China's New Offensives Against Taiwan

As cross-Strait tensions steadily escalate, Taiwan faces an increasingly multifaceted campaign of coercion from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The multi-domain offensive has intensified following the election of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, potentially marking a significant shift in the PRC’s strategy towards Taiwan. While the existential military threats posed by the People's Liberation Army to Taiwan and regional peace persist, Beijing's aggressive maneuvers have intensified in the diplomatic, information, military, economic, and legal domains, heightening the complexity of the security situation in and around the Taiwan Strait.
This expert panel will delve into the various dimensions of the PRC’s multi-domain offensive against Taiwan. In examining the new elements of this coercive campaign, the panelists will attempt to shed light on its far-reaching implications for Taiwan’s democracy, regional stability, and geopolitical trends. The discussion will also explore potential responses and strategies that Taiwan and its allies can employ to navigate and counter these heightened threats, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the evolving cross-Strait dynamics for regional and global peace and security.

The event will be in-person at GTI's office as well as live-streamed on our website and YouTube beginning on Tuesday, July 30 at 2:45 PM EDT. If you plan on attending in-person, please RSVP by July 28, as seating is limited. Questions for the panel may either be sent by e-mail to [email protected], or through the chat function on the YouTube page. Please direct questions or concerns to GTI Program Manager Adrienne Wu at [email protected].
**Media: Please contact Adrienne Wu at [email protected] ifyou would like to bring additional crew members or equipment, so that we can be sure to accommodate you.

The Panelists:

Dan Blumenthal is a resident fellow and the director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on East Asian security issues and Sino-American relations. Mr. Blumenthal has served in and advised the US government on China issues for more than a decade. Before joining AEI, Mr. Blumenthal served as senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia at the US Department of Defense. He served as a commissioner on the congressionally mandated US-China Economic and Security Review Commission from 2006 to 2012, and he was vice chairman of the commission in 2007. He also served on the Academic Advisory Board of the congressional US-China Working Group. Mr. Blumenthal is the author of The China Nightmare: The Grand Ambitions of a Decaying State (AEI Press, November 2020) and coauthor of An Awkward Embrace: The United States and China in the 21st Century (AEI Press, November 2012). Additionally, his writings have been published widely, including in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The National Interest, and The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Blumenthal has a JD from Duke Law School, an MA from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis. He also attended Capital Normal University in Beijing, China, where he focused on Chinese language studies.

John Dotson is the deputy director at GTI. A former US Navy officer and professional staff member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, he has performed extensive writing and research on a range of political and national security issues related to US policy in East Asia, to include Chinese propaganda and influence efforts, military-civil fusion efforts within the People’s Liberation Army, and patterns in military coercion efforts directed against Taiwan. He is a proficient Mandarin linguist, who has performed extensive original research in indigenous Chinese language sources. Dotson holds an MA in national security studies from the US Naval War College, and a Master of International Public Policy from Johns Hopkins-SAIS.
Rush Doshi is the C.V. Starr senior fellow for Asia studies and director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His expertise includes China’s foreign policy, US strategy toward China, cross-strait issues, and Indo-Pacific security. Before joining CFR, Doshi was deputy senior director for China and Taiwan on President Joe Biden’s National Security Council (NSC), where he served from 2021 to 2024 and helped manage the NSC’s first China directorate. During his tenure, Doshi coordinated US government policy on China and Taiwan, drafted the administration’s China strategy, and negotiated with PRC counterparts. For five months in 2021, he was the US government’s lead action officer coordinating the negotiations that launched AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership for the Indo-Pacific region between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He is the author of The Long Game: China’s Grand Strategy to Displace American Order (Oxford University Press, 2021). Doshi was also coeditor of Global China: Assessing China’s Growing Role in the World (Brookings, 2021). His research has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, as well as in peer-reviewed academic publications such as International Organization and Asia Policy. He received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in public policy with a minor in East Asian Studies and his PhD from Harvard University focusing on Chinese foreign policy. He was also a Fulbright fellow in China and is proficient in Mandarin.
Alexander Gray is a senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council, as well as a senior non-resident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute. He also serves as chief executive officer at American Global Strategies. Previously, he served as deputy assistant to the president and chief of staff of the White House National Security Council (NSC) from 2019 to 2021, where he managed the National Security Advisor’s Front Office and was responsible for all personnel, budget, and security functions of the NSC. Gray was the first-ever director for Oceania and Indo-Pacific security at the NSC, responsible for US relations with Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. Previously, Gray served as the special assistant to the president for the defense industrial base at the White House National Economic Council (NEC). As the principal official in the Executive Office of the President responsible for the defense industrial base and supply chain resiliency, Gray authored Executive Order 13806, the first-ever whole-of-government assessment of the defense industrial base, and led the interagency team supervising its implementation. In addition to his executive branch service, Gray served as a member of the 2016 Presidential Transition Team at the US Department of State and as senior advisor to former US Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-VA), primarily supporting his Chairmanship of the Seapower & Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and the Congressional China Caucus. A term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Gray is a member of the Board of Visitors of the US Coast Guard Academy for a three-year term. His writings have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, Newsweek, The Hill, The Diplomat, The Oklahoman, National Review Online, The Weekly Standard, Strategic Studies Quarterly, Real Clear Defense, Naval War College Review, and the proceedings of the US Naval Institute. Gray is a graduate of the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and is a recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service and the National Security Council’s Outstanding Service Award.
The Moderator:

Russell Hsiao is the executive director of GTI, senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation, and adjunct fellow at Pacific Forum. He is a former Penn Kemble fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy and visiting scholar at the University of Tokyo’s Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia. He previously served as a senior research fellow at The Project 2049 Institute and national security fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Prior to those positions he was the editor of China Brief at The Jamestown Foundation from October 2007 to July 2011 and a special associate in the International Cooperation Department at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. While in law school, he clerked within the Office of the Chairman at the Federal Communications Commission and the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center at the Office of the US Trade Representative. Hsiao received his JD and certificate from the Law and Technology Institute at the Catholic University of America’s Columbus School of Law where he served as the editor-in-chief of the Catholic University’s Journal of Law and Technology. He received a BA in international studies from the American University’s School of International Service and the University Honors Program.

Host or Publisher Global Taiwan Institute