China's Taiwan Dictionary: Ten Words Instead of Invasion

Chinese state media never says "invasion." But it has an entire working vocabulary for the thing it won't name — calibrated to domestic audiences, weaponized for international ones, and escalating on a measurable schedule. The vocabulary is the policy.

Western analysts talk about China's Taiwan posture in the language of Western defense studies. Gray zone. Anti-access/area denial. Cross-strait deterrence. These are our words. They are not how Beijing talks about Taiwan, and the gap between the two vocabularies is the single most reliable leading indicator of PRC policy that outside observers are allowed to see.

Chinese state media — Xinhua, People's Daily, Global Times, CCTV, China Daily — has a formal internal style guide on "Taiwan-related usage" (涉台用语, shè tái yòngyǔ). The guide was first issued in 2002, revised in 2016, and updated repeatedly since. It specifies which words may be used, which must never be used, and — crucially — which substitutions are mandatory. The guide is enforced across every party-state publication, every wire feed, every CCTV segment. Reading it as a document is reading the CCP's Taiwan policy at its lexical level.

Here are ten of the phrases that actually run the machine, and what each one encodes.

1. 和平统一 / 祖国统一 — "Peaceful reunification" / "Motherland reunification"

Mandarin: 和平统一 (hépíng tǒngyī) / 祖国统一 (zǔguó tǒngyī)

This is the master euphemism. It appears in every major PRC communication on Taiwan since Deng Xiaoping's 1979 "Message to Taiwan Compatriots," which formally replaced the earlier Maoist formula 解放台湾 ("liberation of Taiwan"). The substitution of 和平 (peaceful) for 解放 (liberation) in 1979 was not rhetorical. It was the single biggest semantic shift in PRC Taiwan doctrine and it was an act of policy.

The operative work is done by 统一, which English translators overwhelmingly render as "reunification" rather than "unification." That translation choice accepts Beijing's premise — that Taiwan was always part of China and is returning. The Mandarin word itself is ambiguous on that point. Western outlets default to "reunification" without thinking about it, which means they are quietly endorsing a historical claim every time they file.

Xi Jinping used the phrase in every major address since 2019. Three consecutive Xinhua commentaries in October 2025, published under the coordinated pseudonym "Zhongtaiwen" (钟台文, roughly "centrally speaking on Taiwan"), were timed to the 80th anniversary of Taiwan's 1945 "restoration." The third was titled 祖国必然统一势不可挡 — "National reunification is inevitable and unstoppable." The key word is 势不可挡 ("unstoppable as a force"). The phrasing invokes tidal gravity, not political decision.

2. 非和平方式 — "Non-peaceful means"

Mandarin: 非和平方式 (fēi hépíng fāngshì)

This is the legal substitute for "invasion." It appears in Article 8 of the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, which authorizes the state to use force when "possibilities for peaceful reunification are completely exhausted" or "major incidents entailing Taiwan's secession from China" occur. The vagueness is deliberate and carefully drafted.

"Non-peaceful means" is intentionally broader than "military action." It includes blockade, cyber operations, economic coercion, and kinetic strike — any combination — under a single legal umbrella. Crucially, the law avoids 武力统一 (armed reunification) and 战争 (war) entirely in the triggering conditions. Those words would be too provocative internationally. 非和平方式 is what a PRC lawyer wrote so a PRC diplomat would never have to say "war." As CSIS analysts have noted, the conditions for invoking the clause "are vague and subjective," giving Beijing "wide discretion to determine when conditions are met."

In June 2024, Beijing issued criminal prosecution guidelines for "diehard Taiwan independence separatists," including provisions for trial in absentia and capital punishment. The guidelines operationalize 非和平方式 by creating a legal pipeline from rhetoric to prosecution — without ever using the word "invasion."

3. 台湾地区领导人 — "Leader of the Taiwan region"

Mandarin: 台湾地区领导人 (Táiwān dìqū lǐngdǎorén)

Sovereignty denial in two words. Xinhua's mandatory internal style guide prohibits any reference to Taiwan's president using the title 总统 ("president"), 中华民国总统 ("ROC President"), or any institutional title implying statehood. The substitution 台湾地区领导人 — literally "Taiwan-area leader" — reclassifies the position from an elected head of state to a regional administrator inside an undivided China. The prohibition extends even inside quotation marks: the guide explicitly forbids 中华民国总统 even when citing foreign sources.

