Since the Taiwanese military cannot hope to defeat the PLA in a conventional battlefield, and given that Taipei has no assurances that allies such as the United States and Japan would intervene on its side, its best defense is to ensure that China does not launch such an aggression in the first place. In other words, Taiwan must substantially increase the costs of invasion—real and perceived—by promising unacceptable amounts of pain to the PLA, the leadership in Beijing, and the Chinese population.
