronic warfare aircraft flew through the southwest quadrant of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). For the eleventh consecutive day and the 27th time since Oct. 1, Taiwan scrambled fighters and activated air defenses. With tensions already running high in the Taiwan Strait, Taipei now faces a new uncertainty: the prospect of a prolonged contest in the United States over the outcome of the American presidential election. Will Beijing try to take advantage of a distracted, divided America to impose its will on Taiwan?

There are reasons for concern. It has been a busy few months for People’s Liberation Army pilots stationed along China’s southeastern coastline. PLA aircraft have crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait—the tacitly accepted air boundary between Taiwan and China—at least three times since August. In September, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman openly disavowed that tacit understanding. “The so-called ‘median line,’” he said, “is non-existent.”

Far more prevalent, however, have been flights in Taiwan’s southwestern air defense identification zone, many of them passing much closer to the Pratas (or Dongsha) islands, home to a Taiwanese coast guard installation, than to Taiwan proper. In recent months, flights near the islands have included bombers, fighters, and various patrol aircraft. Chinese forces conducted a major exercise in August that may have been a rehearsal for a landing there. On Oct. 15, Hong Kong flight authorities ordered a passenger plane heading to the islands to stay out of the surrounding airspace (the Pratas fall within Hong Kong’s flight information region).

Taiwanese officials and foreign observers are rightly concerned that China is preparing to make a move on Taiwan—if not an invasion, then perhaps an attempt to seize one of its offshore islands. A contested election outcome in the United States—Taiwan’s ultimate security guarantor—might provide the opportunity President Xi Jinping is looking for to snatch territory and deal a blow to American credibility in Asia.

But it might not. Chinese leaders have little reason to be confident that election uncertainty in the United States would translate to inaction on the global stage. If legal battles drag on, President Donald Trump might welcome a confrontation with China, perhaps hopeful that courts would be more sympathetic to an incumbent president facing the prospect of or prosecuting a war. More fundamentally, Xi knows better than anyone that the American president can be unpredictable—recall the cruise missile strike on Syria while the two leaders shared “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake.” In present circumstances, that unpredictability should give Chinese leaders pause.

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