Chinese Military Develops Strategy for Seizing Taipei
RAND Corp analyzes the 'incapacitation' concept combining precision strikes, cyber attacks, and cognitive warfare to break the will to resist.
RAND Corp analyzes the 'incapacitation' concept combining precision strikes, cyber attacks, and cognitive warfare to break the will to resist.
The Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) has developed a comprehensive strategy for rapidly seizing Taipei that relies on a combination of precision strikes, cyber attacks, and cognitive warfare to paralyze the city and break the public's will to resist, without resorting to total destruction, according to a July 2026 report by the U.S. think tank RAND Corp.
The concept, dubbed "all-domain megacity incapacitation warfare," first appeared in March 2025 in the journal Military Art, a leading Chinese internal publication on military theory, RAND notes in an article published on the War on the Rocks portal.
"The Central Military Commission oversees and approves this journal, and its official circulation is restricted to internal military channels," the RAND analysis states. As a result, they add, "the authors have the freedom to speak concretely and without embellishment as they introduce their concept into China's internal debate on how to plan a war against Taiwan."
The authors of the Military Art article include researchers from the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences: Lieutenant Colonel Li Hengrui (李恆銳), Senior Colonel Cheng Jinming (程錦明), and Lieutenant Colonel Wang Haiyuan (王海元), an instructor at the Command College of the Chinese People's Armed Police Force.
Although the Chinese authors never explicitly name Taipei, the target is implicit because the article discusses conducting operations "while simultaneously guarding against intervention by a powerful enemy", referring to potential U.S. intervention, and claims to support China's "facts, legal legitimacy, and emotional resonance" for taking control of the city, which points to an attack on Taiwan, RAND states.
The concept proposed in Military Art highlights that China "frames its proposal around 'incapacitation'" and that the authors' goal is "subjugation, not destruction," the RAND analysis states.
Under the concept, China would achieve its objective through military blockades, using kinetic and non-kinetic means to cut off the flow of supplies and information to Taipei, and launching decapitation strikes and deploying special forces to seize, "by force or bribery", facilities that could support Chinese forces after landing on Taiwan, RAND adds.
It would also employ propaganda in hopes of driving a wedge between the public and the military and "collectively eroding Taipei's will to resist and ultimately facilitating a rapid cessation of hostilities," making it "the optimal means for seizing Taipei."
China's "information ammunition" embedded in social media platforms specifically targets Taiwanese civilians to "manipulate perceptions, erode social cohesion, support Chinese narratives, and encourage surrender," RAND states.
Chinese threats will grow as artificial intelligence technologies create new techniques and avenues for targeting civilians, the analysis adds.
RAND's article calls on Taiwan and the United States to reassess their countermeasures against such strategies, while urging Taipei to "consider how to defend major media and communications facilities alongside traditional military and government locations." It also calls on the U.S. to help Taiwan increase social resilience and adopt measures to secure shipping lanes for delivering goods and war supplies.
