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Understanding the Political Consequences
of a Taiwan Conflict

Whether China will attempt a military takeover of Taiwan and what consequences might ensue are among the most important questions of the twenty-first century. 

 

Unlike most analyses of a potential conflict over Taiwan, which highlight  military, economic, and diplomatic outcomes, FISC’s Taiwan initiative examines the potential political consequences of such a conflict for China itself. This focus addresses an important gap in the forward-looking literature on the cross-Strait controversy. 

 

This initiative investigates questions like the following through interdisciplinary and broad-ranging inquiry:

 

1.  What policy adjustments could the prosecution of a Taiwan conflict necessitate for the Party-state, regardless of outcome, and how could those adjustments impact state-society relations in China?

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2. How might the Chinese Party-state respond to the economic downturn and humanitarian toll that could result from a Taiwan conflict, regardless of outcome? 

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3.  How resilient could the Communist regime prove to popular reputational damage that could result from a failed attempt to take control of Taiwan?

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4.  Given the significant role of the People’s Liberation Army in Chinese governance in past periods, to what extent could a Taiwan conflict engender a militarization of the Chinese political and administrative system?

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Explore our content on these issues and more below. 

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Interview | Joseph Wright on Autocratic Regime Collapse

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Dr. Joseph Wright, a leading expert on the statistical analysis of autocratic regimes at Penn State University, speaks with FISC president Connor Swank about the factors that impact autocratic regimes’ behavior and likelihood of collapse.

Wright reveals that economic crises and wars that go badly are not reliable predictors of collapse, despite their seemingly threatening nature. On the other hand, certain characteristics of autocratic regimes– most notably the degree to which they are personalized– appear to make certain outcomes more likely, such as the starting of wars. Wright concludes that in the case of China, the particularities of its political system render the regime unlikely to collapse in the event that it starts a military conflict over Taiwan, even if the conflict goes ill. 

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