In February 2026, the CCP extended the banned-terms list: 两岸三地 ("cross-strait and three regions" — implying Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the mainland as parallel entities) and 中台 ("China-Taiwan") are now forbidden in state media because they imply co-equal status. This is the tightening of the linguistic perimeter in real time.

4. 联合利剑 / 海峡雷霆 / 正义使命 — "Joint Sword" / "Strait Thunder" / "Justice Mission"

Mandarin: 联合利剑 (Liánhé Lìjiàn) / 海峡雷霆 (Hǎixiá Léitíng) / 正义使命 (Zhèngyì Shǐmìng)

Exercise names are state media vocabulary. None of the PLA's major Taiwan encirclement exercises has ever been branded with the word 侵略 ("invasion"), 封锁 ("blockade"), 包围 ("siege"), or 进攻 ("attack"). Each name encodes a moral frame:

• Joint Sword (联合利剑, April 2023) — coordinated precision against a single target. The "sword" metaphor is surgical, not brute. First named exercise of the post-Pelosi era.
• Strait Thunder (海峡雷霆, April 2025, analyzed by Jamestown Foundation) — a storm, a natural force, something that happens rather than something someone does. The naming is morally evacuative.
• Justice Mission (正义使命, December 2025, analyzed by the Global Taiwan Institute) — a righteous law-enforcement operation. The PLA's own announcement described it as "a just and necessary operation to defend national sovereignty and uphold national reunification."

The pattern matters more than any single name. Since 2023, the PLA has branded a new encirclement exercise roughly every six months, with an "A/B" series convention (Joint Sword-2024A, 2024B). The series convention signals that encirclement is being normalized — not a one-off response, but a recurring calendar event. The rebranding to "Strait Thunder" in 2025 and "Justice Mission" in late 2025 represents deliberate escalation: each new name is a fresh line in the CCP's Taiwan dictionary, marking a new threshold of pressure that can later be described as "routine" on subsequent iterations.

5. 海空战备警巡 — "Sea and air combat-readiness patrols"

Mandarin: 海空战备警巡 (hǎikōng zhànbèi jǐngxún)

This is the operational phrase used when PLA aircraft and naval vessels encircle Taiwan. Note the structure: 战备 ("combat readiness") signals military seriousness, but 警巡 ("warning patrols") borrows from law-enforcement vocabulary — as if the PLA Navy were a coast guard on routine rounds. The blurring is the point. A patrol is something a state does inside its own territory. An encirclement is something a state does against another.

The specific formulation 联合战备警巡 (joint combat-readiness patrols) first appeared in August 2022 post-Pelosi coverage. Global Times framed it as "the PLA will conduct regular combat-readiness security patrol in Taiwan Straits." The word 定期 ("regular") was quietly doing most of the work — framing encirclement as a new normal rather than a response.

By Justice Mission-2025, the announcement specified four operational missions using this vocabulary: sea-air combat-readiness patrol, "seizing comprehensive superiority" (夺取综合制权), "blockading key ports and territory" (要港要域封控), and "three-dimensional external line deterrence" (外线立体慑阻). The word 封控 ("blockade-control") is technically 封锁 with a modifier that makes it sound bureaucratic — closer to "port access management" than the military term. This is lexical decontamination.

6. 台独分裂势力 — "Taiwan independence separatist forces"

Mandarin: 台独分裂势力 (Táidú fēnliè shìlì)

The approved pejorative for any pro-sovereignty Taiwan actor or activity. 分裂 ("split," "separate") is the load-bearing word — it frames Taiwan's democratic self-determination as a criminal act of national division, analogous to how the PRC characterizes Xinjiang or Tibet independence movements. The category is deliberately extensible: it delegitimizes without naming any specific Taiwanese politician, political party, or institution.

MND spokesman Wu Qian said after Joint Sword-2024B: "Every 'Taiwan independence' [provocation] will prompt the PLA to advance one step further until the Taiwan issue is completely resolved." Translation: there is no fixed red line; the PLA moves the line forward each time the category is invoked.

