In 2021, at the contentious first meeting between senior Chinese foreign policy officials and their counterparts in the Biden administration, Beijing’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, declared that the United States could no longer “speak with China from a position of strength.” The statement, which seemed to unsettle U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, has proved instructive for understanding China’s strategic outlook. In the four years since, Beijing has operated under the assumption that a profound shift in the balance of power between the two countries is underway. Chinese strategists perceive their country’s decades-long “strategic weakness” in its competition with the United States as coming to an end, driven by steady advances in China’s industrial, technological, and military capabilities and an increase in its international influence. This progress has ushered in what Beijing views as a “strategic stalemate” with the United States, in which both nations now wield comparable power.
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The reelection of U.S. President Donald Trump did little to shake Beijing’s optimism that it can navigate continued threats from the United States, secure a lasting equilibrium, and vie for global supremacy. And Trump’s early second-term actions have strengthened Beijing’s conviction that the United States is accelerating its own decline, bringing a new era of parity ever closer. The perception that China likely does not face an existential threat from the United States has had a stabilizing effect on policy in Beijing, which has responded to Trump’s escalation of trade tensions in April with patience, anticipating that Trump will eventually lower U.S. tariffs in an attempt to reach an agreement.
But despite the low immediate risk of conflict between the United States and China, the current stalemate may not prove durable. Over the next four years, the risk of a military crisis will likely rise as the two countries increasingly test each other’s resolve. By the time Trump’s current term nears its conclusion, China will have had ample opportunity to reevaluate the United States’ domestic political environment, its commitment to Taiwan, the global economy’s dependence on the island’s semiconductor industry, and the trajectory of China’s own economic development and military modernization. The risk of a U.S.-Chinese military crisis could sharply escalate if Beijing further closes the capability gap with Washington and perceives international indifference to Taiwan’s status, grows frustrated with nonmilitary efforts to unite Taiwan with China, and foresees more pro-Taiwan leadership in Washington and Taipei. What appears today as strategic stalemate could rapidly transform into something more volatile—and dangerous—for both countries.
BEAT THE DEALER
Beijing has been willing to bide its time as Trump unilaterally weakens the United States’ standing in the world. Despite the Trump administration’s aggressive tariffs on China, many Chinese strategists have downplayed the frequently voiced international concern that the trade war raises the risk of military conflict. In their eyes, heightened trade tensions are simply the first phase of Trump’s signature negotiating tactic: squeeze hard, then back down and cut a deal. China, it appears, is content to let Trump’s trademark strategy run its course, expecting it to falter as the United States faces severe economic and diplomatic consequences.
Beijing has shown similarly little inclination to initiate near-term military conflict, even over issues of core national interest such as Taiwan. This restraint, however, has been underwritten by a military buildup, spanning conventional and nuclear forces, that Chinese officials see as critical to shifting the balance of power with the United States. Trump’s fixation on “holding the cards” in international disputes only reinforces Beijing’s conviction that hard power rules. And Beijing believes it is in position to gain the upper hand.
Despite Trump’s stated interest in arms control talks with China and Russia, officials in Beijing see the White House’s erratic, disjointed decision-making as an impediment to any potential grand bargain. They feel less inclined to pursue cooperative security measures and are prioritizing the development of China’s own military capabilities. As the United States’ global authority fades rapidly, international pressure on China to join arms control talks will diminish. Moreover, Beijing sees the U.S. defense industrial base as faltering, hampered by an increasingly disordered governance system. Trump’s posturing, including his commitment to maintaining the world’s most powerful military and his proposal to build a “Golden Dome” missile defense system, no longer rattles Beijing as it once did. As the United States diverts resources toward fanciful efforts to defend its homeland against China’s comparatively low-cost attack capabilities, Beijing effectively strains U.S. resources at little cost to itself.
China’s military buildup and its assessment of the United States’ stagnation has also emboldened Beijing to act more assertively to shape the behavior of smaller countries in the region. As Washington’s capacity and credibility erode, China is openly courting U.S. allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea while drawing firmer redlines around its core interests. Its seemingly contradictory surges in economic and diplomatic outreach and its military muscle flexing, evident in high-profile drills near Australia and Japan in February, are, in China’s view, actions characteristic of the great power it believes it has become.
