Hybrid intervention: explaining the logic of US Taiwan policy amid the US–China competition

Abstract

This article explains the changing logic of US Taiwan policy amid intensifying US–China competition. Moving beyond the binary debate between strategic ambiguity and strategic clarity, it argues that Washington has increasingly transformed the Taiwan question into an amplifier of strategic containment against China. Drawing on neoclassical realism, the article develops a cross-level framework in which US–China positional competition functions as the systemic stimulus, US-led asymmetric minilateralism operates as the intervening mechanism, and hybrid intervention constitutes the policy output. Hybrid intervention is defined as the coordinated use of diverse non-military instruments across high – and low-politics domains to interfere directly or indirectly in China’s internal affairs while mobilising allies and partners to generate collective pressure. Through process tracing of the Biden administration, the article finds qualified evidence that US agenda-setting and institutional coordination contributed to political assertion, allies – partners involvement, diplomatic support and technological bundling. A shadow case of Trump’s second term further suggests that weaker minilateral coordination reduces the collective-action component of US Taiwan policy even when cross-domain intervention persists.