China's approach to Taiwan and the South China Sea runs on a deliberate duality, working inside the rules of the international system where that suits its interests and stepping outside them where it does not. Forbes describes this as gray zone activity, meaning government action that falls below the threshold of armed conflict but still projects power and tries to change facts on the ground, aimed not just at Taipei but at an audience that includes Japan, the Southeast Asian states, and Washington.
The pressure is not optional from Beijing's point of view, according to the Forbes analysis. Taiwan is bound up with the Chinese Communist Party's own claim to legitimacy, and every Chinese leader since the party took power has had to affirm a commitment to reunification, whether or not it happens on his watch. That gives Xi Jinping an incentive to keep testing the region's tolerance and Washington's commitment to Taiwan without ever letting the friction become permanent damage to China's economy or its standing abroad.
What Xi does not want, Forbes reports, is a war. He wants the appearance of steady progress toward reunification without the cost of actually fighting for it, a preference the analysis ties to the damage Russia's invasion of Ukraine has done to Vladimir Putin's economy and reputation. As long as Chinese leadership believes time and its own economic growth are on its side relative to Taiwan and the United States, there is little reason to force the issue with hard power now.
Existing gray zone tactics already include live fire naval drills conducted with Russia inside Japan's exclusive economic zone, repeated friction with the Philippine Coast Guard, and continued construction on disputed features in the South China Sea, according to Forbes. The reporting also lays out hypothetical scenarios, explicitly framed as illustrative rather than predictions, for how Beijing could escalate without crossing into open conflict: citing endangered fish stocks to justify a fishing pause inside its nine dash line claim, using a future health emergency as cover to stop and inspect ships in the Taiwan Strait, or intercepting a Taiwanese cargo vessel on intellectual property grounds to cast Taiwan as the rule breaker and China as the enforcer.
Forbes is careful to note that none of these specific scenarios is likely on its own, and that the point is broader: a strategy of simply repeating past behavior has diminishing shock value, giving Beijing reason to experiment with new forms of pressure. The open question the reporting raises is whether Chinese leadership has the patience to keep playing a long, incremental game, or whether it risks miscalculating the way Russia did in Ukraine.