強化美國在台灣的軍事存在是最有效的 "Deterrence by Denial"
david chou
David Chou
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Appendix
China’s Redlines Aren’t Where You Think They Are
CNO History Essay Contest—Third Prize
(Rising Historian Category)—Sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute
The Taiwan Strait Crises show what U.S. planners risk getting wrong.
By Lieutenant Colonel Brian Kerg, U.S. Marine Corps
February 2026
Proceedings
Vol. 152/2/1,476
https://www.usni.org/people/brian-kerg
The First, Second, and Third Taiwan Strait Crises were rife with escalatory risk. Operations spanned amphibious assaults, desperate defense of outlying islands, tense standoffs that risked U.S. capital ships, coercive Chinese missile launches, and even nuclear brinkmanship between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Given the scope and scale of China’s pressure campaign against Taiwan today, the world is arguably in the throes of a Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.1 Moreover, the options to block China’s attempts to strangle its democratic neighbor are tightly limited. Specifically, some analysts have concluded that deploying U.S. military power to deter Chinese aggression could accelerate a Chinese attack across the strait to seize Taiwan.2
But a closer analysis of the historical crises and modern China’s strategic behavior reveals that this interpretation is off the mark. It incorrectly assumes China’s redlines vis-à-vis Taiwan are based on the use of military power itself, when China instead responds aggressively only when its preferred political narrative and political objectives are placed at risk. By reviewing each crisis in detail, and distilling the core issues that drove each conflict, policy-makers and military planners can develop operational approaches that more freely use U.S. military power to safeguard against a Chinese invasion and maintain stability in the Indo-Pacific.
The First Taiwan Strait Crisis
Gunners of the ROC First Field Army practice under supervision of a U.S. military advisor in December 1954. U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive
The 1954–55 First Taiwan Strait Crisis was an armed conflict between the nationalist Republic of China (ROC)—Taiwan—and the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC). The object of the fight was several ROC-held islands near the Chinese mainland.
The U.S. Seventh Fleet had been tasked to ensure the stability of the Taiwan Strait prior to the crisis.3 The fleet had a dual mission: to prevent the PRC from invading Taiwan, and to prevent the ROC from attacking across the strait. Project National Glory, ROC President Chiang Kai-shek’s plan to return to the mainland and defeat the communists, was still within reach given the balance of power at the time. This made Chiang’s nationalist ambitions a source of instability.4
Following the 1952 election of Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, the new President ended the policy to hold Taiwan in check, which he said, “in effect, [made] the United States Navy . . . a defensive arm of Communist China.”5 The ROC military started building up its forces on the islands of Kinmen and Matsu, an operational stone’s throw from China. In September 1954, the PRC began shelling the islands. Two U.S. advisors on Kinmen were killed.6
In December 1954, the United States and the ROC signed a mutual-defense treaty. This alone did not deter PRC aggression; in January 1955, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) seized the ROC-held Yijiangshan Island. Shortly thereafter, Congress approved the Formosa Resolution, authorizing the President to defend Taiwan and its possessions. While the U.S. Navy did not conduct offensive operations, it did help ROC troops evacuate the Tachen Islands, which the ROC would have been unable to hold should the PLA attack.
Notably, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Mao Zedong explicitly directed that the PRC not become ensnared in a fight with U.S. forces. The United States, too, wanted to avoid a fight with PLA forces but ostensibly was prepared to launch nuclear strikes, something the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended and Eisenhower threatened. In April 1955, PRC Premier Zhou Enlai expressed his country’s intent to negotiate with the United States to end the conflict, and, in May, PLA shelling of Kinmen and Matsu ceased.7
While the seizure of Taiwan and the ultimate defeat of the ROC remained PRC objectives, the perceived threat of an attack on the Chinese mainland contributed to the PRC’s rationale to attack. The PRC had demonstrated a similar reaction a few years earlier when, in 1950, it leapt into the Korean War, in part because United Nations forces attacked toward the Chinese border on the Yalu River while routing the North Korean Army. While the buildup of Kinmen and Matsu could have been justified as a ROC defensive measure, misperceptions and miscalculation could just as easily have begun a conflict.
U.S. nuclear brinkmanship may have pressured the PRC to stop its aggression, but it also led Mao to begin China’s nuclear program to shield the country from such intimidation in the future.
The risk of becoming embroiled in a fight with China and the danger to U.S. interest in the ROC’s survival led to the maturation of alliance mechanisms between the United States and Taiwan. Not only did the crisis yield a mutual-defense treaty, but the United States also established the U.S. Taiwan Defense Command (USTDC), a subunified command with committed leaders, authorities, and forces for the defense of Taiwan.
