Peace on a Countdown: Reading America’s Taiwan-Strait Deterrence Project
—A Review of Ten for Taiwan and Ten More for Taiwan
zeng Xiaoping （曾小萍）
倒计时的和平：美国台海威慑工程解读——《为台湾十项》《为台湾再加十项》述评）
The House Select Committee on China (众议院“中国问题特别委员会”) has released two bipartisan reports in succession: Ten for Taiwan (《为台湾十项》, May 2023) and, on December 18, Ten More for Taiwan (《为台湾再加十项》, 2025). On the surface, they read like two policy checklists. In substance, they are closer to a notice of the times: America’s political elite is rewriting the Taiwan question from a “regional dispute” into a stress test for “global order and industrial security.” In this rewrite, Taiwan is not just a point on the map. It becomes a junction where semiconductors, alliance architecture, defense-industrial capacity, sanctions tools, and even value narratives meet.
The shared aim of both reports is plain: to press down the risk of war with a more credible deterrent. In its executive summary, Ten More for Taiwan says it outright: the United States’ goal is to deter war, and to do that it must urgently mobilize “all elements of national power.” That means “Taiwan policy” is no longer only arms sales or diplomatic statements. It is an engineered package—economics, industry, technology, alliances, public messaging, and legal tools—built to keep producing output over time. Once deterrence is engineered, measured, and legalized, Taiwan becomes easier to treat as a political community of responsibility tied to America’s and the world’s stability, rather than as a distant social and psychological community across the Pacific.
So the real question is not which items the reports list, but where the logic behind them pushes China, the United States, and Taiwan—and how Taiwan can carve out more room to live, and better outcomes for everyday life, amid great-power collision. More than that, as tensions rise, is there any path the three sides can choose that does not run through war?
Deterrence: The Reports’ Underlying Logic
Start with Ten for Taiwan (《为台湾十项》). The report defines the problem as “near-term deterrence”: within a limited time window, Beijing must be made to feel that using force does not pay. Its ten “key findings” are almost all hard questions about war and war organization: the Indo-Pacific needs more long-range missiles and unmanned platforms; allies need better coordination plans; the United States and Taiwan must strengthen joint training; Taiwan urgently needs key weapons already approved for sale; the United States lacks a clear command-and-control structure for operations; critical U.S. infrastructure is vulnerable to CCP cyberattacks; Taiwan also faces sustained cyberattacks; the United States and Taiwan lack integrated planning and operations; theater bases need hardening; and resupplying Taiwan in a crisis would be very difficult. It then turns these findings into “recommended actions.” The first recommendation, for example, stresses using multi-year procurement to rapidly expand theater long-range strike assets, and it names specific munitions and platforms (such as LRASM, NSM, and PrSM), along with supporting modifications, anti-submarine capabilities, and unmanned systems. The feel is unmistakable: it reads like a military “gap list.” The core idea is simple—only if one can win can one negotiate from stability.
Now look at Ten More for Taiwan (《为台湾再加十项》). This newest report still follows the same “deterrence” track laid down by Ten for Taiwan, but its center of gravity clearly expands outward. Beyond defense industry, logistics, basing, and alliance integration, it folds “political signaling,” “economic integration,” “Taiwan’s social resilience,” “international space,” and “the Russia–Ukraine factor” into one framework. In the executive summary’s ten findings, the first puts “clear political signaling” up front; the second treats “deepening economic ties” as part of deterrence; the seventh and eighth go into detail on blockade, cyber coercion, and civil defense; the ninth highlights “international space”; and the tenth links Beijing’s “no-limits partnership” with Moscow to Taiwan-related cost calculations. This is the key shift. Ten for Taiwan is closer to a war-prep list—what to do if fighting starts. Ten More for Taiwan is closer to a peace-maintenance project—how to keep war from starting. The two do not contradict each other. They form a sequence: fill the hard gaps first, then move to all-domain mobilization.
If one translates the reports’ “deterrence” into plain language, it comes down to three things: capability, credibility, and communication.
Start with capability. The capability in question is not the ability to fight one war, but the ability to keep fighting—in other words, whether one can fight and whether one can endure. That means, first, whether there are enough weapons and munitions at hand; and second, whether there is a supply chain behind them that can keep producing, repairing, and delivering without breaking. Ten for Taiwan focuses mainly on the first half: what munitions and platforms the theater needs, how command systems link up, how bases are hardened, and how supplies reach the front lines and Taiwan once fighting begins. It is answering one blunt question: when the moment comes, is there “stock on hand,” can it “get there,” and will it “break halfway”?
