"Taiwan will not be independent and the CCP will not use force." Is this common cross-strait discussion in the past still applicable in the Xi Jinping era? Taiwanese strategic scholar Jie Zhong believes that Xi Jinping has linked the reunification of Taiwan with the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation", making reunification a political goal that must be achieved. Another scholar, Li Houchen, analyzed the external environment and practical constraints that Beijing may face in using force against Taiwan from the perspective of geopolitical relations between China and neighboring countries, financial pressure, and artificial intelligence (AI) competition between the United States and China.
According to a report by Radio Free Asia (RFA), Jie Zhong and Li Houchen, an independent scholar living in Japan, expressed their views on Taiwan's naval situation, potential war types and possible impacts at the "2026 Social Dialogue Forum" organized by the Taiwan Democracy Laboratory on October 17.
Jie Zhong pointed out that Xi Jinping was not the originator of the concept of "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation", but he gradually gave this discussion new meaning during his tenure. He took Xi Jinping's speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the "Letter to Compatriots in Taiwan" on January 2, 2019 as an example, pointing out that Xi Jinping regarded "the motherland must be reunified" as an inevitable requirement for national rejuvenation, and then included the reunification of Taiwan as this political goal.
Jie Zhong believes that China regards 2049 as an important time node and lists the completion of reunification as a national goal that must be achieved. He analyzed that if the time gets closer to 2049 and the political situation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait continues to fail to meet the expectations of Beijing’s leadership, the risk of reunification by force will become more likely. This is Jie Zhong's judgment on the direction of Beijing's policy, not China's announced timetable for attacking Taiwan.
Geopolitical ambitions exposed, not related to Taiwan provocation
Li Houchen believes that when analyzing whether China will use force against Taiwan, we cannot only look at whether Taiwan pursues independence or whether it provokes Beijing. He pointed out that there are also frictions in China's relations with countries such as Japan, the Philippines and India, and believed that these regional tensions also involve Beijing's desire to change the geopolitical status quo.
Li Houchen further pointed out that China's current poor financial situation may significantly limit the government's ability to launch large-scale wars. He also believes that U.S.-China AI competition is a factor that Beijing must consider when evaluating whether to use force against Taiwan.
He mentioned that China has announced that it will complete the production of its own high-bandwidth memory (HBM) in 2028 and develop domestic extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography equipment in 2030. These technologies and equipment are crucial to the development of China’s AI industry.
Li Houchen believes that if China launches a large-scale war against Taiwan during this period, the research and development, production and supply chain of related equipment may be seriously affected. For example, maintenance and calibration services provided by overseas equipment manufacturers, as well as HBM supplied by South Korea, may be disrupted by the war, thereby impacting China's AI industry. He therefore believes that the AI competition between the United States and China may pose a major restriction on the decision of Chinese leaders to launch a war against Taiwan.
