Poll: What Is the Likelihood of War Over Taiwan?

In the last week, Taiwan’s president met with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California and China simulated an attack on Taiwan, as well as conducting three days of military exercises around the self-ruled island. These events reflect a recent shift in rhetoric among officials in Beijing, Taipei, and Washington. In January, U.S. Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan grabbed headlines with a memo that warned troops that the United States could be at war with China in 2025. (Pentagon leadership has since distanced itself from his comments.)

The question of whether China will invade Taiwan remains pertinent for U.S. policymakers and scholars alike. Has the likelihood of a Chinese invasion changed in the last year, as Russia’s war in Ukraine challenged the prevailing global order? What should the United States do if China did take military action against Taiwan?

The Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) Project at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, surveys international relations (IR) scholars at U.S. colleges and universities on some of the most important foreign-policy issues facing the United States. The latest survey took place between October 2022 and this January, and the results reported below are based on answers from the 979 respondents who participated in the survey. (Complete results can be found here.)

Despite recent escalatory rhetoric and behavior, the survey’s respondents believe the chances of a Chinese attack on Taiwan or a war between the United States and China remain low. Furthermore, the experts’ estimates of the likelihood of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait have not increased much in the last year. Nonetheless, if China did attack Taiwan, IR scholars support a few strong U.S. policy responses, including sanctions, increased military supplies to Taiwan, cyberattacks against Chinese assets, and increased U.S. troop deployment to the region.

The surveyed IR scholars are far from sanguine about the state of international politics in general. They see a range of threats facing the United States, including climate change, China’s rising power, domestic political instability within the United States, and Russian efforts to claim former Soviet territory. But it’s clear that the experts think U.S. President Joe Biden is up to the task: Respondents gave Biden solid grades for his foreign-policy performance so far.

Will China invade Taiwan?

The IR experts largely disagree with the assessment that China is likely to invade Taiwan soon. Survey respondents received one of two questions about the chance that China would use military force against Taiwan in the next year. Half of respondents were given the option to select “Yes,” “No,” or “Don’t know.” Among respondents in this group, 72.5 percent said China would not use military force against Taiwan, 22 percent indicated that they didn’t know, and just 6 percent said that China would invade Taiwan in the next year.

These assessments have not changed much in the last year: In a March 2022 survey, 71 percent of respondents said China would not use military force against Taiwan, 22 percent indicated that they didn’t know, and 7 percent said that China would invade Taiwan in the next year.

The other half of the IR scholars received a 100-point sliding scale—with 0 representing no chance that China would use military force against Taiwan, and 100 indicating that China’s use of military force was certain. None of the 354 experts who answered this question said China would definitely invade Taiwan in the next year (that is, chose 100 points). Taking an average of the responses, the IR experts estimated a 23.75 percent chance of a Chinese attack against Taiwan in the next year.

How should the United States respond if China invades Taiwan?

Respondents were also asked what the United States should do if China uses military force against Taiwan. As in previous surveys, we provided nine policy options. IR scholars favored a sanctions-focused response, bolstered by military and humanitarian assistance. A large majority supported increased U.S. troop deployments to the region. The top three most popular responses were sanctions on the Chinese government and its leaders, supporting Taiwan by sending additional arms and military supplies, and receiving refugees from Taiwan.

These results are very similar to results from an identical question in a 2022 TRIP snap poll (also surveying IR scholars in the United States). The primary difference is that respondents now seem more supportive of the idea of deploying cyberattacks against China in the event it uses military force against Taiwan, with 49 percent of respondents favoring this option in March 2022 versus 58 percent in the latest survey.

But IR scholars again disagree with U.S. officials’ warnings that war between the United States and China is imminent. In fact, the experts indicate that such a major power conflict is highly unlikely, even 10 years from now. When asked about the likelihood of war between the United States and China in the next decade, respondents estimated a 24.11 percent chance of war between the countries, when averaging the results from the most recent poll.

It is worth noting that our survey asked IR experts a similar question in 2014 and 2017, with the main difference being the scale used in those rounds was from 0 to 10. The perceived likelihood of war with China has slowly increased over time. Furthermore, when asked which area of the world they considered to be of greatest strategic importance to the United States today, slightly more than half (51.35 percent) of respondents said East Asia, including China. When asked which region would be most important 10 years from now, the results were even more striking, with 61.89 percent of respondents saying East Asia would be the most important.

What are the main foreign-policy challenges for the United States?

In a recent public opinion poll of Democratic and Republican U.S. voters, respondents said terrorism, immigration, cyberattacks, and drug trafficking were the greatest foreign-policy concerns facing the United States. But IR experts disagree: They view global climate change, the rising power of China, U.S. domestic political instability, and Russian revanchism as more pressing issues. As shown below, the public’s greatest foreign-policy worries are far less alarming to the experts; just 2.28 percent of respondents cite international terrorism as a significant concern, for example.

The gap between the ivory tower and the public has widened in recent years, as the public has grown more skeptical of academics and their expertise. Assuming policymakers continue to draw upon substantive experts when making decisions, they may face greater challenges in gaining popular support for their foreign-policy initiatives.

Finally, IR scholars still give Biden high grades on his handling of foreign policy, despite this host of international threats. Nearly 74 percent of survey respondents said the president had performed “well or “very well” in this area during his first two years in office. Expert appraisal of Biden’s performance has fluctuated during his term: He started out with strong grades, with almost 80 percent of those surveyed saying he did well or very well, then stumbled a bit—falling to 51 percent approval among respondents—before recovering to his stronger position today.

Despite political polarization within the United States, U.S. foreign policy seems to be experiencing a rebirth of bipartisanship among policymakers. Stances on issues such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO, industrial policy, and even international trade increasingly gain consensus across party lines. But nowhere is there greater agreement than on the perception of China’s rise as a threat to the United States. Like those within the Beltway, IR scholars also see the rise of China as an increasingly important issue for the United States; but as they have for some time, they think the probability of war between the United States and China remains low.