Before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can blockade, invade, and destroy the democracy on Taiwan, the CCP seeks to make the world an accomplice to Taiwan’s subjugation by harassing any government that confers any degree of marginal recognition, or defies the CCP’s “One China Principle” diktat that there is no free nation of Taiwan.
For United States President Donald Trump’s upcoming May 14, 2026 visit to China, the CCP’s top wish has nothing to do with Trump’s ongoing dismantling of the CCP’s Axis of Evil. The CCP’s first demand is for Trump to cease US arms sales to Taiwan so that its PLA can sooner begin its “historic mission” of conquering Taiwan’s democracy — the first CCP-PLA war of many on the way to global hegemony.
Ceaseless CCP pressure is why the popularly-elected legitimate government in Taipei is demeaned into acting like the gopher in a “whack-a-mole” game, popping up again and again every time the illegitimate dictatorship in Beijing whacks it down.
This time on May 2, 2026, Taiwan’s legitimately elected President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) “popped up” in Eswatini, Taipei’s only diplomatic partner in Africa, but only after employing the ruse of flying on an Eswatini government aircraft, defying the CCP’s forcing of the Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar to deny overflight rights to a Taiwan government aircraft.
And so for decades, Taipei has perfected achieving the appearance of “recognition” for its ever-deserving population, as it did when it snatched such appearance from the Clinton Administration’s 1995 decision to allow President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) to visit his alma mater Cornell University.
Or the many times a Taiwan President has been allowed a brief “refueling” stop in a US city while travelin elsewhere, when Taiwan’s many achievements — not the least of which is its status as the 4th-largest US trading partner — demand that Washington ignore the CCP and allow a Taiwan President to visit Washington, D.C.
This creates a powerful self-interest incentive for Washington to arm Taiwan and deter a CCP war. A CCP war against Taiwan would create global economic shocks generating even greater self-interest for many other countries to contribute deterrence; a February 12, 2026 Bloomberg report by Jennifer Welch and Maeve Cousin estimates that a Taiwan war would impact:
“…China’s GDP would fall by 11% and the US’s by 6.6% in the first year. In addition to the main actors, the European Union could have GDP drop by 10.9%, India by 8% and the UK by 6.1%. Closer to the fighting, South Korea could shave 23% off GDP, and Japan 14.7%.” The effects of a PLA-enforced blockade or quarantine would be similarly broad and bleak.
Such economic self-interest helps to explain Taiwan’s more recent success in assembling an informal coalition of nations assisting Taiwan’s Hai Kun conventional submarine program. An April 24, 2026 article on the website of the Indian Defense Research Wing (IDRW) outlines Indian and broader international inputs for the Hai Kun.
While many reports note the US has sold submarine combat systems and assisted weapons integration, the IDRW report notes that Indian submarine experts have advised Hai Kun producer China Ship Building Corporation (CSBC) on manufacturing and maintenance issues, while the “…United Kingdom [has] contributed advanced optical systems like periscopes. Japan is believed to have offered strategic inputs, particularly in lithium-ion battery technologies, while nations including Australia, Canada, Spain and South Korea have contributed design inputs, consulting expertise, and niche subsystems.”
While some critics of the Hai Kun submarine program decry its expense for just six planned submarines, preventing purchases of additional drones and missiles, they do not consider that arming it with future US small torpedoes — with up to three per torpedo tube — could increase Hai Kun’s torpedo load from a reported 18 to 54.
This means that a force of six Hai Kun submarines could deploy over 300 torpedoes, a potential ability to attack about 75 percent of the combat force of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) — a potential powerful deterrent to PLA blockade and invasion operations.
Furthermore, an ability to build the Hai Kun would assist CSBC’s ability to build cheaper unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) able to track and intercept PLAN ships and submarines, or to mine strategic Chinese port areas like Shanghai.
Following its penchant for sanctioning US companies selling arms to Taiwan, on April 24 China announced it was sanctioning seven European firms for their military commerce with Taiwan.
