China, explained.
People's Liberation Army cavalry unit passes through Qianmen St in Beiping (now Beijing) after the Battle of Pingjin. 1949. (Photo by Universal History Archive via Getty)
Victory can be achieved through the slow erosion of political cohesion, without triggering a Western military response.
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The Beiping model: How China could absorb Taiwan without a warThe Beiping model: How China could absorb Taiwan without a war
Much of the current discourse on Taiwan centres around one scenario: war. The prevailing imagery involves amphibious landings, missile strikes, and an Indo-Pacific showdown with global ramifications. Yet the most plausible outcome may be the one least discussed: China could secure Taiwan without firing a shot.
The goal is not to convince Taiwan that reunification is just. It is to persuade it that reunification is unavoidable.
Beijing may already be applying a template that resembles its 1949 takeover of what was then called Peiping (Beijing). Known as the Beiping model, it involved General Fu Zuoyi, commander of the city’s Nationalist forces, negotiating a peaceful surrender to avoid destruction. The Chinese Communist Party took the city intact, quickly cementing its political and symbolic victory. No battle was fought but the war was effectively lost.
This model is increasingly relevant to Taiwan today. It suggests that victory can be achieved not through kinetic escalation but through the slow erosion of political cohesion, economic independence, and societal confidence, all without triggering a Western military response. The signs are already visible.
China’s use of grey-zone tactics against Taiwan is well documented. Airspace incursions, cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, and economic coercion are routine. But their purpose is not purely to destabilise. It is to desensitise, normalise pressure, fragment decision-making, and encourage a sense of inevitability about unification.
What makes this strategy potent is its gradualism. It does not provoke a clear moment of retaliation. There is no single provocation to rally against. Instead, Beijing’s actions invite compromise, delay, and adaptation by Taiwanese elites and international observers. Over time, resistance is not crushed, it is absorbed.
If the Beiping model relies on one psychological lever, it is resignation. The goal is not to convince Taiwan that reunification is just. It is to persuade it that reunification is unavoidable.
One does not need to look far to find the elements of elite influence already in place. Many Taiwanese business leaders have substantial commercial exposure to mainland markets (although they are trying to reduce it). Others maintain political ties or family connections that span the Strait. The effect is subtle but powerful: a cautious attitude towards open confrontation, and a preference for ambiguity over escalation.
Beijing’s strategy plays to these instincts. It does not need to install collaborators. It needs only to offer economic, political, and social pathways that make quiet accommodation seem more prudent than principled resistance.
The 1949 analogy may seem distant, but the mechanisms are familiar: surround the target, cut off its lifelines, speak directly to its leadership, and wait. Strategic encirclement becomes political invitation.
For Chinese policymakers, the benefits of a non-kinetic resolution are clear. A full-scale invasion of Taiwan would be enormously risky, both militarily and economically. It could result in significant Chinese casualties, galvanise international backlash, and trigger export controls that damage China’s semiconductor supply chain and broader economy.
Resistance is not crushed, it is absorbed.
By contrast, a negotiated or bloodless political resolution, however manufactured, allows Beijing to achieve its core objective without enduring the costs of war. It would validate the narrative that the Chinese Communist Party is a historical force of unification and modernisation, not destruction.
It would also place the United States and its allies in a bind. If Taiwan concedes under internal pressure, can external intervention be justified? Would there even be a political consensus to respond?
In any Beiping-style scenario, narrative control is critical. The 1949 surrender was not framed as defeat but as a decision to spare lives and preserve order. A contemporary equivalent in Taiwan might be presented as a constitutional reform, an interim arrangement, or a new cross-Strait political dialogue.
Beijing’s messaging architecture, spanning media, academia, and online communities, is increasingly well positioned to craft such a narrative. And Taiwan’s fragmented media environment offers ample entry points for both manipulation and selective amplification.
In a scenario where resistance seems futile and international rescue uncertain, the most effective weapon may not be a missile, but a message.
For Australia and other regional partners, the Beiping model presents a deterrence dilemma. Most allied planning is geared toward repelling military aggression. But how does one deter surrender? What if the loss is political rather than territorial, a failure of will rather than of capability?
If allies do not prepare for this possibility, they risk being caught rhetorically flat-footed. Worse, they may invest resources in capabilities that arrive too late to matter. Strategic ambiguity works best when both sides believe war is possible. But it offers little leverage in a conflict defined by gradual acquiescence rather than sudden invasion.
The Beiping model is not a certainty. Taipei is not Beijing, and 2025 is not 1949. But as a strategic blueprint, it deserves far more attention. Not because it is dramatic but because it is not.
It may unfold slowly, in paragraphs rather than headlines. It may avoid the spectacular in favour of the familiar. And it may be precisely for that reason that it succeeds.
About the author
Vincent So
Vincent So is CEO of the Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand. Views are his own and not of his employer.
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