China could seize key islands from Taiwan in as little as 6 months, war analysts warn

Of those, the report said, the most notable appeared to be that China “launched new efforts to erode Taiwan’s control over its outlying islands,” switching from previously respecting Taiwan’s “de facto jurisdiction in waters around Kinmen and Matsu” to denying Taiwan’s claim over those areas.

During the exercises, China asserted “its right to conduct law enforcement patrols in these waters at will,” the report said, noting a capsizing incident off Kinmen as a catalyst for developments involving the boarding, searching, and detaining of ships.

Kinmen and Matsu are two vulnerable islands in close proximity to mainland China, sitting off the coast of Xiamen and Fuzhou, respectively. Over the past few months, Chinese activities, particularly by the Coast Guard, around them have increased, notably spiking in May during Lai’s inauguration,as well as during a massive Chinese military drill surrounding Taiwan later.

China’s regular incursions into Taiwan’s waters are a concern, but the report says that an escalatory turning point could involve China using its Coast Guard “to set up a ‘quarantine’ zone around Kinmen and prevent the delivery of any additional weapons or ‘contraband’ to the islands”

In that case, China could then “search all Taiwanese vessels passing into this zone to confiscate supposed ‘contraband’ and arrest ‘separatists.’ The quarantine still allows most civilian ships to pass after an inspection but blocks the passage of most ROC [Republic of China] government vessels,” the report said.

Unlike a blockade, an act of war which prevents any and all movement whatsoever into an area, a quarantine, such as the US approach during the Cuban Missile Crisis, wouldn’t be considered the same way, as they restrict only the movements of certain goods.

The line between the two is notably thin and, in a China-Taiwan scenario, would probably come down to controlling the narrative and how information about the incident was disseminated. It’s difficult to know how those actions might be perceived.

The report’s authors also argue the US should also beef up its defense commitment to Taiwan, both to alleviate the Taiwanese people’s fears the US won’t come to its aid and to communicate deterrence to Beijing. And in case of an attempt to quarantine or a successful quarantine, the US should come to Taiwan’s assistance and significantly increase “its troop deployments and arms sales to Taiwan, coordinating joint coast guard patrols with Taiwan and other partners, and amending relevant laws to help protect Taiwan’s outlying islands from further coercion,” the report said.

In this situation, Washington finds itself in a precarious situation, needing to maintain a working relationship with China while showing support for Taiwan, but any failures in defending Taiwan could have profound implications for other alliances.

“The United States’ failure to effectively respond to such a crisis would have cascading negative effects on the faith of US allies like Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines in the US defensive umbrella,” the authors note. Therefore, “maintaining Taiwanese sovereignty over these islands is thus a precarious but vital task.”