If China needed only to attack Taiwan and its forces as well as perhaps those local US forces engaged in the island’s defense in order to subordinate the island, such a campaign is unlikely to seem so aggressive. But if, to ensure that its attack on Taiwan succeeded, it also had to attack US forces, territory, and assets farther afield as well as those of Japan, the Philippines, Australia, South Korea, and perhaps others, that would clearly show Beijing to be far more aggressive than it would want potential opponents to believe. In military terms, the most natural way to put an opponent in
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