A survey from last November found that 34.7% of Taiwanese believed that being pro-United States would provoke China to invade Taiwan.
Although the number decreased by 6.5 points from 2023, these figures are alarming. They show that many Taiwanese people are misreading the conditions under which China would launch a major invasion, misperceiving the enemy as an irrational actor that defies realist logic.
There is no reason to believe that China would invade when the costs, namely the likelihood of a U.S. intervention, are high. This misperception poses significant risks to Taiwan’s deterrence against a Chinese invasion.
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