Finally, it is clear the PRC’s objective was something Mao and the CCP wanted, but only if they could avoid war with the United States, while the United States was clearly willing to risk war with the PRC to protect the status quo.
The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
Conflict emerged again in 1958, this time with significantly higher stakes. The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis saw bloody naval and amphibious operations, a significant commitment of U.S. forces to Taiwan, and the threat of Soviet intervention.
F-86s from the ROC Air Force in 1958, shown with then-top-secret AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles, which gave ROC forces air superiority over the Taiwan Strait during the second crisis. Taiwan Ministry of Defense
Once again, the ROC built and fortified military installations on Kinmen and Matsu, and the PRC resumed shelling them.8 The PRC also sought to seize ROC-held territory, launching an amphibious landing on Dongding Island, the southernmost island of Kinmen, on 24–25 August 1958. The landing force was repelled, but it signaled a significant escalation over the previous crisis.
Once more, the Joint Chiefs advised the use of nuclear weapons if necessary but sought more conventional means with which to defend Taiwan. They directed creation of contingency plans for Taiwan’s defense and sought to coordinate actions from Washington through Vice Admiral Roland Smoot, the USTDC commander. However, communication problems plagued coordination efforts, exacerbating the challenges inherent in rapidly evolving dilemmas half a world away.9
Eisenhower directed the reinforcement of Seventh Fleet. USTDC’s combat power was further strengthened by deployment of U.S. Air Force fighters, a Marine Corps air control squadron, and an Army Nike missile battalion to Taiwan. Dogfights between ROC and PRC aircraft raged throughout September, with ROC fighters vastly outperforming their PLA counterparts through the advantage bestowed by secretly provided U.S. air-to-air missiles.
Kinmen remained the center of gravity with the PLA continuing its shelling and establishing a blockade. The ROC Navy ran the blockade again and again, landing ROC Marines on Kinmen to keep the island supplied. Escalation spiked when Seventh Fleet ships escorted ROC supply convoys within three miles of Kinmen.10
The Soviet Union threatened intervention. The United States called the Soviets’ bluff, though the threat from a nuclear-armed adversary in the midst of this conflict created the first serious nuclear crisis.11
Once again, the PRC’s desire to prevent war with the United States decisively influenced the conflict’s development. To avoid striking U.S. vessels, the PLA refrained from firing on any convoys in which Seventh Fleet ships were observed.
The conflict turned into a stalemate when the PLA ran out of artillery shells. The PRC and ROC soon came to a sort of absurd gentleman’s agreement wherein shelling continued, back and forth, on odd and even days, using largely nonlethal shells full of propaganda leaflets and targeting carefully to ensure no troops would be harmed.12
Exceptions occurred only in response to perceived political—not military—escalation. The first occurred when U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles traveled to Taipei to meet with Chiang. The PRC responded by resuming standard artillery bombardment of Kinmen. Another, more violent, barrage occurred when Eisenhower visited Taipei in June 1960. The PRC fired nearly 100,000 artillery rounds on Kinmen, yielding 66 ROC Army casualties as well as the death and injury of 21 Taiwanese civilians.13
Otherwise, the agreed-on odd/even day leaflet shelling continued until 1979, when the United States established formal diplomatic relations with the PRC and severed them with the ROC.
A crisis does not really end until the fundamental political differences are decided. The mutual threat the PRC and the ROC posed to one another’s political existence was not resolved by either the First or Second Taiwan Strait Crises. Each merely pushed the matter down the road.
The political objectives remained core to the conflict, but the variables influencing it shifted in favor of one side or the other. Relative PRC strength grew, but the U.S. commitment to Taiwan was stronger in the wake of each crisis, demonstrated by nuclear brinkmanship, increased U.S. forces in Taiwan, and the provision of U.S. military technology—even at the risk of its premature exposure to adversaries. (Indeed, the PRC recovered one undetonated U.S. AIM-9 missile fired by ROC aircraft and reverse engineered it.)
Similarly, the risk of horizontal and vertical escalation only grows as conflicts continue and interests between aligned and allied parties intertwine. The United States kept the use of nuclear weapons on the table and may have employed them had Kinmen fallen and the island of Taiwan itself had been at risk of capture. Similarly, the threat of Soviet nuclear intervention created an entirely new level of strategic pressure with which the United States had to contend.
Sustainment was a core challenge for both sides, albeit in different ways. It was the critical requirement for ROC forces on Kinmen, and resupplying Kinmen via naval forces became the ROC campaign’s core operational task. The PRC, meanwhile, burned through artillery stocks to keep pressure on Kinmen but ran itself dry.
