EDITORIAL: Coercion Without Invasion Against Taiwan

A civil defense drill, not an outage

On July 21, several Taiwanese counties and cities participated in an exercise involving the deliberate slowing down of mobile internet, as part of broader civil defense drills, according to Reuters. This was not a total outage, but a simulation of the kind of communications disruption that could occur in the event of a real escalation. This distinction matters: Taiwan is not trying to scare its population; it is trying to prepare it.

Such an exercise reveals a simple yet significant truth: Taiwanese authorities now consider a scenario involving communication disruption plausible enough to warrant a full-scale drill. They aren’t training for a network outage as an abstract precaution; they’re training because they’ve calculated that the day when there will be no time left to train could, one day, arrive.

A Population Involved in Resilience Efforts

This type of exercise directly involves the civilian population, which distinguishes the Taiwanese approach from a purely military posture. By involving citizens in the preparations, the authorities seek to reduce panic in the event of a real crisis and to gradually build a culture of resilience shared between the state and civil society.

This approach deserves to be highlighted in an editorial that takes a stand: it illustrates a fundamental difference between Taiwan’s democratic response—which is transparent about its preparations—and the logic of discreet pressure employed by Beijing, which does not communicate its intentions with the same clarity.

A Call for “Collective Defense”

On July 17, according to Reuters, the Taiwanese president called on the island to assume its share of responsibility in a collective defense against the Chinese threat. This wording goes beyond strictly military terms: it includes economic resilience, civil preparedness, and internal political cohesion—three pillars that Beijing seeks precisely to undermine through sustained pressure rather than a single shock.

To dismiss this call as mere rhetoric for the occasion would be an oversimplification. It is part of a coherent sequence of events aligned with the increase in Chinese maritime activity and civil defense exercises: a government preparing its society for a scenario of prolonged pressure, without succumbing to alarmism.

What “collective” Means in Practice

The concept of collective defense mentioned by the Taiwanese president refers as much to citizen participation—through resilience exercises—as it does to coordination with the island’s international partners, foremost among them the United States and, more broadly, Western democracies concerned with stability in the Taiwan Strait. A collective defense that mobilizes only the military would be incomplete; one that also mobilizes the power grid, hospitals, and everyone’s digital habits is, by definition, more difficult to break with a single move.

This broader dimension of Taiwan’s defense serves, in this editorial’s view, as an example that other democracies exposed to hybrid pressure could usefully study—without, however, mechanically importing it into a different context.

What This Term Means

Coercion without invasion refers to a range of pressures—maritime, economic, and informational—aimed at wearing down an adversary’s resistance without triggering an open armed conflict. This approach offers a clear advantage to the party employing it: it complicates any retaliation, since no single act clearly crosses the threshold of an act of war recognized as such under international law.

It is precisely this ambiguity that makes the situation in Taiwan difficult for the Western press to document: each incident, taken separately, seems minor; it is their accumulation that constitutes the true strategic reality. This editorial chooses to highlight this accumulation rather than treat it as a series of disjointed events.

Why This Distinction Matters to the West

Recognizing coercion without invasion as a distinct strategic category—rather than merely the absence of escalation—changes how Western governments should calibrate their support for Taiwan. Waiting for a threshold to be crossed—equivalent to a conventional invasion—before reacting would amount to allowing this pressure to escalate without a proportionate response. Waiting for the first shot to be fired before calling it an act of aggression is to accept in advance that we will always react one step too late.

This editorial position does not imply any presumption of personal guilt against a named leader: it concerns a state policy documented by repeated observations, not an individual moral judgment.

Papua New Guinea as a Sign

On July 17, Taiwan’s vice president stated that China is “cracking down on Taiwan everywhere,” in explicit reference to pressure exerted in Papua New Guinea, according to Reuters. This statement broadens the scope of the issue: Chinese pressure is not limited to the Taiwan Strait itself; it is also exerted through third countries, in regions where Taiwan is attempting to maintain informal diplomatic or economic ties.

This type of indirect pressure, exerted on regional partners rather than on Taiwan directly, illustrates a strategy of gradual isolation that complements the maritime pressure documented elsewhere. It confirms that the issue extends beyond the military sphere alone to encompass diplomacy and international recognition. Isolating a country from its last remaining diplomatic allies is less costly, politically, than invading it; this may be why this method is chosen first.

Pressure Extending Beyond Territorial Waters

This geographic expansion of Chinese pressure warrants mention in an editorial advocating for the need for consistent Western support: it is not enough to focus on the waters of the Taiwan Strait to understand the scope of the strategy deployed against the island; one must also monitor its diplomatic relations across the broader Pacific.