Ten More for Taiwan pushes the emphasis toward the second half. It treats “U.S. defense-industrial capacity and the defense industrial base” as a key link in deterrence. The point is that having some inventory now does not mean one can fight over time. For deterrence to be credible, the opponent must see not only that the United States can fire, but that it can keep replenishing, keep repairing, and keep upgrading. That is why the report stresses expanding production and sustainment, accelerating innovation, and urgently reducing dependence on Chinese supply chains. The logic is straightforward: if key parts, raw materials, and electronic components sit in the opponent’s hands, then as a war drags on, capability slides from “can fight” toward “cannot move.”
Credibility is whether “the other side believes you will do it.” For a long time, the United States has relied on “strategic ambiguity” (战略模糊) on Taiwan: it does not say “we will certainly intervene,” and it does not say “we will never intervene.” The aim is to keep Beijing from acting rashly while leaving Washington room for choices in a crisis. But these two reports are pushing toward a kind of “visible credibility.” That is, they seek to move commitments that once rested mainly on rhetoric and executive practice into law and institutions, so they become harder for the next administration to reverse with a flick of the wrist.
For example, the reports recommend legislating the “Six Assurances” (六项保证), and they stress that the U.S.–Taiwan relationship should not become a bargaining chip in dealings with Beijing. They also state certain lines more clearly: the United States does not act as a mediator across the Strait; it does not pressure Taiwan into negotiations; it does not set an “expiration date” for arms sales to Taiwan; and it does not consult with China on those arms sales. The effect is to turn policy language that could once be “adjusted case by case” into a “harder-to-retreat institutional commitment.” For Beijing, that raises the difficulty of betting that the United States will back down. For Taiwan, it reduces uncertainty about a last-minute American reversal. The cost is also clear: once words are written harder, Washington’s room to cool tensions, trade concessions, or step back becomes smaller. Crisis management then depends more heavily on restraint and communication on both sides.
Finally, communication means “getting clear information into the other side’s head.” Ten More for Taiwan places “clear political signaling” as its first finding. In the committee’s press release, the two lawmakers also stress that “Taiwan is not—and will not be—a bargaining chip” with the CCP, and they tie deterrence to “political messaging, economic ties, and value commitments.” This is public communication: it is not aimed only at Beijing, but also at Taipei, at allies, and at the American public. Put all three—capability, credibility, communication—together, and the underlying logic becomes visible: make Beijing see that it cannot win, cannot afford it, and cannot sustain it. Make allies see that the United States will show up—and will show up with a system. Make Taiwan see that moving closer to the United States means more security and more money.
The logic is clean. The side effects are real. The more deterrence is framed as a “system,” the easier it becomes for Taiwan to be turned into collateral for great-power credibility. Once it becomes collateral, risk does not necessarily fall. It may grow sharper under miscalculation and emotional collision.
Several messages in the two reports will directly shape the Taiwan Strait over the next few years, and they deserve separate attention.
The first is the timetable. Both reports insert “2027” into the rhythm of policy. Ten for Taiwan runs tabletop exercises simulating a “2027 CCP invasion of Taiwan,” and it says the exercise exposed gaps in Taiwan’s hard power and sustained self-defense, as well as weaknesses in U.S. posture, force structure, economic tools, and allied commitments. In the press release for Ten More for Taiwan, Chairman John Moolenaar (约翰·穆勒纳尔) directly links the claim that Xi Jinping has ordered readiness to take Taiwan by 2027 to the assertion that 2026 is an urgent year, stressing stockpiles, logistics, and dilemmas for the PLA. Whether outside observers accept the timetable or not, it is already shaping the pace of policy: budgets, procurement, basing, exercises, and diplomacy are being forced into countdown scheduling. That will make Beijing more sensitive, and it will make it harder for Taipei to maintain internal political calm.
The second is the industrial ledger. The reports write Taiwan as “a key node in America’s prosperity.” Ten More for Taiwan devotes substantial space to Taiwan’s importance to the U.S. economy and supply chains. Based on 2024 data cited in the report, Taiwan is America’s seventh-largest trading partner and tenth-largest export market. It notes that TSMC’s second fab in Arizona was completed, and that in March 2025 TSMC announced an increase in its total U.S. investment to $165 billion. The report also stresses Taiwan’s key role in advanced semiconductors, and it treats deepening trade and tax arrangements as part of deterrence, mentioning that in January 2025 the House passed the “United States–Taiwan Expedited Double-Tax Relief Act” by 423 to 1. This tightens the knot between Taiwan’s security and America’s domestic industrial revival. The benefit is that Taiwan’s “value” in U.S. politics rises. The cost is that Taiwan starts to resemble a “critical component.” In a crisis, critical components are usually not more free. They are more managed.