But European officials should recall they spent the 1980s and some of the 1990s selling military technology to China (Germany, France: naval engines; Britain: micro satellites and fighter turbofans; France: spaceplane technology), contributing to today’s global CCP-PLA military threat that must in turn be checked by increasing Taiwan’s military security.
Japan stands to become an even greater “informal” defense partner for Taiwan with Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s plans to greatly ease Japan’s military export restrictions; cooperation in undersea sensor and UUV technology could complement Tokyo’s ongoing defensive enhancements for strategic Japanese islands close to Taiwan, such as Yonaguni Island and the Sakishima chain.
Defense coordination involving Taiwan and Japanese undersea sensors and submarines, and then coordinated with US 7th Fleet submarines, may go far in preventing the PLAN from blockading the seas east of Taiwan, increasing the likelihood of sustaining energy and supply shipments, or even deployment of US and Japanese Army/Marine forces to resist a PLA invasion.
South Korean defense cooperation with Taiwan should be driven by even greater self-interest. The CCP’s supply of nuclear and missile expertise has turned North Korea into a nuclear missile state with the ability to destroy South Korea, or to divert US forces from helping Taiwan and Japan fight off a PLA attack.
South Korea has built globally competitive aerospace, maritime and missile companies; the Hanwha Aerospace Hyunmoo-5 missile with a 3,000km range and an 8-tonne warhead could enable Taiwan to attack PLA underground facilities as far north as Beijing.
Taiwan’s acquisition of advanced missile defense and missile offense capabilities would in turn greatly increase the potential for Taiwan to engage in much wider informal defense cooperation with the United States and its allies, to allow Taipei to move from being a beneficiary to contributing to a wider allied effort to deter the CCP-PLA.
For example, an April 28, 2026 Japan Times report by Gabriel Dominguez interviewed United States Forces Korea (USFK) commander US Army General Xavier Brunson, who suggested linking South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines — plus US forces — into a regional “kill web” which leverages their respective sensor and deterrent capabilities.
“We have to link these complementary capabilities into a kill web that achieves combined, joint, all-domain effects,” Brunson told the Japan Times.
The Japan Times explained, “A kill web is a concept aimed at creating a faster and more flexible system to identify and strike targets. It relies on a network in which any sensor — such as a satellite, drone or soldier — can pass real-time data to any shooter, including aircraft, ships or missile systems, giving commanders multiple ways to respond to a threat.”
Over the last year, General Brunson has explained how the central location of South Korea, with vectors to the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, is relevant to coalition defense in Asia. But likely due to an “explosive” reaction from the CCP, General Brunson has not included Taiwan in his vision for a regional “kill web.”
But of course — and as Beijing likely assumes — the US and its allies that would like to create a regional “kill web” would be eager to benefit from long-range radar and undersea sensors controlled by Taiwan, to deter or combat attacks from the PLA.
The fact that none of these allied partners have formal diplomatic relationships with Taiwan should not prevent the development of discreet informal military cooperation, which, as in the case of submarine technology cooperation with Taiwan, addresses an increasingly urgent self-interest in preventing a CCP-PLA war against Taiwan.
For example, trusted private companies can be formed to run data links that provide cues from radar in Japan’s Ryukyu Island Chain to guide Taiwanese missile- and aircraft-intercepting missiles, in the event PLA strikes degrade Taiwanese radar.
Similarly, these trusted private companies can also link missile-force, fighter-aircraft, combat-ship and submarine command-deck simulators to assist Taiwanese, Japanese and US forces to “deconflict,” or get out of each other’s way to better respond to PLA attacks.
On March 13, Reuters reported that a new US arms sales package for Taiwan amounting to US$14 billion, following December 2025’s US$11.1 billion package, was “ready” for President Trump’s approval — a strong indication that CCP leader Xi Jinping (習近平) may not convince Trump to end US arms sales that deter a war threatening the people of China, the United States, and Taiwan.
But even as China continues its political and economic campaign to isolate and demoralize Taiwan, the island democracy still has current and potential future opportunities to gather new bilateral and multilateral military relationships which enhance its security.
Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.