A trend reported by the regional press

According to a July 16 report in The Straits Times, the number of Taiwanese detained or missing in China is rising, a trend that is causing growing concern among the families affected and Taiwanese authorities. While this development is less dramatic than naval maneuvers, it directly affects individual lives and deserves to be treated with the same factual rigor.

It should be noted that this information comes from journalistic reports and does not, at this stage, allow for an exhaustive tally or a determination of the precise circumstances of each individual case. This methodological caution in no way diminishes the gravity of the reported phenomenon, but it requires that we refrain from generalizing based on isolated cases without further confirmation.

What This Trend Reveals About Relations Between the Two Sides

An increase in the number of detentions or disappearances, if confirmed over time, would constitute an additional indicator of the deteriorating climate between Taipei and Beijing, beyond mere military or maritime statistics. Geopolitical tension is often measured by counting ships; it should also be measured by counting the families who have lost contact with their loved ones.

Senator Tammy Duckworth’s Warning

On July 19, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth warned that China might opt for an economic blockade of Taiwan rather than a full-scale invasion, according to Focus Taiwan. This statement, coming from an elected official directly involved in U.S. defense committees, lends additional political weight to the hypothesis already documented by Taiwanese maritime observations.

For Beijing, an economic blockade would offer the theoretical advantage of avoiding the diplomatic and human consequences of an open invasion, while exerting enough coercive pressure to force Taipei into making major political concessions. This is a scenario that Western analysts are taking increasingly seriously, precisely because it aligns with observations already underway.

A Political Statement, Not a Definitive Prediction

It is important to treat this statement for what it is: a political warning issued by a U.S. senator, not an operational certainty confirmed by publicly available intelligence sources. No available evidence supports the claim that a decision to impose a blockade has been made in Beijing; this is a risk assessment, articulated with the authority of an expert elected official, but which remains, by its very nature, a projection.

A senator who mentions a blockade is not predicting the future; at most, she is identifying the square on the chessboard toward which the pieces already seem to be moving. It is this distinction between anticipation and certainty that this editorial seeks to preserve, even while taking a clear stance.

Exercises Concluded Amid Heightened Tensions

According to a July 17 report by the EFE news agency, Taiwan concluded defense drills precisely amid heightened tensions with China. The timing of these exercises—far from coincidental—is consistent with the maritime surveillance and civil defense drills described above: this is a measured response, not an improvised escalation.

This gradual approach deserves to be emphasized: Taiwan does not respond to every isolated incident with a full-scale mobilization, but rather builds, exercise by exercise, a coherent response capability. It is this coherence, more than the scale of any individual maneuver, that constitutes the most significant strategic signal sent by Taipei. An army that trains without provoking others is not seeking war; it is simply seeking to avoid being caught off guard by a war that others might choose to impose.

A Defensive, Not an Offensive, Posture

Nothing in the sources consulted for this editorial supports characterizing these Taiwanese maneuvers as offensive or provocative in the sense that they aim to initiate a confrontation. They are part of a strategy of preparedness in the face of documented external pressure, which clearly distinguishes Taipei’s posture from that of Beijing in this context.

The Risk of a Silent Normalization

The danger for Western democracies is not just a potential spectacular invasion of Taiwan: it is the gradual normalization of constant pressure, applied in such small increments that no single incident, on its own, justifies a firm response. The real trap of a strategy of incremental encroachment is that it relies on our collective inability to take offense at changes that occur one centimeter at a time.

It is precisely this dynamic that this editorial calls for us to break: treating the increase in maritime activity, the deliberate slowing of mobile internet, the warning of an economic blockade, and the pressure exerted as far away as Papua New Guinea not as scattered isolated incidents, but as elements of a single trajectory.

Support that must remain proportionate and well-informed

Advocating a pro-Western stance that supports Taiwan’s resilience does not imply calling for immediate military escalation. It implies, more modestly but more sustainably, supporting civil defense capabilities, the diversification of supply routes, and diplomatic coordination between Taipei and its democratic partners—based on documented facts rather than strategic intuition alone.

What Taipei Has Learned from Hong Kong’s Experience

For many Taiwanese observers, Hong Kong’s trajectory since 2020 remains the most immediate example of what gradual pressure can do to an open society: the progressive erosion of freedoms, institutional restructuring, and then the normalization of increased control—all without a single tank having to cross a border. This precedent did not occur on July 20, 2026, but it directly sheds light on the vigilance displayed by Taiwanese authorities in response to more recent signals.