PLAYING FOR THE STRAIT
Chief among those interests is Taiwan. Despite rising political and military tensions across the strait since Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te took office in 2024, China’s Taiwan Work Conference in February and the convening of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Two Sessions” conferences in March revealed more continuity than change in Beijing’s near-term Taiwan strategy, which combines patience with the methodical, systematic expansion of control over cross-strait relations. This indicates no significant elevation in the threat of an attack in the near term.
Although the Chinese Communist Party’s recent meetings have not suggested that a Chinese military move against the island is imminent, the risk of a conflict in the medium term is growing. In recent years, Beijing’s strategy has evolved from primarily preventing Taiwanese independence to actively pursuing unification, culminating in the CCP’s 2021 plan, “Overall Strategy for Resolving the Taiwan Question in the New Era.” Details are limited, but the new approach seems to emphasize the boosting of China’s influence within Taiwanese society, nudging Taiwanese to see unification as their least bad option. According to authorities in Taiwan, Beijing has been collaborating with Taiwanese civil-society organizations, political parties, and influencers to undercut Taipei’s narratives, handing out Chinese ID cards to Taiwanese citizens, and even securing loyalty pledges from Taiwanese military officers. China may see such measures as legitimate, whereas Taiwan’s countermeasures, such as Lai’s 17-point plan to combat such infiltration, appear to Beijing as acts of pro-independence defiance that have required China to intensify its air and sea incursions and carry out bigger, bolder military drills. Beijing, which has largely turned its back on Lai’s administration, has little hope that a pro-Chinese leader will win Taiwan’s 2028 presidential election, increasing the likelihood of escalation with Taipei. Ultimately, even nonmilitary unification measures regarded by Beijing as peaceful carry a risk of military escalation to all-out conflict, one that could draw in the United States.
Trump’s lack of clear foreign policy priorities amplifies this risk. His reluctance to engage in conflicts with a great power, lack of interest in defending other democracies, and shaky commitment to Taiwan loom large to Chinese officials. Many in Beijing suspect that if any U.S. president might quietly tolerate China’s coercive takeover of Taiwan, it would be Trump. China’s early April military exercises in the strait served in part as a probe of his resolve. The Trump administration’s verbal condemnations in response did not impress Beijing, with Chinese analysts highlighting the relatively muted nature of the U.S. response.
Other restraining forces are also rapidly weakening. As the United States engages in naked coercion of allies and adversaries alike, smaller states in the region and beyond face new dilemmas. They have fewer incentives to antagonize China, especially as it positions itself as a comparatively more predictable and less disruptive global power that consistently outpaces the United States in economic and military growth. As the U.S.-led Western bloc fragments, the international will and capacity to pressure China toward restraint in Taiwan may wane in a more multipolar world.
AUDIENCE CAPTURE?
For its part, the Trump administration is beefing up the United States’ military deterrent against China amid growing concerns about Beijing’s aggressive actions in Asia. But internal fissures have impeded the effort. Erratic, disruptive overhauls in the Pentagon and broader bureaucracy, driven by administration loyalists eager to carry out the president’s agenda, have made Beijing doubt the United States’ ability to bolster its military capabilities. Senior Defense Department officials aren’t fully aligned on the importance of Taiwan to U.S. strategy. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, for example, has said that “Americans could survive without it” and is pushing instead to thwart China’s broader regional dominance. Trump’s own wavering commitment to Taiwan further risks rendering any military preparations hollow. His recent dismissal of National Security Council senior officials insufficiently committed to his “America first” foreign policy sounded a warning shot to like-minded peers across the administration.
Meanwhile, the ratcheting up of tensions sparked by the trade war has strengthened national cohesion within China. Even the country’s most liberal-leaning strategists, previously less critical of U.S. policy, now label Washington the aggressor and advocate for tougher measures to counter U.S. economic and foreign policy pressure. To many, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s forecast of “great changes unseen in a century” appears prescient. This growing internal consensus, however, makes Beijing less likely to engage in the critical self-reflection necessary to dispassionately evaluate its own strategic planning—and more likely to intensify its military buildup and pursuit of unification.
Likewise, Trump’s demand for loyalty and his expansive use of executive power to enforce compliance and conformity across the government have eroded the administration’s ability to self-evaluate. And without dissenting voices within the administration, the United States cannot plan and develop effective military deterrence and responsibly manage future military crises.
Ultimately, these internal dynamics—more than long-standing trade and foreign policy disputes—pose the greatest threat of turning strategic stalemate into acute crisis. To reduce the risks of catastrophic conflict, strategists in Beijing and Washington should look inward and scrutinize their own leadership before the uneasy stalemate can no longer hold.
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