As military and diplomatic signals related to Taiwan were again raised in succession in mid-April, it has become necessary to re-examine the strategic utility that the unresolved status of the Taiwan issue provides to China. Through the unresolved status of the Taiwan issue, China has repeatedly secured domestic political legitimacy, coercive military effects, and room for external strategic maneuvering, while also deriving continuing strategic utility from the issue itself.
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The Taiwan issue functions within China as a political asset that combines nationalist mobilization, historical narrative, and the justification of strategic competition with the United States.
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Even without assuming the costs of full-scale war, China can continue to impose costs on Taiwan, the United States, and Japan through military activity around Taiwan and sustained gray-zone pressure.
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The Taiwan issue is also used as an instrument through which China can raise or lower tensions, test the responses of the United States and its allies, and calibrate its diplomatic signaling.
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If China were to attempt to seize Taiwan militarily in the near term, the result would likely involve simultaneous disruption to Taiwan Strait logistics, external sanctions, capital flight, and severe dislocation across semiconductor supply chains.
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China is therefore more likely to derive repeated political legitimacy, military testing effects, and instruments of external pressure by preserving the unresolved status of the Taiwan issue than by moving to bring it to an immediate end.