Taiwan’s Greatest Risk Isn’t Invasion. It’s Miscalculation.

Not long ago, I was talking to an American friend about the NBA Finals. The conversation drifted to geopolitics — the Middle East, Ukraine, and eventually, the Taiwan Strait. He said, almost casually, “China might attack Taiwan soon. But it seems like Taiwanese people don’t really like talking about it.”

He’s not wrong.

In Taiwan, we prepare rigorously for university entrance exams, professional certifications, even overseas travel. But when it comes to war — the possibility of an attack from China — our collective instinct is to look away.

There’s a viral saying in Taiwan: “If you tell someone they have an exam in two years, they’ll buy books and study. But if you tell them someone might try to kill them in two years, they’ll do nothing.” It’s meant as a joke. But it isn’t funny anymore.

Just this week, Taiwan’s former president, Ma Ying-jeou, stood on Chinese soil and advocated for “peaceful, democratic unification.” A top Chinese official responded by saying the future of Taiwan must be decided by “all Chinese people on both sides of the Strait.” Days earlier, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office reiterated its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan — a country it has never ruled, but frequently threatens.

That same day, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry reported 21 Chinese military aircraft operating near the island, 16 of which crossed the median line — an unofficial but long-respected buffer. These incursions have become alarmingly routine. Also that day, Czech intelligence revealed that Chinese agents had surveilled Taiwan’s Vice President, Hsiao Bi-khim, during her visit to Prague and had even plotted a vehicular “collision plan” against her.

This is not peace. This is escalation.

Many in Taiwan — and elsewhere — believe war won’t happen because it doesn’t make sense. China would suffer immense economic loss. An invasion would be risky, unpopular, and potentially destabilizing for the Communist Party. On paper, it looks irrational.

But history is rarely rational.

World War I didn’t begin because of well-reasoned strategy. The Second Sino-Japanese War began with a misunderstanding at a bridge. Misjudgments, not master plans, often spark conflict.

That is the real danger Taiwan faces: not invasion, but miscalculation.

In a crisis, all it might take is one jet straying too far, one radar lock mistaken for an attack, one overzealous official trying to make a point. Or, in a more subtle form, disinformation could spread through Chinese social media, leading to outrage over a fabricated incident in Taiwan. A cyberattack that looks like sabotage. A domestic crisis in China in need of a foreign distraction.

War could begin with a misunderstanding. It could also begin because someone in Beijing believes — wrongly — that Taiwan is too divided, too distracted, too weak to respond.

We shouldn’t wait for that moment to find out.

The problem isn’t just China. Taiwan’s own politics sometimes add to the confusion. Ma Ying-jeou’s statement in China — supporting eventual unification — may not reflect the will of most Taiwanese. But to Chinese ears, it might sound like consensus. That gap between perception and reality is where the most dangerous misjudgments happen.

We’ve already seen how this plays out on a small scale. A well-known Taiwanese influencer recently visited China and was warmly received. Yet during a livestream, a passerby shouted “Taiwan independence!” at him — apparently unaware that the influencer had long since distanced himself from pro-independence politics. The comment was based not on fact, but on old news and nationalistic assumptions.

Now imagine that same kind of mistake — only this time involving fighter jets, missiles, and soldiers.

I’m not arguing that war is inevitable. But we need to start asking better questions. Instead of “Will China invade?” we should ask: “What if something goes wrong tomorrow?”

If the alarm sounds at dawn — where do we go? What do we do? Who leads? Who follows?

Preparedness isn’t panic. It’s responsibility. And right now, too many in Taiwan — in government, in business, in daily life — still treat war like something too abstract to confront.

But it’s not abstract. It’s on radar screens. It’s in international airspace. It’s in disinformation campaigns, diplomatic threats, and cyberattacks. It’s in our airports and embassies and, increasingly, in our sense of vulnerability.

China doesn’t need to plan a war in order to start one. It just needs to make a mistake. And for Taiwan, the cost of that mistake could be existential.

It’s time we stopped hoping peace will last and started preparing for the moment it doesn’t.