The most important shift in 2024–2025 is definitional expansion. The CCP has quietly broadened what counts as 台独 behavior to include: Taiwan's international participation in bodies like the WHO, Taiwan's bilateral security assistance from the U.S., and even public expressions of support for Taiwan's democratic system. Each expansion widens the pre-justification for 非和平方式 under the Anti-Secession Law. This is what narrative warfare looks like when the narrator controls the dictionary.

7. 台湾同胞 — "Taiwan compatriots"

Mandarin: 台湾同胞 (Táiwān tóngbāo, literally "Taiwan same-womb people")

This is the carrot to 台独分裂势力's stick, and it is lexically intense. 同胞 literally means "born from the same womb" — an intensely familial, ethnic frame that positions 23 million Taiwanese as estranged family members rather than a foreign population. The word choice forecloses any foreign-policy framing of Taiwan entirely: you don't "invade" your own family, you "reunite" with them.

Xi Jinping at the April 2026 meeting with KMT chair Cheng Li-wun: "The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait share a bond of blood and kinship." The 2022 Taiwan White Paper used 台湾同胞 throughout, describing how "private property, religious beliefs, and lawful rights and interests will be fully protected" under reunification. The protection language is framed as an assurance to kin, not as terms offered to a foreign population.

Janes' 2026 assessment found that in the second half of 2025, the CCP quietly reduced dehumanizing rhetoric against Taiwan while maintaining the 同胞 frame — indicating the phrase is being actively managed as a persuasion instrument, escalated or de-escalated as political circumstances require.

8. 一个中国原则 — "The One-China Principle"

Mandarin: 一个中国原则 (yīgè Zhōngguó yuánzé)

The single most precisely weaponized word in the gray-zone dictionary. The PRC insists on 原则 ("principle"), which asserts an absolute, non-negotiable claim of sovereignty. The United States uses 政策 ("policy") — a mere diplomatic acknowledgment that stops short of endorsement. Xinhua systematically translates foreign "one-China policy" statements as though they said "one-China principle," collapsing a careful legal distinction into a universal endorsement.

Hoover Institution's Miles Maochun Yu has called this "a global campaign of narrative warfare — blurring lines, twisting language, and asserting that the world has already accepted its claim over Taiwan. It is a lie repeated so often that even seasoned observers begin to lose sight of the truth."

The 2026 banned-terms update makes the lexical control even tighter: state media can no longer say 两岸三地 or 中台, because both imply parallel entities. The China Coast Guard has used the principle to justify patrol operations directly, stating that its patrols around Taiwan "represent practical enforcement of the 'One China' principle over Taiwan Island." This is how a diplomatic position becomes operational justification for military encirclement: through one word, repeated with perfect consistency.

9. 台湾光复 — "Taiwan Restoration"

Mandarin: 台湾光复 (Táiwān Guāngfù)

This phrase exists in both PRC and Republic of China historical vocabulary for the 1945 postwar handover of Taiwan from Japanese to Chinese administration. What changed in October 2025 is that the CCP's Standing Committee officially designated October 25 as a national "Taiwan Restoration Memorial Day".

The significance is what happens before 1945. By framing 1945 as restoration, the CCP establishes a narrative in which Taiwan is unbroken Chinese territory since the Qing dynasty, interrupted only by Japanese colonial occupation from 1895 to 1945. This reading reads out the 1949 retreat of the ROC government to Taiwan entirely — turning Taiwan's post-1949 history into an illegitimate continuation of civil war rather than the emergence of a separate state. Xinhua's March 2025 article "History and reality affirm Taiwan is inalienable part of China" cites the Cairo Declaration and Potsdam Proclamation to argue Taiwan "returned under China's sovereign jurisdiction in 1945." Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council has called this a fabrication — the Cairo Declaration is a communiqué, not a treaty, and did not confer sovereignty.

Expect heavy use every October 25 going forward. The memorial day is a calendar hook that gives state media a fresh occasion to run the same vocabulary.

