How Much Will China Risk for Taiwan? The “Maritime Order” Theory That Makes This Crisis So Volatile

 

The Most Dangerous Question in East Asia Isn’t “When?”—It’s “How Much?”

Missiles, timelines, amphibious landings, aircraft carriers… that’s how most conversations about Taiwan start.

But historian Sarah C. M. Paine (U.S. Naval War College; also published in Foreign Affairs) argues the real story begins somewhere quieter—and more unsettling: China’s rise was powered by joining the global maritime trading order, and a war over Taiwan risks shattering that very system that enabled China’s prosperity. (Foreign Affairs)

So the real question becomes:

How much is Beijing willing to sacrifice—economically, diplomatically, socially—to take Taiwan?

If Paine’s framework is right, the answer might be: far more than outsiders assume.

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The “Economic Miracle” Explained in One Sentence

Paine’s core premise is simple:

China’s modern economic transformation happened because it plugged into a rules-based global trading system—ships move, contracts hold, payments clear, markets function, trade routes stay open. (Foreign Affairs)

That maritime order wasn’t a side benefit. It was the engine.

Which is why the Taiwan crisis is not merely a regional dispute—it threatens to collide with the operating system that made China rich in the first place.

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The Party’s Priority Isn’t Prosperity. It’s Monopoly.

Here’s the contradiction the transcript keeps circling:

• The Chinese people benefited from openness, education, global integration.

• The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) prioritizes one thing above all else: maintaining political monopoly.

That framing matches Paine’s broader emphasis on regime logic—how authoritarian systems often treat survival and control as non-negotiable even when it’s economically self-destructive. (Foreign Affairs)

And that’s where Taiwan becomes more than territory.

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Taiwan as a “Political Pressure Valve”

Why Taiwan?

Because Taiwan represents something the CCP cannot comfortably tolerate: a prosperous, democratic, Chinese-speaking society that exists outside party rule.

You can debate identity and history all day—but politically, Taiwan functions as a living counterexample. And in a system that depends on narrative control, counterexamples are dangerous.

This is also why Taiwanese public opinion matters so much here: the island has repeatedly shown it does not want to be absorbed on Beijing’s terms, and large majorities reject PRC political models like “one country, two systems.” (Brookings)

So “reunification” isn’t a smooth administrative merger in any realistic scenario—it risks becoming coercion, resistance, and escalation.

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“Take Leaders at Their Word” (Uncomfortable, But Useful)

One of Paine’s sharpest warnings (echoed in the transcript) is methodological:

Authoritarian leaders often signal intentions plainly—because they’re speaking to their own population, preparing them psychologically for sacrifice. (Foreign Affairs)

That doesn’t mean war is guaranteed. It means we should treat repeated “must be achieved” messaging as part of a political trajectory, not just rhetorical fog.

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The Part People Underestimate: The Sanctions Trap

A Taiwan war wouldn’t just be bombs and ships. It would likely trigger a long-term economic isolation shock.

Paine’s point (paraphrased) isn’t that sanctions instantly “flip” a regime. It’s that isolation suppresses growth for decades, slowly starving future power. (Foreign Affairs)

The transcript uses a brutal visual analogy: the Korean peninsula’s divergence under radically different international access. Even without endorsing the comparison as perfect, the lesson stands—plugging into global systems tends to compound wealth; being cut off compounds weakness.

If Beijing moves militarily, the world’s incentive structure changes fast: if borders can be erased by force, every trade route and market assumption becomes unstable. That’s why the response pressure is systemic, not sentimental.

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Taiwan Doesn’t “Make China Great.” It Tests the Party’s Story.

Here’s the cleanest way to summarize the logic:

• China doesn’t need Taiwan to be a great power.

• But the CCP may believe it needs Taiwan to preserve its legitimacy narrative—especially as economic growth slows and nationalism becomes the rallying tool. (Foreign Affairs)

That is exactly the kind of dynamic that produces high-risk decisions:
when a regime ties its identity to a goal that becomes politically impossible to abandon.

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The Most Dangerous Outcome Isn’t Inevitability—It’s Miscalculation

The transcript ends in the right place:

This crisis isn’t dangerous because war is certain.
It’s dangerous because leaders can convince themselves they can manage the fallout.

And if that assumption is wrong, nobody wins:

• Taiwan pays first in human and infrastructure cost.

• The U.S. and allies face the most dangerous confrontation of the century.

• China risks trading four decades of prosperity for isolation—and a future defined by slower growth and tighter control.

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Final Thought

If you want a “one-line” takeaway from Paine’s worldview, it’s this:

Taiwan is not just a strategic problem. It’s an authoritarian legitimacy problem—colliding with the global trading order that made China powerful. (Foreign Affairs)

And that’s why the risk curve may be steeper than most people want to admit.

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