Since 1949, the CCP has shown great patience on the Taiwan issue. “Peaceful unification” has been the official PRC policy since 1981. Meanwhile, the CCP has skillfully used carrots, sticks, psychological warfare, and credible deterrent threats to keep Taiwan in a situation where it faces a binary choice between standing still or moving incrementally towards political and legal “reunification.”
Of course, just because China has been patient in the past does not mean that its patience is infinite. Just because Beijing has dangled carrots in the past does not mean that it would not attempt an invasion if it thought one could succeed.
The decision is in the hands of a single man. This week, we parse his words.
Linked by “blood”
Since Xi took power in 2013, Beijing has increasingly emphasized the consanguinity of the Chinese and Taiwanese people. Xi speaks of “one family across both sides of the strait.” His favored term for the “Chinese nation” or “Chinese race” (zhonghua minzu 中华民族) includes historical and cultural elements but it is primarily racial in nature, rooted in an idea of common ancestry and “blood” (xue 血). As Xi explained to former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing in April 2024:
Both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to the Chinese nation. The Chinese nation is one of the greatest nations in the world, having created the long-standing, brilliant, and unparalleled Chinese civilization, which sons and daughters of the nation feel proud of and honored for…The Chinese nation’s history of over 5,000 years has witnessed successive generations of ancestors move and settle down in Taiwan, their lives and procreation there, and saw the compatriots from both sides of the Strait fight side by side in the defense against foreign aggression and the recovery of Taiwan. Along the way, the Chinese nation has written the history that Taiwan and the mainland are inseparable and engraved the historical fact that people across the Strait are connected by blood.
Xi and Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing, April 2024 (Xinhua)
When Taiwanese politicians sometimes use the “one family” metaphor, they have typically liken Taiwan and the mainland to brother and sister, suggesting that neither is subordinate to the other. Xi means that all Chinese must be loyal to the government of China, the CCP, and the “core” leader. His use of the metaphor eerily echoes Vladimir Putin’s argument in his 2021 essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” which argues that Russians and Ukranians are bound by “blood ties.” Rhetoric that treats Taiwanese civilians as compatriots suggests that Xi prefers to take Taiwan through “peaceful unification”—but as Vladimir Putin proved in Ukraine, this does not rule out a bloody war by accident or design.
Parsing U.S. intelligence estimates
In 2022, CIA Director William Burns revealed intelligence assessments which show that Xi has ordered the PLA to be ready to conduct an invasion of Taiwan by 2027. In his most detailed explanation, an interview on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Burns framed it this way:
We do know, as has been made public, that President Xi has instructed the PLA, the Chinese military leadership, to be ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan, but that doesn't mean that he's decided to invade in 2027 or any other year as well. I think our judgment at least is that President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion. I think, as they've looked at Putin's experience in Ukraine, that's probably reinforced some of those doubts as well. So, all I would say is that I think the risks of, you know, a potential use of force probably grow the further into this decade you get and beyond it, into the following decade as well. So that's something obviously, that we watch very, very carefully.
Notably, according to Burns, the U.S. intelligence community believes that Xi has not committed to a date, nor has he made a decision to invade at all. Burns has carefully emphasized this point every time has been asked about the topic in public. Other U.S. officials appear to have seen the same intelligence, but their references to it have been less precise and seem to reflect personal views.
Why 2027?
2027, as the one-hundredth anniversary of the PLA’s founding, is a significant year for multiple reasons. At the 19th CCP Central Committee’s Fifth Plenary Session in October 2020, the party promulgated a “Centennial Military Building Goal” that focuses on four key areas of military modernization.
It seeks to accelerate the PLA’s integration of mechanization, “informatization,” and “intelligentization,” with a strong emphasis on AI in military applications.
It aims to modernize military doctrine, organization, personnel, and equipment, building on previous reforms under Xi Jinping.
It calls for improving efficiency and quality in resource allocation.
It calls for strengthening China’s national defense and economic power together through a program of military-civil fusion.
The 2027 building goal is far from secret; Xi has spoken about it in public on many occasions. It has no explicit link to Taiwan, even though the process of achieving the goal would inevitably make the PLA more lethal and effective in a Taiwan-related fight.
2027 is also a crucial date for Xi personally, as it will correspond to the 21st National Party Congress, where he is expected to win a fourth term as China’s paramount leader.
Notably, 2027 is still an intermediate goal in the PLA’s long-term strategy. The goal of establishing “basically complete national defense and military modernization” is not set until 2035. The goal of possessing a “world-class military” is not expected to be achieved until “mid-century.”
How “reunification” connects to “national rejuvenation”
Xi is also the first PRC leader to articulate a public deadline for achieving “reunification”: 2049, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the PRC. Past CCP leaders have held that as long as a viable political and legal pathway towards future “reunification” can be kept open, future generations can figure out the details. As PRC President Yang Shangkun said in 1990: “It is possible that people of my age may not live to see the day when China is reunified. But it will not be good if the people here today fail to see China reunified. A popular saying in China goes: ‘A long night is fraught with dreams.’”