The third is the blockade ledger. The reports treat “resilience” as part of deterrence. Ten More for Taiwan is blunt about blockade and cyber coercion: Taiwan imports almost all its energy, and its current natural-gas reserves can support roughly ten days; storage facilities may also become targets. The report uses the concept of “cyber-enabled economic warfare” (CEEW), describing a long-term combination of cyberattacks, disinformation, economic pressure, and military provocations meant to force absorption. It cites public reporting that Taiwan faced an average of 2.4 million cyberattacks per day in 2024. The logic is unsentimental: if Beijing believes Taiwan will quickly collapse under blockade, energy cutoff, network disruption, and financial pressure, it is more likely to choose a “lower-intensity but longer-duration” path. If Taiwan can demonstrate that it can endure, it raises Beijing’s expected costs. That is “resilience deterrence.”
A Sandbox Forecast: How Beijing and Taipei May Respond
This report is aimed at the Chinese mainland. A sandbox forecast of Beijing’s response is not hard at the level of public rhetoric. Such congressional reports are typically labeled “interference in internal affairs,” “damage to the One-China principle,” and “encouragement of Taiwan independence,” followed by diplomatic protests and media counterattacks. No hidden knowledge is needed to make that call. It is a pattern repeated for years.
What is harder to pin down is the scale of action-level escalation. That depends on the domestic and external environment at the time: the overall temperature of U.S.–China relations, Taiwan’s internal political rhythm, the PLA’s training and deployment cycle, and Beijing’s reading of American domestic politics. Still, the report itself offers a clue. It emphasizes “gray-zone,” “blockade,” and “cyber economic warfare”—tools that sit between peace and war. That suggests the policy imagination in Washington is not limited to a dramatic opening shot. It anticipates sustained pressure at the edges of law, sea, air, finance, and information—pressure designed to squeeze ordinary life.
From that angle, Beijing’s “smarter” reply may not be one large military gamble. It may be a combination of three moves: intensify “everyday pressure,” keeping Taiwan’s society in long-term fatigue and division; intensify “external demonstration,” using economic rewards and punishments on neighboring states to remind them what alignment costs; and intensify a “time narrative,” persuading outsiders that “unification is irreversible,” so capital and talent vote with their feet. These are possibilities, not conclusions. The fuller the report’s “toolbox” becomes, the easier it is for both sides to keep adding tools in response.
Taiwan’s first reaction to such a report will likely be to welcome it. The reason is simple: international attention is part of security, and statements like “not a bargaining chip” carry real psychological weight in Taiwan’s society. Yet beyond welcome, there will also be two layers of anxiety.
One is anxiety about being bound. Once the United States writes Taiwan into an “all elements of national power” mobilization, Taiwan’s policy space can shrink. Energy, arms procurement, industrial layout, and external messaging become easier to fold into one “deterrence narrative.” Deterrence demands consistency, but democracy is naturally plural. If “consistency” becomes a kind of political correctness, normal policy debate inside Taiwan can be labeled and punished.
The other is anxiety about costs. Ten More for Taiwan speaks in detail about civil defense, stockpiles, resilience—expanded gas storage, food and medical reserves, cybersecurity, manpower training. These are not slogans. They mean budgets, land, regulation, industrial choices, and changes to daily life. How much real cost Taiwan’s society is willing to pay for “higher security” will become a sharply contested political question in the years ahead.
At this point the grand narrative needs to return to a plain standard: what Taiwan’s people want is a predictable life, a sustainable economy, and a politics with real choice. Deterrence and diplomacy are tools, not ends. From that standard, several more practical countermeasures can be put on the table. They may not all appear in the reports, but they correspond to the reports’ risk points one by one.
Treat “blockade vulnerability” as a livelihood project. The report says Taiwan’s natural-gas reserves can last about ten days. That is not a purely military matter. It is the base of everyday life. If a crisis first produces blackouts, network failure, and panic buying, politics and defense will both be dragged down. So energy and stockpiling must shift from “sloganized security” to “engineered living”: more dispersed reserve sites, infrastructure that can withstand strikes, more realistic emergency distribution and transport drills, and a view that medicine, food, and communications are “wartime necessities” on the same level as munitions. Ten More for Taiwan proposes expanding LNG imports and storage, stockpiling agricultural and medical products, and strengthening cybersecurity. The direction is right. The key is execution. Execution must let society “see the benefits,” or it will be dismissed as political mobilization.
