Over the last year, the tempo of Chinese military operations around Taiwan has accelerated and foreign analysts have grown increasingly concerned about the prospects of China’s use of force. Yet the risks of such a conflict for the PRC would be enormous and the People’s Liberation Army continues to wrestle with key challenges. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s defense policy is gradually shifting, the U.S. military is experimenting with new operational concepts, and U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation is deepening. This talk will explore where the Taiwan issue fits within China’s larger military strategy, China’s range of options to deter Taiwan independence and lay the groundwork for non-peaceful reunification, limitations and risks facing the PLA, and implications for Taiwan and U.S. responses.
Dr. Joel Wuthnow is a senior research fellow in the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the U.S. National Defense University. His research areas include Chinese foreign and security policy, Chinese military affairs, U.S.-China relations, and strategic developments in East Asia. In addition to his duties in INSS, he also serves as an adjunct professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
His recent books and monographs, all from NDU Press, include The PLA Beyond Borders: Chinese Military Operations in Regional and Global Context (2021, lead editor), System Overload: Can China's Military Be Distracted in a War over Taiwan? (2020), Chairman Xi Remakes the PLA: Assessing Chinese Military Reforms (2019, co-editor), and China's Other Army: The People's Armed Police in an Era of Reform (2019). His research has also appeared in journals such as Asia Policy, Asian Security, The China Quarterly, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Joint Force Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Strategic Studies, and in edited volumes.
Prior to joining NDU, Dr. Wuthnow was a China analyst at CNA, a postdoctoral fellow in the China and the World Program at Princeton University, and a pre-doctoral fellow at The Brookings Institution. His degrees are from Princeton University (A.B., summa cum laude, in Public and International Affairs), Oxford University (M.Phil. in Modern Chinese Studies), and Columbia University (Ph.D. in Political Science). He is proficient in Mandarin.
Online via Zoom. This event is organized by the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program and co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute. For more information, including how to register for the event, please click here.
