"#4 - Xi's Grand Strategy to Take Taiwan" - by CWP alum Eyck Freymann

Since 1949, the CCP has shown great patience on the Taiwan issue. “Peaceful unification” has been the official PRC policy since 1981. Meanwhile, the CCP has skillfully used carrots, sticks, psychological warfare, and credible deterrent threats to keep Taiwan in a situation where it faces a binary choice between standing still or moving incrementally towards political and legal “reunification.”

Of course, just because China has been patient in the past does not mean that its patience is infinite. Just because Beijing has dangled carrots in the past does not mean that it would not attempt an invasion if it thought one could succeed. The decision is in the hands of a single man. This week, we parse his words.

Linked by “blood”

Since Xi took power in 2013, Beijing has increasingly emphasized the consanguinity of the Chinese and Taiwanese people. Xi speaks of “one family across both sides of the strait.” His favored term for the “Chinese nation” or “Chinese race” (zhonghua minzu 中华民族) includes historical and cultural elements but it is primarily racial in nature, rooted in an idea of common ancestry and “blood” (xue 血). As Xi explained to former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in Beijing in April 2024:

Eyck Freymann - Sep 24, 2025 "The decision is in the hands of a single man."

Eyck Freymann works on strategies to preserve peace and protect U.S. interests and values in an era of systemic competition with China. He is the author of several books, including The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices and One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World.

Dr. Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University and a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College, China Maritime Studies Institute. 

He advises policymakers in the United States and allied countries. 

He comments frequently in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Economist, War on the Rocks, The Wire China, and The Atlantic, among other venues, as well as on television and radio. His commentary focuses on national security issues of bipartisan concern. 

He also advises businesses and asset managers at Greenmantle, a consultancy, where he directs coverage of Indo-Pacific and technology issues.  

Before Hoover, Dr. Freymann held fellowships at Harvard and Columbia. He holds four degrees in history and China Studies from Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard.

Photo Credit: https://www.integratedstrategy.org/p/4-xis-grand-strategy-to-take-taiwan