Turn “military deterrence” from a procurement list into organizational capacity. Ten for Taiwan stresses joint training, delivery of weapons, command-and-control, and resupply difficulties. The implication is clear: modern war, in the end, is a contest of organization and coordination, not single weapons. What Taiwan most needs is often not another system that “looks powerful,” but three things: whether training becomes routine rather than a show; whether the reserve and mobilization system is truly usable; and whether the civilian sector can maintain basic operations under network and power loss. Ten More for Taiwan proposes assisting civil defense, expanding opportunities for Taiwanese personnel to join U.S. training, widening pathways for long-term advisors, and treating “whole-of-society defense preparedness” as a key finding. This comes closer to the real issue: military power is a function of society.
Make “economic binding” two-way, not one-way dependence. The reports stress deepening U.S.–Taiwan trade, addressing double taxation, and advancing travel and technology cooperation. That can create more American stakeholders and raise Taiwan’s external resilience. But a bottom line is needed: economic binding must not become “one-way dependence on the U.S. market and U.S. policy.” Otherwise Taiwan moves from “Beijing can squeeze the neck” to “Washington can also control the tempo.” The best approach is to diversify Taiwan’s industrial chain and market structure. The United States should matter more, but Japan, Europe, Southeast Asia, and India should matter more too. Semiconductors should remain strong, but other sectors must also become more resilient. Diversification is not estrangement. It is a way to reduce the risk of being controlled at a single point.
Turn “international space” from symbol into a sustainable cooperation web. Ten More for Taiwan lists “defending Taiwan’s international space and global economic links” as a key finding. It points to a reality: Taiwan’s diplomatic predicament is often less about “having friends” than about whether friends will truly act when it counts. So breaking out of the bind is not only about securing a title or seat in an international organization. It is about producing a list of practical cooperation: public health, disaster relief, coast guard work, anti-fraud, supply-chain security, research cooperation, education exchanges. Once cooperation has results, international space no longer rests on sympathy and statements alone. It rests on interests and trust.
Taiwan as Something Other Than a Pawn: Taiwan Must Have Choices
The feeling of being a “pawn” usually comes from two conditions. One is that fate is decided by others, and in decisive moments one can only be notified of the result. The other is that the cost of choosing is so high that one dares not choose. On paper there are options. In practice every road looks like a trap. To reduce that feeling, the core is not slogans. It is building real “choice power.” Choice power means being able to move among several roads, without being seized at a single point. In security, that means being able to endure blockades and gray-zone pressure. In economics, it means diversifying markets and supply chains. In diplomacy, it means building a sustainable network of cooperation.
To reduce the pawn feeling, Taiwan must increase choice power. Choice power also means internal consensus and resilience, so society is not easily torn apart by external shocks. The more a society can bear costs on its own, organize resources on its own, and stabilize emotions on its own, the less likely it is to be treated as a pawn. In diplomatic history, small states often use three methods to win choice power in a narrow gap.
The first is to make themselves “irreplaceable.” Taiwan has this naturally in semiconductors, but it cannot be left as the only pillar. Irreplaceability works best when it is multidimensional: technology, finance, shipping, data, and security cooperation can all create positions that others cannot do without. When the report narrates Taiwan as “more important to America’s prosperity,” it is, in effect, laying political groundwork for this irreplaceability.
The second is to make risk spill outward, so bystanders also feel pressure. This sounds cruel, but international politics often works this way. Whether bystanders act often depends on the cost of not acting. The report cites findings that losing Taiwan’s semiconductors could push the United States into an “immediate Great Depression,” and it estimates that conflict could reduce global GDP by $10 trillion in a single year. This is a narrative of outward-spilling costs.
The third is to shape Taiwan as “the responsible side.” What expands diplomatic space is often not the loudest voice, but a long record of predictability, restraint, and rule-keeping. In tense times, predictability matters more. Predictability makes allies willing to cooperate and makes it harder for an opponent to paint Taiwan as a “troublemaker.”
If Taiwan does enough of these three, war becomes very hard to start. Still, no plan can “guarantee” absolute peace. War is often not a rational choice. It can be the product of misjudgment, emotion, institutional inertia, and face politics. So what can be done is not to “guarantee peace,” but to lower the probability of war, lower the probability of miscalculation, and keep crises at the edge of control.
From the wisdom of thinkers across time and place, three plain principles of avoiding war can be offered for Taiwan’s leaders to consider.
