• The US and its allies are focused on preventing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

• A new report argues there's a lack of readiness for other ways China could take control of Taiwan.

• An aggressive Chinese coercion campaign is far more likely than an invasion and already happening, experts warn.

With the US and its allies focused on what a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could look like, and how American forces could defend Taiwan if necessary, they're missing a glaring alternative strategy China could employ to capture Taiwan, a new report argues.

Defense experts say that an aggressive Chinese coercion campaign, short of war but still threatening, is more likely than a full-scale invasion and the US needs to prepare for such an event.

A new report co-authored by war experts from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War explores a scenario where China undergoes a "coercion campaign that remains far short of invasion but nevertheless brings Taiwan under Beijing's control," identifying such an event as a "significant gap in US strategic thought."

Elements of such a campaign are already underway and include China's military exercises both in the Taiwan Strait and around the island, which are growing in scale and raising worries about escalation. Economic and diplomatic pressure is notable, and Chinese misinformation operations and the potential to slowly set up a blockade of Taiwan are also concerns.

The increasing Chinese military presence around Taiwan, the report says, could exhaust and overwhelm Taiwan's military and fuel a narrative that it is unable to defend the island, decreasing "trust in the military and feelings of security among the Taiwanese populace."

The report identifies four things key to resisting Chinese coercion. The first is a US-Taiwanese strategic relationship that foregoes concerns that "cooperation directly precipitates further escalation, whereas peace and prosperity are just around the corner if this partnership is halted."

Second, Taiwan's government must function despite Chinese efforts to undermine it in the eyes of the Taiwanese people through things like "economic warfare, cyber warfare, sabotage, rigorous (and pseudo-legal) inspections of ships carrying goods to Taiwan, air and sea closures, electronic warfare, and propaganda critical of government mismanagement."

These efforts include significantly degrading Taiwan's essential services, like clean water and electricity.

The third point is that Taiwanese people must resist Chinese "cognitive and psychological campaigns" aimed at breaking their rejection of the Chinese government, including "intimidating supporters of resistance, sowing doubt and fear among the population, and generating demands to trade political concessions for peace."

And lastly, there has to be resistance against "widespread information campaigns" that "aim to decrease the US public's and political leadership's willingness to support Taiwan." Such campaigns are already occurring, prompting anxiety that the US public and government may see getting involved in defending Taiwan as heightening risks of war at a significant cost with little to gain. The AEI and ISW experts argue that is not the case.

Notably, the report says that "Taiwan is strategically vital to the larger US-led coalition to contain" China, arguing that a US-friendly Taiwan links America's allies in the northwestern Pacific with US partners and allies to the south."

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A China-controlled Taiwan, however, "would become a springboard for further PRC aggression and would seriously compromise the US-led coalition's ability to operate cohesively."

The authors of the new report present coordinated actions China could pursue to prompt Taiwan and its partners to accept reunification, referring to it as a "short-of-war coercion course of action."

Some of Beijing's biggest problems are Taiwanese resistance to China, which continues to grow, especially after the historic election of Democratic Progressive Party candidate Lai Ching-te, who is currently the vice president, in January, and continued support from the US and its regional allies.

The new report looks at a hypothetical timeline that begins with the inauguration of Lai this month and leads into 2028, imaging how China and Taiwan could, by that point, come to a "peace" agreement. China could ultimately be successful in such a campaign, the authors say, if the US and its allies fail to recognize Beijing's coercive tactics or strategically plan to deter them.

The US must clearly "recognize the possibility and danger of a coercion campaign that is far more intense than the one currently ongoing against Taiwan and develop ways to prevent Taiwan's isolation through means short of war," they write.

The report's authors argue that "increased efforts in the information domain will be key to ensuring that the US government and friendly international audiences do not fall prey to [Chinese] information operations intended to reshape the way Americans and key international actors think."

US-Taiwanese relations and concerns about an aggressive China in the Pacific region are often at the forefront of the minds of US officials and experts, but the focus is frequently on hard power elements, even if there is recognition of some of the coercive aspects of Chinese behavior.

In March, US Navy Adm. John Aquilano, then the commander of US Indo-Pacific Command, stressed that China was pursuing a massive military build-up not seen since World War II and "all indications" pointed to it "meeting President Xi Jinping's directive to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027." He also told the US Armed Services House Committee China's actions indicated it would ready to unify Taiwan by force, if necessary.

Aquilano urged lawmakers to intensify the US' military development and posturing in the Pacific in order to deter such a fight.

And, earlier this month, over a dozen US lawmakers wrote to US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, raising concerns about what preparations were being made to harden the US presence in the Pacific and deter military action from China.

Of the lawmakers' concerns, the most prominent appeared to be the lack of active and passive defenses protecting US bases in the area, specifically on Guam and in Japan. "We are concerned about the alarming lack of urgency by the Department of Defense in adopting such defensive measures," they wrote, adding that "it is apparent that the Pentagon is not urgently pursuing needed passive defenses" to harden US bases and airfields from a vicious, preemptive strike by China's threatening missile force.