And, once again, the PRC’s core interests—and disinterests—conflicted. The PRC chased the contradictory objectives of defeating the ROC while avoiding direct conflict with U.S. forces. This escalation risk—driven not by strategic nuclear forces, but by conventional naval forces—tied the PRC’s hands.
The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis
The USS Independence (CV-62) underway in the western Pacific in March 1996. The United States deployed multiple carrier battle groups during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. U.S. Navy
By the time of the third crisis (1995–96), the ROC had ceased to be an existential threat to the PRC.14 It was therefore a perceived attack on the political status quo rather than military actions that triggered the crisis.
ROC President Lee Teng-hui intended to visit his alma mater, Cornell University, in June 1995 to deliver a speech on the democratization of Taiwan. The United States had not granted a visa to a Taiwanese president since 1979; thanks to congressional pressure, however, Lee received one. The speech was especially sensitive for cross-strait relations, because Lee uttered words anathema to the CCP: “Taiwan is a country with independent sovereignty.”15
This premise is obvious, yet anathema to the CCP’s contention that Taiwan is a rebel province. The CCP perceived the speech as a threat to the United States. One China policy, which affords diplomatic recognition to the PRC, but not the ROC.
In response, the PLA launched missiles into waters north and west of Taiwan; PLA Navy and amphibious forces assembled in the vicinity of the Taiwan Strait; and the PLA Air Force conducted sorties near Taiwan. While appearing to gear up for war, PRC officials went to both Washington and Taipei to reassure all parties that no invasion of Taiwan was intended.16
The PRC’s true intentions were unclear, but the United States responded with a show of naval strength. The Navy pushed two carrier battle groups toward Taiwan and sent carriers and amphibious ships through the strait. Putting ships of this value directly into the recent missile impact areas was a game of chicken with the highest stakes. PLA munitions striking a U.S. ship would almost certainly have triggered a war.
The crisis ebbed briefly before flaring again in early 1996, as Taiwan’s first free and open presidential elections approached. The PRC intended to intimidate Taiwanese voters and discourage them from electing Lee. From January to February, the PRC again assembled a massive force, concentrating nearly 100,000 troops along the Taiwan Strait for military exercises. Additional missiles were fired, landing between 20 and 30 miles from Keelung and Kaohsiung, two of Taiwan’s key ports, disrupting commercial shipping.
Again, the United States sent battle groups near Taiwan and more ships through the strait.17 Ultimately, no actual fighting occurred. The pressure on the electorate appeared to backfire: Lee was elected by a strong majority, an endorsement for both Taiwanese democracy and sovereignty.18
While the third crisis did not cross the threshold of armed conflict, many of the phenomena that defined the prior crises nevertheless reappeared. The core cause of PRC escalation was fundamentally political. Missile tests and military exercises were a clear response to Lee’s speech affirming Taiwanese sovereignty.
In addition to the absence of even low-level conflict, another key difference from earlier crises was the absence of U.S. nuclear threats. However, by this time the PRC itself was a mature nuclear power with an impressive arsenal. Nuclear intimidation is far more effective against a nonnuclear foe.
Notably, while the United States no longer had formal obligations to defend Taiwan, cross-strait stability remained an interest of such value that the United States risked war. And, once again, the PRC chose not to cross swords with U.S. forces, demonstrating that direct conflict with the United States would have been contrary to the CCP’s agenda.
Winning the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis
Today, cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan are reaching a new boil. Aggravated by then–Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taipei, China has continued a pressure campaign that seeks to strangle Taiwan into political submission.19
China’s primary sticks have been exercises, simulated blockades, and air operations that increase in scope, scale, and complexity and amount to rehearsals for a potential invasion.20 Indeed, the normalization of these evolutions makes it ever more difficult to distinguish between an exercise and preparation for a real blockade or invasion. Other elements of gray-zone warfare reinforce the danger: cutting Taiwan’s undersea communication cables, unrelenting narrative warfare, and clandestine penetration of Taiwanese society.
Looking at any of these tactics in isolation, policy-makers and military planners could be forgiven for thinking their options limited. Operational factors favor China in its own backyard, especially given the incredible advantage the PLA has achieved in naval power, shipbuilding capacity, and overmatch in precision munitions. Moreover, fears of antagonizing China often hamstring recommendations for a more assertive U.S. military posture regarding Taiwan’s defense. Paralysis by analysis is reinforced by a commitment to strategic ambiguity.
But this ignores the core themes of the crises and fails to appreciate the modern CCP’s core interests and operating principles. These point to two key factors U.S. planners should be mindful of: One political objective—unifying with Taiwan—continues to be supreme. But another—China’s national rejuvenation and rise to global hegemony—is equally important. A war with the United States would make the second unreachable, even if such a conflict brought Taiwan under China’s control.
