United States, China, Taiwan and the Elements of National Power: Recognizing a Strategic Feint to Achieve an Operational Objective

摘要

The People's Republic of China (PRC) considers Taiwan to be a renegade province. As such, this paper builds off of two assumptions. First, China's desired end state for Taiwan is complete and total submission to the authority of the Chinese government. Because of the complex circumstances which make up the China-Taiwan relationship, a peaceful solution is highly improbable. Over the past decade China has modernized its military to accomplish the national strategic objective of forcing Taiwan into submission for the purpose of attaining this desired end state. The second assumption is that the PRC identifies Taiwan's center of gravity to be U.S. support. Based on these two assumptions, this paper suggests that China would likely create a strategic diversion aimed at achieving internal chaos within the United States prior to an invasion on Taiwan in an attempt to prevent U.S. military intervention. By examining the four elements of national power which the PRC has at its disposal, it shall be proposed that information and economics are the two elements China is most likely to employ against the United States to create this diversion.