Taipei makes no secret of the fact that this regional history influences its interpretation of current events. The refusal to repeat the Hong Kong scenario—where each isolated step seemed manageable until the accumulation of changes became irreversible—is an explicit political motivation behind the civil preparedness described above. It is often said that history does not repeat itself; it rhymes—sometimes strongly enough that an entire island decides not to wait for the rest of the poem.

A Comparison to Be Handled with Caution

It would, however, be an overreach to mechanically equate the situation in Taiwan—a de facto state with its own military and diplomatic service—with that of Hong Kong, a former British colony reintegrated under a special status. This difference in legal and political status limits the scope of any direct comparison, even if it does not invalidate the value of observing the mechanisms of gradual pressure at work in both cases.

This editorial draws a methodological lesson from this precedent rather than a prediction: paying close attention to weak signals, year after year, is better than waiting for an event spectacular enough to justify a reaction on its own.

Semiconductors: A Double-Edged Sword

Taiwan produces a significant share of the advanced semiconductors used in the global electronics industry, a fact that gives the island disproportionate economic clout relative to its size. This industrial centrality serves both as a safeguard—no major power wishes to disrupt a supply chain on which it itself depends—and as a vulnerability, since any prolonged disruption of the maritime routes mentioned above would have repercussions far beyond East Asia.

Western governments that depend on this production therefore have a direct stake in the stability of Taiwan’s supply chain, beyond any strictly diplomatic or moral considerations. This editorial argues that this point has not been sufficiently emphasized in Western public debate.

The Risk of an Underestimated Dependence

Reducing this dependence would take years, regardless of the pace of investment announced by Western governments in their own production capacities. We like to believe that we can guard against a risk by building a factory; we discover—usually too late—that a global supply chain cannot be rebuilt simply because of geopolitical concerns.

According to this editorial, this industrial reality strengthens the case for more visible Western support for Taiwan’s resilience—if only out of a calculation of rational economic interest, regardless of any democratic solidarity that might otherwise be justified.

Japan and the Philippines: Neighbors Directly Affected

The maritime tensions documented near Taiwan are not limited to a bilateral standoff between Taipei and Beijing: they directly affect neighbors such as Japan and the Philippines, whose own territorial waters are the subject of similar tensions involving the same Chinese coast guard vessels. This broader regional dimension reinforces the argument that the situation in Taiwan cannot be treated as an isolated issue.

Greater coordination between these directly affected neighbors and Western partners farther away geographically would constitute a more coherent response than a series of separate statements, each reacting to its own incident with no apparent connection to the others. Neighbors who each watch their own shoreline often end up discovering, too late, that they were observing the same tide.

The Limits of Still-Fragmented Solidarity

At this stage, such regional coordination remains largely informal and dependent on the internal political priorities of each country involved. No structure equivalent to a formalized collective defense alliance currently binds Taiwan to its immediate neighbors in the same way that a traditional treaty would bind member states of a recognized alliance.

This editorial does not claim that such a structure should necessarily be established immediately, but it notes that the absence of formalized coordination leaves a gap that Chinese pressure—as documented by the cited sources—continues to exploit methodically.

A precedent that would extend far beyond East Asia

If the non-invasion coercion described in this editorial were to produce the political results sought by Beijing without provoking a proportionate Western response, the precedent thus set would extend far beyond the Taiwan issue. Other powers, observing that this type of strategy carries no real cost, might be tempted to replicate similar methods elsewhere, against other democracies facing pressure from a more powerful neighbor.

It is this systemic argument—as much as solidarity with Taiwan itself—that, according to this editorial, justifies sustained Western attention rather than sporadic engagement driven solely by media headlines.

Vigilance does not replace action, but it precedes it

Observing, documenting, and attributing each fact to its source: this is the first step—necessary but not sufficient—before any concrete political response. Vigilance without follow-through is merely an elegant form of resignation; it must, at some point, lead to choices that come at a cost to those who make them.

This editorial is limited, by methodological choice, to this stage of reasoned vigilance; it is up to the democratic governments concerned to transform this vigilance into concrete policy, based on the facts gathered here.

Nothing that occurred between July 16 and 21, 2026, constitutes, on its own, an irreversible turning point. An increase in maritime traffic, an internet slowdown exercise, a presidential address on collective defense, a Senate warning about a possible economic blockade: each of these elements, taken in isolation, could be downplayed. Taken together, over a span of just a few days, they trace a coherent trajectory that this editorial refuses to treat as a series of coincidences.

This text advocates a clear position—supporting Taiwan’s resilience in the face of coercion that advances without ever crossing the threshold that would trigger an automatic international response—while categorically refusing to turn this position into a fixed judgment on any specific individual. Coercion without invasion cannot be countered with sporadic outrage; it must be countered with the same methodical patience that builds it, day after day, ship after ship.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist