The Next Taiwan Crisis May Begin In The Digital Public Sphere

2025-05-30 07:01:37

(MENAFN- Asia Times) Commentators on strategic defense have outlined China's strategy to deter or delay US intervention in a Taiwan contingency. Most deserving of serious attention is not Beijing's advocacy of“strategic deterrence” per se but what that reveals about the narrowing space for diplomacy and the expanding appetite for risk in US-China security thinking.

Yes, rather than relying solely on a“bolt from the blue” missile strike, Beijing may turn to“strategic deterrence” – leveraging cyber, space, nuclear, and conventional tools to pressure the American homeland and sway the political decision-making calculus of a sitting US president.

China's evolving toolkit to prevent or delay US military intervention in a Taiwan conflict is broader than missile salvos: It spans cyber disruption, satellite interference, economic coercion and calibrated nuclear signaling. But framing the center of gravity as the“American political will” risks misdiagnosing the real danger – not a president“balking,” but a president escalating in haste to avoid looking weak.

There's a growing consensus in defense circles: The center of gravity in a Taiwan contingency may not lie on the battlefield but in the political will of the United States. Yet much analysis betrays a troubling assumption – that conflict between the US and China is fast becoming a matter of when, not if, and that strategic signaling through threat escalation is the most effective means of managing it.

What's missing from the analysis is the feedback loop between US and Chinese signaling, and how each side's attempts at deterrence can rapidly spiral into misperception. A focus on“strategic deterrence” overlooks how information warfare, civilian targeting and economic sabotage could erode legitimacy and provoke disproportionate retaliation.

More fundamentally, these analyses assume a conflict logic that makes strategic war planning seem inevitable.

TikTok, WeChat and X warfare

But if the center of gravity is truly political and strategic deterrence is now the currency of crisis management, we must confront a deeper reality: The next Taiwan crisis will not begin with missile launches or air defense alerts. It will begin in the digital public sphere – on platforms like TikTok, WeChat, and X-where information, misinformation, and political perception collide in real time.

Why aren't we investing more in political deterrence – crisis communication channels, deconfliction protocols and norms of cyber/nuclear restraint?

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