Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China with Eyck Freymann

Taiwan is where the uneasy peace between the United States and China will be tested–and possibly broken. Beijing believes that “reunification” is inevitable. American military strength has preserved peace and stability for decades, but its advantages are eroding. Beijing has found critical gaps in U.S. strategy and is working to squeeze, isolate, and coerce Taiwan into submission without firing a shot. If deterrence fails, the consequences of a Taiwan crisis would be catastrophic–plunging the global economy into chaos, shattering U.S. alliances, and allowing China to dominate the region and reshape the world order.

In Defending Taiwan, Eyck Freymann presents the first integrated strategy to deter war with China and preserve an honorable peace. Drawing on untranslated Chinese sources, cutting-edge military and economic analysis, and deep historical research, Freymann argues that Washington’s deterrence strategy must extend beyond conventional military power and familiar threats of mutually assured destruction. America must work with allies to develop a bold new vision of technological and economic statecraft–and a plan to secure its interests if deterrence fails. Freymann examines China’s full range of strategic options. The United States can deter them all. But to do so, it must integrate its military strength, economic leverage, technological leadership, and diplomatic influence into a single, coherent plan to prevent war.

Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, where he directs the Allied Coordination Working Group. He is also a Non-Resident Research Fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, the Institute of Geoeconomics in Tokyo, and the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.

Dr. Freymann works on strategies to preserve peace and protect U.S. interests and values in an era of systemic competition with China. He is the author of several books, including the forthcoming Defending Taiwan: A Strategy to Prevent War with China (Oxford, 2026), The Arsenal of Democracy: Technology, Industry, and Deterrence in an Age of Hard Choices (Hoover, 2025), and One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World (Harvard, 2021). His scholarly work has appeared in The China Quarterly and is forthcoming in International Security.

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