China, explained.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning taking questions from journalists on 2 March about the US-Israeli strikes on Iran (Johannes Neudecker via Getty Images)
The harder lesson from Iran may be what comes after a decapitation strike.
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After Khamenei: China is watching, and so should TaiwanAfter Khamenei: China is watching, and so should Taiwan
US-led military operations against Iran – which began with a decapitation strike that killed the regime’s most senior leadership figures including Ayatollah Khamenei – will have far-reaching implications beyond the Middle East. For China, the US-led campaign may prove a valuable lesson in how to disrupt continuity of government and the military chain-of-command during an invasion of Taiwan. But it may yet become a cautionary tale of what can go wrong after a successful decapitation strike.
The lessons for China’s military are clear. US and Israeli forces were able to glean exquisite, time-sensitive and operationally relevant intelligence, which likely required a deft integration of signals intelligence, geospatial capabilities and well-placed human sources inside the orbit of Iran’s most senior leadership. Quick, streamlined processes for the collection, processing and assessment of intelligence, combined with seamless joint operations between US and Israeli forces, likely proved critical to the success of recent decapitation strikes in Iran. Such capabilities will matter for any military operation against Taiwan.
Assassinating a democratically elected leader and installing a Beijing proxy may not coerce Taiwanese into submission, but steel their resolve to fight the new occupiers.
There is evidence that China is developing the broad – and deep – intelligence penetration needed for a successful decapitation strike against Taiwan. In 2021, the number of Taiwanese charged with spying for China was 16; in 2024, that number rose to 64. In September 2025, four former Taiwanese officials – including former aides to President William Lai and former Foreign Minister Joseph Wu – were convicted of spying for China. Though Taiwan’s security services have probably improved in recent years, more espionage indictments and convictions, especially of high-value assets, usually reflect more aggressive spying from an adversary.
In addition, China has developed the highly sophisticated signals intelligence and offensive cyber capabilities needed for a successful invasion of Taiwan, which would likely include attempts at assassinating its political leadership and military chain-of-command. According to Bloomberg, China provided extensive support across the signals intelligence and cyber domains, including through the Beidou satellite system, to Pakistan during its conflict with India in May 2025. Reuters later documented how this multi-domain support proved critical to Pakistan’s successful downing of multiple Indian fighter jets. A byproduct of Beijing’s support for Pakistan in May 2025 was a lesson in the value of streamlining the intelligence cycle to support complex military operations – one that could also prove valuable in orchestrating a successful invasion of Taiwan.
China has signalled its plans to integrate decapitation strikes into its broader strategy for invading Taiwan. A 2017 review of grey-literature from PLA special forces by the Global Taiwan Institute found that decapitation strikes were seen as an important means of coercing Taiwanese into capitulation during a sustained military offensive. In March 2024, a Taiwanese defence observer named Joseph Wen published open-source imagery of a Chinese military base that showed a replica of Taiwan’s presidential zone in Taipei. In November 2025, a newspaper affiliated with the PLA Navy published an article on how decapitation strikes could be an effective countermeasure to Taiwan’s (slowly) improving defences. Although the open-source picture is incomplete, there is enough evidence to reasonably conclude that the PLA intends to orchestrate decapitation strikes targeting Taiwan’s political leadership and military chain-of-command.
That is why Taiwan needs to ready itself for the scenario now unfolding in Iran – and fast. China’s President Xi Jinping has instructed the PLA to be ready to undertake a successful invasion of Taiwan by 2027. Counter-espionage and intelligence, continuity of government processes and the hardening of leadership compounds need to be top priorities for Taiwan’s leadership.
Looking abroad will be helpful. Ukraine has been an exemplar in how to maintain continuity of government and command while under sustained military assault from a capable adversary. Effective diplomacy and intelligence liaison with the US will be an important asset for Taiwan in this regard, as the US proved vital in helping Ukraine get up to speed on these processes during the months and years leading up to Russia’s 2022 invasion. (Ukraine, understandably, may have limited bandwidth to help Taiwan right now.)
Beyond the successful assassination of Iran’s leadership, the Chinese Communist Party will be watching closely how US and Israeli forces prosecute the war from here. Regime change is a difficult business – and has not yet taken place in Iran. Though some loyalists in the Iranian regime will mourn the Ayatollah’s death, many Iranians will not – especially those whose family members were butchered by his regime only weeks ago. Taiwan is a different society, one with far less receptivity to regime change. Taiwanese people are proud of their government – and chose it. Assassinating a democratically elected leader and installing a Beijing proxy may not coerce Taiwanese into submission, but steel their resolve to fight the new occupiers. That is why Xi will be watching Iran like a hawk for the next few months. If the US and Israel cannot succeed in changing the Iranian regime and gaining the support of the Iranian people, he will have little prospect of doing so in Taiwan.
About the author
Charles Lyons-Jones
Charles Lyons-Jones is a Research Fellow in the Lowy Institute’s Foreign Policy and Public Opinion Program. He oversees the annual Lowy Institute Poll and the Global Diplomacy Index.
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