Xi expresses more confidence than his predecessors that a resolution is in sight. In San Francisco in December 2023, Xi told Biden that “reunification” would take place, but that the timing had not yet been decided. He also said in front of a group that he would prefer to take Taiwan peacefully. Xi has called “reunification” an “inevitable requirement for realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” As he concluded in the Taiwan section of his 2022 Party Congress Work report: “The historical wheels of national reunification and national rejuvenation are rolling forward and will certainly be achieved.”
While Taiwan is a CCP core interest, it certainly seems to be just one of Xi’s many priorities. “National rejuvenation” is staggeringly ambitious program that encompasses nearly every aspect of human endeavor: the revitalization of the CCP, to the project of “building a moderately well-off society” and “socialist market economy” through world-leading industrial and technological capacity, the construction of “ecological civilization” to create “harmony between mankind and nature,” the creation of a flourishing and patriotic Chinese culture, and the construction of a “community of common destiny for mankind” to bring traditional “Chinese wisdom” into global governance, among many other goals. “Reunification” could either support or hinder this broader project, depending on how China pursues it.
This is why Xi has designed the 2049 deadline so that it can be fudged, if necessary. If a future Taiwanese administration is willing to sign a purely symbolic statement on the basis of the “1992 Consensus,” Beijing could potentially declare that “reunification” has been achieved while deferring “integration” to a later date. Given that Xi will likely no longer be in power by 2049, this timeline may have been deliberately constructed to provide strategic flexibility.
While Xi surely aspires to make “reunification” the capstone of his legacy, he can safely hand the Taiwan issue off unresolved to his successor sometime in the 2030s or even early 2040s. So long as Taiwan has not declared independence in the meantime, Xi’s successor can bear the blame if national rejuvenation is not achieved on schedule. Indeed, the fact that Xi has not pledged to personally achieve “reunification” suggests that his threats might be partly bluster. Xi’s most high-profile statements on the issue—his “Work Reports” at the National Party Congresses held every five years—call for “peaceful unification” and make no mention of deadlines.
The “defensive Xi” theory
Indeed, Xi’s argument in all his public statements is not that China must accelerate its “reunification” timeline, but rather that the U.S. must be deterred from using Taiwan to obstruct China’s national rejuvenation. A key addition to Xi’s 2022 Work Report was repeated references to “interference by external forces” (外部势力干涉) in Taiwan affairs, which he called “serious provocations” (严重挑衅). In 2023, he told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that Washington was trying to provoke him into attacking Taiwan.
While Xi’s depiction of U.S. “provocations” is exaggerated—both the Biden and Trump administrations have adhered to the One China Policy, and Taiwan’s leaders have respected China’s red lines—his statements invite two interpretations. He could be laying the groundwork for an unprovoked offensive against Taiwan, or he might genuinely view U.S. actions as aggressive, seeing himself as exercising restraint.
It is impossible to interpret Xi’s motivations definitively based on his actions, but there is at least a plausible case for the “defensive Xi” hypothesis.
Xi’s reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s August 2022 visit to Taiwan is one revealing example. The Biden administration initially privately asked Pelosi not to go ahead with the trip, but when the press reported on her plans, the administration did not publicly demand that she cancel. It was an extremely sensitive time in China’s political calendar, just two months before the all-important 20th Party Congress.
Xi personally asked Biden to stop Pelosi from going, but Biden told him there was nothing he could do. Did Xi believe him, or did he think Biden was speaking in bad faith and trying to undermine him? Either way, Xi had to show that he was in control. The PLA responded to Pelosi’s visit with coordinated exercises, firing missiles into sea on all sides of Taiwan and sending ships and planes across the median line in the Taiwan Strait for the first time. Notably, however, the PLA telegraphed the locations of the tests in advance and concluded the exercise at the promised time. It was a performance of strength but also a signal that Xi did not want escalation.
Conclusions
To conclude, the most plausible theory is that Xi has both defensive and offensive interests at stake in Taiwan. The top defensive goal is security in retirement, which is far from a sure thing as Xi enters his eighth decade. After all, one of Xi’s most significant acts in power has been to establish the precedent that retired officials can be humiliated, purged, and even prosecuted and expropriated.
Any move Xi makes on the Taiwan issue must be informed to some degree by fear of being the leader who lost Taiwan. For the same reason, Xi has an offensive reason to seize Taiwan if he can: it would be a legacy-defining achievement that would likely make him untouchable by rivals in his old age.
Suggested reading
Xi’s statements on Taiwan are highly consistent and meticulously scripted. No one I know reads them more carefully than Lyle Morris:
Lyle Morris, “Listen to Xi Jinping about Taiwan,” War on the Rocks, November 18, 2022.
We should be paying more attention to PRC discussions about political formats for “reunification.” They are a key indicator of regime readiness for a showdown:
Yiyao Alex Fan and Bonnie S. Glaser, “Interpreting Xi Jinping’s “‘Two Systems’ Taiwan Plan” (Washington, DC: German Marshall Fund of the United States, August 2024).
Xi’s thought on racial issues is disturbing and under-discussed, with wider implications beyond Taiwan:
James Leibold, “New Textbook Reveals Xi Jinping’s Doctrine of Han-Centric Nation-Building Publication,” Jamestown China Brief 24, no. 11 (May 24, 2024).