First, move victory and defeat to the time before fighting begins. Both Ten for Taiwan and Ten More for Taiwan are doing the same thing: pushing outcomes forward, using preparation and deterrence so the other side does not press the button. For Taiwan, that means making “defense” not only the military’s business, but the business of social organization and infrastructure. The lower the blockade vulnerability, the harder war becomes.
Second, build both “deterrence” and “assurance.” Deterrence without assurance can corner the other side; assurance without deterrence is read as weakness. The steadier approach is two-track: on one side, raise defense and resilience so force is not worth it; on the other, maintain communication and controllable policy boundaries so Beijing does not conclude that “only war is left.” The reports sharpen “clear political signaling,” yet they repeatedly define the goal as “deterring war” and “maintaining peace and stability.” That leaves Taiwan a space: keep its own policy language anchored in “maintaining the status quo, rejecting coercion, welcoming cooperation,” and reduce the chance of being branded as the party “changing the status quo.”
Third, treat people’s well-being as the highest constraint. No matter whose philosophy is quoted, the end point is the same: political legitimacy rests on whether people can live their lives. If Taiwan’s response becomes only “mobilization” and loses the goal of normal life, it will consume the largest resource it has—social trust. That is why the most meaningful non-war strategy is often not a single diplomatic trick, but four words: thicken the base. Energy, food, medicine, communications, finance, psychological resilience, mutual aid. A thick base makes deterrence credible. Credible deterrence creates negotiating space.
On the question of people’s well-being, this writer cannot help adding a few words. The constitutional narrative and historical memory of the Republic of China (中华民国) have long treated “the mainland” as part of a shared community. Even if today’s actual governance and rights boundary is limited to Taiwan, that historical entanglement should not be cut off in one stroke. Those born on the mainland before 1949 who were later cut off from Taiwan, and the families of veterans who fought for the Republic of China and were left with injury, loss, and regret because of the civil war, should not be treated as “old accounts” unrelated to the present. A democracy that can see the vulnerable and is willing to bear old debts is the kind that has standing to speak of justice and dignity.
What can be done need not be grandiose. It should not be empty shouting either. It should be the steady completion of what can be borne: preserve historical archives and individual experiences; deliver pensions, care, and honor in concrete form; within what the law allows and risk can be controlled, promote family visits and reunions, emergency humanitarian assistance, educational and medical support; for those who suffer because of politics and conscience, at least keep channels that can be seen and can offer help. This is not to “win hearts” on the mainland. It is to accumulate a moral credit that is harder to deny: a society that calls itself constitutional and democratic treats its “remnant people” (遗民) as people who must be remembered and treated well, not as “abandoned people” (弃民) convenient to cut off. Only then does Taiwan gain more confidence to speak of dignity, and more standing to win the world’s respect.
In sum, Ten for Taiwan writes “what is lacking, what must be filled” like a wartime checklist. Ten More for Taiwan upgrades deterrence into all-domain mobilization, folding political signaling, economic integration, alliance integration, Taiwan’s resilience, and international space into one logic. The appearance of these two reports shows that America’s judgment of Taiwan-Strait risk has tightened, and it shows that the United States is increasingly inclined to manage deterrence through institutionalized, engineered methods. Still, a report is a weather vane, not a verdict issued by fate. The most decisive variables for the Taiwan Strait remain three: Beijing’s cost calculations, Washington’s credibility of commitment, and Taiwan society’s base and choices. The reports can shape the first two. Taiwan’s base can only be built by Taiwan itself, slowly, piece by piece.
Two roads lie ahead. What Taiwan can do is to make the worst road harder to take, and the better road easier to walk. For Taiwan, the better road is not betting on anyone’s goodwill. It is keeping the capacity, under pressure, to maintain daily order, political restraint, external cooperation, and self-defense. Only then does “not a bargaining chip” stop being a slogan and begin, slowly, to become fact.
More crucial still, Taiwan’s people must keep unity and reason at home, not be led by external provocation, and not be torn apart by fear. Under the pressure of forced unification, Taiwan’s leaders must turn “choice power” about reality and the future into a daily capacity: to withstand blockade and gray-zone pressure, so that when a blockade comes society can still function; to diversify markets and risks, so that when the mainland market turns hostile industry can still shift gears; to build a cooperation network the world cannot do without. A pawn looks like a pawn because it can only be moved; a subject looks like a subject because it has war preparation and deterrence in hand. Peace in the Taiwan Strait has never been a blessing said aloud. It is a set of capabilities that can be tested again and again. The larger Taiwan makes that set of capabilities, the harder war becomes to start; the wider it makes its international space, the more allies will stand with Taiwan.