10. 疑美论 — "America Skepticism Theory"

Mandarin: 疑美论 (yí měi lùn)

The tenth phrase is the most interesting, because it is not used by Xinhua directly. It is seeded into Taiwan's own domestic media ecosystem through coordinated amplification. The Global Taiwan Institute documented 84 distinct instances of 疑美论 circulating in Taiwan's Mandarin-language information environment between 2021 and 2023, with over half originating from Taiwanese actors but amplified systematically by PRC-linked networks.

The narrative: the United States is an unreliable partner who will 棄子 ("discard like a chess piece") Taiwan when it becomes inconvenient. The companion phrase 棄台論 ("Taiwan Abandonment Theory") provides the specific framing that Washington will sacrifice Taipei in a great-power deal. These phrases don't need to appear in Xinhua; they need to appear in Taiwan's own news feeds, polled surveys, and talk shows. And they do. German Marshall Fund surveys in 2025 documented growing Taiwanese distrust of the U.S. The seeding worked.

This is the vocabulary China deploys when it cannot name the target directly. It is also the hardest category for outside analysts to catch, because the words originate inside Taiwan.

What the vocabulary tells you

Four things, across the ten phrases:

One, the lexical control is tightening. The 2026 addition of 中台 and 两岸三地 to the banned list indicates the CCP is actively narrowing the permissible vocabulary — removing even phrasings that imply parallel status. Each tightening reduces the space for any PRC outlet to describe Taiwan in anything other than state-approved terms.

Two, the vocabulary has legal force. The Anti-Secession Law of 2005 and the criminal prosecution guidelines of 2024 operationalize 非和平方式 and 台独分裂势力. These are not just propaganda terms. They are the legal triggers for policy action.

Three, the escalation has a calendar. Named exercises every six months since 2023. A new memorial day in 2025. Three coordinated Xinhua commentaries in October 2025. The cadence is itself a signal: the CCP is not improvising; it is running a schedule.

Four, Western press translations are doing work for Beijing they shouldn't be doing. "Reunification" (not "unification"). "Taiwan's leader" (not "Taiwan's president"). "One-China policy" rendered as "one-China principle" in translation. Each reflexive choice accepts a PRC premise. A careful Western outlet could decide tomorrow to stop doing this. None of them will.

Jessica Chen Weiss's peer-reviewed work on authoritarian rhetoric suggests a significant portion of the Taiwan vocabulary functions as domestic audience management: the Chinese public has been primed to expect strong language, and weakening it risks domestic backlash. That is a partial reassurance — it suggests not every hawkish phrase is a direct policy signal. But it is also a trap for the same reason. A regime that needs to maintain maximalist rhetoric to satisfy its domestic audience has fewer off-ramps when rhetoric must become action. The words can paint you into a corner.

The real-time question for anyone trying to read Beijing on Taiwan: watch for new entries in the dictionary, not new statements. If Xinhua introduces a phrase that hasn't been used before — or officially deprecates one that has — it matters more than almost any press conference. That's the level at which the policy lives.

Sources

• Chinese-language Wikipedia — 涉台用语 (Taiwan-related usage guide)
• English Wikipedia — Banned and Sensitive Words in Xinhua News Agency Reports
• U.S. Embassy Beijing — Anti-Secession Law full text
• CSIS — Employing "non-peaceful means" against Taiwan | Joint Sword 2024B and the coast guard
• Small Wars Journal — China's Taiwan independence narrative shift, May 2025
• Global Taiwan Institute — Justice Mission 2025 | America Skepticism Theory report 2023
• Jamestown Foundation — Strait Thunder 2025A analysis | CCP appropriates Taiwan Retrocession Day
• Xinhua — 2022 Taiwan white paper | History and reality, Mar 2025 | New Year message Dec 2025
• Global Times — "Regular combat readiness patrol," Aug 2022
• BeijingScroll — Three consecutive commentaries on Taiwan (Zhongtaiwen), Oct 2025
• People News Today — CCP banned terms update, Feb 2026
• NPR — Xi meets KMT chair Cheng Li-wun, Apr 10, 2026
• Janes — 2026 Taiwan messaging assessment
• Hoover Institution — Miles Maochun Yu: America's Word War
• MOJ China — 2024 criminal prosecution guidelines for Taiwan independence diehards

Originally published on The Board World