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Taiwan's strategy for countering a Chinese invasion, with Bonny Lin of CSIS
On this week’s GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with Bonny Lin, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, for a look at one of the most dangerous flashpoints in the world: the Taiwan Strait. China has been conducting drills around Taiwan for years, but since the current pro-independence president, William Lai, took office in 2024, Beijing has been staging near-daily military exercises near the island–larger, louder, and more aggressive than ever before.
Lai has pledged to boost defense spending, strengthen ties with the US, and reduce Taiwan’s economic dependence on China. But Lai faces serious political headwinds at home. His party lost its majority in parliament, and he’ll have to navigate a deeply divided government to get anything done. Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping says reunification with Taiwan is a national priority and has made it clear Beijing won’t hesitate to take the island by force if necessary. The stakes are global: A war in the Strait would reshape the world economy, drag in major powers, potentially triggering the deadliest military conflict in the Asia-Pacific since World War II. So how far can China push, and how long can Taiwan hold out, before a crisis becomes inevitable?
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Ian Explains: Will China invade Taiwan?
President Xi Jinping has made it clear he wants to bring Taiwan under Chinese control. But how would he actually send troops to the island? And after watching Russia get bogged down in two years of grinding war in Ukraine, has his calculus changed? On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer lays out Xi’s strategies for achieving his primary political goal: reunification with Taiwan.
Overall, the chances of an all-out Chinese invasion are slim to none. It would be a huge political and military risk for China, and its economy can’t afford the hit of global sanctions. Beijing is also deeply dependent on Taiwan for its technology infrastructure: Taiwan’s TSMC manufactures more than half of the world’s computer chips that power things like phones and electric cars. But Taiwan’s economy is also dependent on China, its largest trading partner. So Xi could still apply plenty of pressure without sending a single troop to the island. Will Xi try to solve his “Taiwan problem” before he leaves office?
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).
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NATO membership for Ukraine?
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Sweden will join NATO. Is Ukraine next?
Well, sure, but next doesn't mean tomorrow. Next means like at some indeterminate point, which makes President Zelensky pretty unhappy and he's made that clear, but he has massive amounts of support from NATO right now, and he needs that support to continue. So, it's not like he has a lot of leverage on joining NATO. As long as the Americans are saying it's not going to happen, that means it's not going to happen. No, the real issue is how much and how concrete the multilateral security guarantees that can be provided by NATO to Ukraine actually turn out to be. We will be watching that space.
Is Taiwan readying itself for an invasion by conducting its biggest evacuation drills in years?
I wouldn't say readying for an invasion. I would say, you know, sort of preparing for every contingency, and that means taking care of your people. I mean, the Americans weren't readying themselves for nuclear Armageddon by doing drills in classrooms and by, you know, having bomb shelters, but they had them because we were in a world where nuclear war was thinkable. Well, we're in a world where Chinese, mainland Chinese invasion of Taiwan is very unlikely, but thinkable. And of course, the Taiwanese have to think about it a lot more than you and I do.
Elon vs. Zuck. Thoughts?
Well, my thoughts are mostly about the battle of the social media platforms and the fact that of course you now have the big gorilla in the room with a Twitter competitor. And I've seen it pretty functional for the first several days. Obviously, massive numbers of people are on it, mostly because it's really easy to sign up. They're all coming over from Instagram and it's owned by the same person, by the same shareholders. Unclear to me who's going to win. If I had to bet, I would say that within 6 or 12 months, we're going to have a fragmented social media landscape politically, the way we do blogosphere or cable news, which is, I guess, good for consumer choice, but it's bad for civil society. What else is new?