Sun Zi's Art of War Chapter 3 is about 谋攻 Attack Strategies/Plan.
The key verses are:
是故百战百胜，非善之善者也；不战而屈人之兵，善之善者也。
故上兵伐谋，其次伐交，其次伐兵，其下攻城。
The literal translation is:
"Therefore, winning a hundred battles is not the best of strategies; subduing the enemy's army without fighting is the best of strategies.
Thus, the best strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, the next is to disrupt their alliances, the next is to attack their troops, and the worst is to attack their cities."
I normally give my dynamic translation as:
Winning every battle is not the best. The best is to win without a fight.
The best is to win by strategies, next by alliances and negotiations, the third is to fight and the worst is to be forced to attack a castle/city.
The Ukraine-Russian Conflicts
I have covered that in the following posts:
What can we learn from the Present Russian Ukraine War? (Art of War in Action)
What can we learn from the Present Russian Ukraine War? (Art of War in Action - Part 2)
What can we learn from the Present Russian Ukraine War? (Art of War in Action - Part 3)
China Unification of Taiwan
With the principles shown above, it is understandable that China's preferred choice is to unify Taiwan peacefully. The US's strategy is to force China to take the worst-case scenario of street-fightings in Taiwan and it is doing that by supporting the pro-Taiwan independence fractions indirectly.
The four alternatives of attack can also be seen as four stages of war if winning cannot be achieved at the earlier and better strategies.
Stage 1 China's best strategy to unify Taiwan peacefully is done in two major trusts:
1. Push - Threats of War. China is building its military strengths to be superior to Taiwan's, surrounding Taiwan with many war simulations etc.
2. Pull - Soft approach of gaining Taiwanese people's support through better trading terms (reducing them since it does not seem to work well), cultural, information, etc.
Stage 2 Negotiations and Alliances
1. Reducing Taiwanese' diplomatic relations with countries. Now is down to 10. If it is zero, then Taiwan is not recognized as a country by anyone any more.
2. Establishing channels for contact and negotiations.
Stage 3 Attack - Hopefully this does not happen because it will result in great loss of lives.
Stage 4 Fighting in Cities - This is the worst case and hopefully it does not happen.