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China military incursions inch closer to Taiwan, sources say

China's military has sailed and flown closer to Taiwan in recent weeks than it has before, and staged mock attacks on foreign vessels ahead of the inauguration of the island's next president on Monday, according to Taiwanese government reports.

Taiwan will inaugurate its new president, Lai Ching-te, as Beijing ramps up military and political pressure to assert its sovereignty over democratically governed Taiwan - a claim Taipei strongly rejects.

Since late April an increasing number of Chinese military planes and vessels have staged drills that have alarmed Taiwan, including close approaches to the island's contiguous zone, which is 24 nautical miles (44 km) off its coast, according to two Taiwan officials and internal reports reviewed by Reuters.

Taiwan had anticipated intensified Chinese military activity, Deputy Defence Minister Po Horng-huei told reporters last week. Reuters reported exclusively on Monday that Taiwan and the U.S. Navy held unpublicised drills in April.

On Tuesday evening, 15 Chinese planes, including Su-30 jets, crossed the median line and entered Taiwan's air defence identification zone, carrying out "joint combat readiness patrols" in conjunction with warships, according to Taiwan's defence ministry.

Some of the planes simulated attacks on foreign vessels entering the southern Taiwan Strait or the Bashi Channel that separates Taiwan from the Philippines, said one of them, a senior security official, citing intelligence gathered by Taiwan.

"They are like flies buzzing us everyday," the official said, noting changes in the flight patterns, scale and frequency.

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China's defence ministry and its Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to requests for comment.

On May 11-12, about 10 Chinese vessels, including frigates and coast guard boats, were spotted near Taiwan and some approached Taiwan's contiguous zone, according to the government reports.

China usually dispatches only four or so ships at a time near to the island, the two Taiwan officials told Reuters. Both declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

"Since late April they have become more and more provocative," the senior security official said.

Dozens of Chinese fighter jets, including J-16s and J-10s, have crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait since late April, and some circled near Taiwan's contiguous zone; they were tracked by air defence radars and driven away by Taiwanese aircraft, the government reports show.

Taiwan's defence ministry referred Reuters to comments it made at a news conference this week, during which officials said Taiwan has a "full grasp" of the situation.

"The national military is not the troublemaker of the Taiwan Strait. We will not engage in any provocation, and we must make it clear that any provocative behaviour is unhelpful to regional peace and stability," said defence ministry spokesman Sun Li-fang.

China has for years staged almost daily incursions into Taiwan's air defence identification zone, including fighter jets briefly crossing the median line, the strait's unofficial boundary, which Beijing says does not exist.

Taiwan's defence ministry releases daily reports on Chinese military activities near Taiwan but does not disclose detailed information.

Lai is particularly disliked by Beijing, which views him as a "dangerous separatist" and has rebuffed Lai's repeated offers of talks with China. He has been vice president for the past four years and will take over from President Tsai Ing-wen.

On Tuesday, Lai again offered talks with Beijing and vowed to safeguard peace across the strait.

"The irony is that when the new president vowed to ensure the status quo, Beijing responded with destroying the status quo," the senior security official said.

How Marines Took an Airfield in the Philippines in a Show Against China

The Marines were just over a hundred miles away from the southern tip of Taiwan when they seized the airstrip. They were operating in Northern Luzon and the Batanes Islands, Philippine territory north of the mainland -- key terrain for a potential conflict with China.

The mission, known as maritime key terrain security operations, or MKTSO, was practice for that conflict, but had real-world implications. It was a show of force headed by elements of the Marine Corps' newest Pacific-oriented unit: the Marine littoral regiment, or MLR.

On April 30, three combined littoral reconnaissance teams made up of roughly 30 U.S. and Philippine Marines each, flown by Army Chinooks and Black Hawk helicopters, departed a naval base off the northern coast of the mainland to insert into the remote islands.

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Their purpose was to reconnoiter the territory not only through sensors and unmanned systems but interactions with local communities, laying groundwork alongside their Filipino partners where civilian maritime trade has experienced increased aggression from China.

Those units were joined by a rifle company, also a joint-nation element, with the ability to seize and defend key terrain in the event of conflict. It was the first time that Marines with the 3rd MLR, the unit deployed to the region, went to Mavulis, which is the furthest north island of the Philippines that its military has a presence on.

"The further that we get from the mainland in order to truly demonstrate a capability, a flyaway capability that can sustain itself -- that's a significant demonstration of capabilities both on the air side and the ground side," Maj. Robert Patterson, a company commander who led forces during the air assault on one of the northernmost Philippine islands, told Military.com in an interview Monday.

The exercise marked a notch in the Marine Corps' philosophical shift after 20 years of war in the Middle East where it faced insurgent adversaries, ones less equipped and organized compared to its current "pacing challenge," China.

Lt. Col. Mark Lenzi, the battalion commander for the 3rd Littoral Combat Team, told Military.com that not only is it a shift in environment, but a recognition of the increased risk of conventional warfare.

