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Preventing Taiwan War: Is Strategic Ambiguity Still Working?
Experts discuss the future of U.S. policy towards Taiwan.
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Despite uncertainty in the Trump administration’s China policy, dangerous trends across the Taiwan Strait continue to raise the chance of crisis. Tensions are deepening in the overall U.S.–China relationship, and the credibility of Washington’s One China policy and Beijing’s support for peaceful unification is mutually eroding. While China continues to expand its military capabilities and intimidate Taiwan, the U.S. is keen to mobilize its regional alliances to enhance warfighting against China.

These developments raise the question of whether the longstanding U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity, which contains the possibility of U.S. military intervention to defend Taiwan against China, remains the best approach to preventing war over the island.

Quincy Institute senior research fellow Michael Swaine recently published two policy briefs arguing that Taiwan is not a sufficiently vital interest for the United States ([link removed]) to go to war over. He contends that Washington should begin transitioning to a ([link removed]) policy beyond strategic ambiguity ([link removed]) — a new approach that seeks to enhance support for Taiwan but rules out the possibility of joining a war over the island.

October 2025

21
12:00 PM ET
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Join us for a timely and important discussion with:

Michael Swaine

Michael D. Swaine is a senior research fellow in the Quincy Institute’s East Asia Program. Previously at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Swaine worked for nearly twenty years as a senior fellow specializing in Chinese defense and foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and East Asian international relations.

Eric Heginbotham

Eric Heginbotham is a principal research scientist at MIT’s Security Studies Program and a specialist in Asian security issues. Additionally, he is the co-director of SSP's Wargaming Lab. Before joining MIT, he was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where he led research projects on China, Japan, and regional security issues.

Bonnie Glaser

Bonnie S. Glaser is managing director of the German Marshall Fund's Indo-Pacific program. She is a co-author of "US-Taiwan Relations: Will China's Challenge Lead to a Crisis" (Brookings Press, 2023). Glaser has worked at the intersection of Asia-Pacific geopolitics & U.S. policy for more than three decades.

Jake Werner (Moderator)

Jake Werner is director of the East Asia Program at the Quincy Institute. His research examines the emergence of great power conflict between the US and China and develops policies to rebuild constructive economic relations. Prior to joining Quincy, Jake was a Postdoctoral Global China Research Fellow at Boston University.

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