China’s redlines are political, not military. While the first and second crises involved ROC military buildup as contributors to conflict, this was because they were part of Chiang Kai-shek’s plan to attack across the strait and alter the political order. Once the military balance favored China enough that this became impossible, only assertions about and recognition of Taiwanese sovereignty have brought about Chinese escalation.
The Pelosi visit instigated a vigorous Chinese military response.21 However, the presence of U.S. forces in Taiwan has led to no Chinese response at all.22 In addition, frequent passages through the Taiwan Strait—waters China falsely claims as its own—lead to loud condemnation, not a military response that might endanger U.S. Navy vessels operating near Taiwan.
This reveals the essential idea: There is significant maneuver space for the United States to make military—particularly naval—investment in and around Taiwan without risking escalation.
In short, the past teaches us that the path to maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait is twofold: Avoid threatening the political status quo vis-à-vis China; but invest U.S. forces in Taiwan such that a Chinese attack risks war with the United States. By timely, thoughtful application of naval and amphibious forces, a Chinese invasion can be deterred, and peace can prevail.
Lieutenant Colonel Brian Kerg is a Marine Corps operational planner and a nonresident fellow in the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. His squadron was the Office of Primary Responsibility for the 06XX Occfield Modernization Wargame. He is currently the commanding officer, Marine Wing Communications Squadron-38.
1. Center for Strategic and International Studies, “Series: The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis,” China Power, 5 November 2024.
2. Michael Swaine, “Avoiding the Abyss: An Urgent Need for Sino-U.S. Crisis Management,” Quincy Institute, 27 September 2024.
3. Hongshan Li, Fighting on the Cultural Front: U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2024).
4. Isabelle Cheng, “Saving the Nation by Sacrificing Your Life: Authoritarianism and Chiang Kai-shek’s War for the Retaking of China,” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 47, no. 2 (2018): 55.
5. Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union,” 2 February 1953, American Presidency Project.
6. Central News Agency staff, “Kinmen Unveils Monument in Honor of U.S. Officer,” Taipei Times, 8 December 2011.
7. Jeffrey Crean, The Fear of Chinese Power: An International History (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2024), 85–91.
8. Hung-hsian Chen, A Study of the National Army’s Counterattack in the Early 1950s (Taipei, Taiwan: Academia Historica, 2015), 45.
9. M. H. Halperin, The 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis: A Documented History (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 1966), 250.
10. VADM Roland Smoot, USN, “COMUSTDC/MAAG Taiwan Report of Taiwan-Kinmen Operations, Aug–Dec 1958,” Report by the Commander, U.S. Taiwan Defense Command (Smoot) to the Commander in Chief, Pacific (Felt), history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v19/d248.
11. Halperin, The 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, i–xvii.
12. Catherine Lila Chou and Mark Harrison, Revolutionary Taiwan: Making Nationhood in a Changing World Order (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2024), 156.
13. Han Cheung, “Taiwan in Time: Greeting by Artillery Fire,” Taipei Times, 16 June 2019.
14. Takayuki Igarashi, “When Did the ROC Abandon ‘Retaking the Mainland’? The Transformation of Military Strategy in Taiwan,” Journal of Contemporary East Asia Studies 10, no. 1 (March 2021): 136, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24761028.2021.1904599.
15. Suisheng Zhao, “Is Beijing’s Long Game on Taiwan about to End? Peaceful Unification, Brinkmanship, and Military Takeover,” in The Taiwan Question in Xi Jinping’s Era: Beijing’s Evolving Taiwan Policy and Taiwan’s Internal and External Dynamics (New York: Routledge, 2024), 9–32.
16. Xiaobing Li, “Beijing’s Military Power and East Asian-Pacific Hot Spots,” in China under Xi Jinping: A New Assessment (Leiden, The Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2024), 253–78.
17. John Roper, “U.S. Aircraft Carrier in Asia ‘Routine,’” UPI, 26 January 1996.
18. Jonathan Clements, Rebel Island: The Incredible History of Taiwan (London: Scribe, 2024), 215–16.
19. Frederick Kempe, “Dispatch from Taiwan: Countering the Beijing Strangler,” New Atlanticist, 27 June 2024.
20. John Dotson, “The PLA’s Joint Sword 2024B Exercise: Continuing Political Warfare and Creeping Territorial Encroachment,” Global Taiwan Brief 9, no. 20 (30 October 2024).
21. David Sacks, “As China Punishes Taiwan for Pelosi’s Visit, What Comes Next?” Council on Foreign Relations, 4 August 2022.
22. Gordon Lubold, “U.S. Troops Have Been Deployed in Taiwan for at Least a Year,” Wall Street Journal, 7 October 2021.