Long-range missile strikes, loitering munitions and enhanced sensing capabilities are just "some of the things that have proliferated in the years since," Lenzi said. "You have to modify your tactics and your thinking to break the enemy's targeting cycles to avoid being detected by those weapons in the first place and then avoid being targeted by them when and if you are detected."

Lenzi is the commander of one of the MLR's critical set pieces, the littoral combat team. Within the MLR, it is accompanied by an anti-air and logistics battalion, for a total of nearly 2,000 Marines who are uniquely equipped for a Pacific fight.

That equipment includes naval strike missiles, unmanned aerial systems and radars -- assets meant to support the unit's agile, dispersed nature. Those characteristics are exemplified in missions like the MKTSO, where Marines are sent out -- alone and with only the necessary equipment they need to survive -- to remote locations in the Pacific.

"The strategic significance is the ability to put combat-capable forces anywhere that we would need them, and to deter an adversary or engage in combat without as many limitations on having to pull them back," Lenzi said.

Marines who participated in the mission brought limited supplies to the islands, a tough logistical balance that was made more difficult by the humid climate. They filled packs with water and brought along platoon water purification systems, or PWPS, a piece of equipment that can produce up to 15 gallons of water per hour from sources found in the environment.

Patterson described the water effort as "colossal," adding that fuel and food were priority items that played into his planning for the mission. The latter was in part supported by the local community. The reliance on the surrounding environment is part of the MLR's expeditionary nature.

While dispersed operations for the Marine Corps are not new, the environment is. In 2022, after the MLR was set up, it was sent to the Philippines, a country known for its multiple islands, tropical jungles and reinvigorated alliance with the U.S. in light of the threat of China, which has used its coast guard to disrupt local fishing commerce.

Now, service members find themselves constantly rotating to the country as part of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, a plan between the U.S. and the Philippines that grants American troops access to nine Philippine military bases.

But in this case, with the MKTSO mission, Marines were sent to the farthest-reaching islands off of the Philippine coast, placing them close to Taiwan and China.

A critical part of these operations involves incorporating the Philippine military into them as a way to benefit from their knowledge of the terrain, legitimize interactions with the communities that live on the islands, and prepare for potential war together.

Those efforts were often led by Marine corporals and sergeants. It was through those squad leaders, Patterson said, that he was able to understand the community and environment based on their information and relationship-building.

"They recognized that they're some of the first United States forces on these islands," he said, specifically Itbayat, one of the islands not so far from Taiwan. "So, [they felt] very prideful, very excited to do their job."

US Navy flagship carrier USS Ronald Reagan leaves its Japan home port after nearly 9 years

Family members of the crew of the U.S. navy aircraft carriers USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) see off at the U.S. navy's Yokosuka base Thursday, May 16, 2024, in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo. This is the ship's final departure from Yokosuka before transiting back to the United States.

A U.S. Navy strike group's flagship aircraft carrier left its Japanese home port on Thursday, wrapping up nearly nine years of deployment in the Indo-Pacific, where it served a key role in the U.S. effort to bolster defense ties with Japan and other partners in the region.

The departure of USS Ronald Reagan — one of America’s largest warships and a nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier — comes at a time of growing tension in the face of increasingly assertive China in the Indo-Pacific.

It will be replaced later this year by USS George Washington, another Nimitz-class carrier. Japan has been accelerating the buildup of its military capability and significantly increased joint naval operations with the United States.

Family members and friends of the crew were on hand to wave the carrier off from Yokosuka Naval Base after its final patrolling mission earlier in the day.

Hundreds of sailors stood along the rails while others on the flight deck stood forming the Japanese saying “dewa mata,” or “see you." The carrier was accompanied by two guided-missile destroyers, USS Robert Smalls and USS Howard.

Speaking at the ceremony, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel ensured a “seamless transition.”

“The USS Ronald Reagan and her crew have ensured that millions of people across the Indo-Pacific have been able to live their lives free of coercion, aggression and suppression,” Emanuel later told reporters.

USS Ronald Reagan first arrived in Yokosuka in 2015. Earlier, during its deployment near the Korean Peninsula, the carrier contributed in Operation Tomodachi, following the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan.

USS Ronald Reagan was the only American aircraft carrier deployed as a flagship of the Carrier Strike Group 5 under the U.S. Navy's 7th Fleet, to a home port outside the U.S.

During its tenure, it participated in dozens of multilateral exercises and visited more than a dozen foreign ports, including its historic port call to Da Nang, Vietnam, last year.

While tensions have escalated in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines and a number of other countries over maritime and territorial disputes, Japan is concerned about its dispute with China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea.

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Japanese and Chinese coast guard ships repeatedly face off in the waters there.

Former Defense Minister Tomomi Inada, who recently joined an environmental survey trip near the disputed Senkaku islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyu, said Thursday that cooperation with the U.S. and other like-minded countries is key to defending the international order.

“We have a sense of urgency that we must not let the East China Sea become another South China Sea,” she said.

Landing on the islands is not permitted, so Inada's group flew drones for land and vegetation survey of the area. China protested the trip.

Inada said experts should be able to land on Japan's territory for research, calling for a parliamentary debate.