Has Beijing found a new “assassin’s mace” to keep the U.S. military out of a fight over Taiwan?

Ongoing debates over how China’s military would counter U.S. intervention often focus on precision strikes against U.S. forces in the Western Pacific. Indeed, some wargames assume that the People’s Liberation Army would throw the first punch. But such a move is not the only option available to China’s decision-makers. Other options include mounting a surprise invasion of Taiwan before the United States can mobilize, pressuring America’s allies to deny U.S. forces access to forward bases, or using strategic deterrence, which seeks to discourage Washington from defending Taiwan in the first place.

Of these options, pursuing strategic deterrence could prove most alluring for Beijing. The logic would be to convince the U.S. government that risks to the U.S. homeland, such as cyber attacks on power grids and telecommunications networks and even the specter of nuclear escalation, are too severe to contemplate. This strategy would leverage China’s expanding nuclear arsenal (and attendant nuclear signals), new intercontinental conventional missiles, space and cyber capabilities, and the belief that Beijing is inherently more resolved than Washington. Chinese leaders who embrace this thinking might conclude that a war could be limited, and thus, they might be more likely to opt for aggression.

To counter the challenge of Chinese strategic deterrence, the Trump administration should further integrate homeland defense with Indo-Pacific regional security. This would ensure unified planning to maintain deterrence both at home and abroad and would convince China that an end run around U.S. Indo-Pacific Command cannot succeed. The administration should also follow a strategic communications campaign to emphasize the grave risks of inadvertent escalation.

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Dr. Joel Wuthnow is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs (CSCMA), Institute for National Strategic Studies.