Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (1995–1996)
On July 21, 1995, the People's Liberation Army launched the first of a series of missile tests into waters near Taiwan, marking the start of the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. The confrontation, which stretched into March 1996, was Beijing's most forceful military response yet to perceived moves toward Taiwanese independence and brought the United States and China closer to direct confrontation than at any point since the Cold War.
The Spark: Lee Teng-hui's Cornell Visit
The crisis had its roots in a diplomatic breakthrough that infuriated Beijing. In June 1995, Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui traveled to the United States to deliver a speech at Cornell University, his alma mater, after the Clinton administration reversed earlier policy and granted him a visa. China viewed the visit as a dangerous departure from Washington's One-China policy and evidence that Lee, who had been cultivating a distinct Taiwanese identity and pursuing greater international space for the island, was steering Taiwan toward formal independence. Beijing recalled its ambassador from Washington in protest and began signaling that military action might follow. On July 21, 1995, the PLA answered by test-firing DF-15/M-9 short-range ballistic missiles into designated zones roughly 60 kilometers north of Keelung, Taiwan's key northern port. The launches, conducted without warheads, were less about hitting targets than about sending an unmistakable political message: Beijing possessed the capability and the will to strike Taiwan's shipping lanes and disrupt daily life on the island. Additional rounds of missile tests and live-fire naval and air exercises followed through August 1995, with further drills staged in November near the Taiwanese-controlled Dongshan Island, keeping tensions elevated for months.
Did You Know?
Despite carrying live warheads-free missiles, China's 1995–96 tests were serious enough that commercial airlines rerouted flights and container ships altered courses to avoid the designated splashdown zones near Taiwan's busiest ports, disrupting regional trade for weeks.
Escalation Ahead of Taiwan's First Direct Presidential Election
Tensions flared again in early 1996 as Taiwan prepared for its first direct popular election of a president, scheduled for March 23, with Lee Teng-hui the front-runner. Beijing calculated that renewed intimidation could sway voters away from candidates seen as pro-independence. Starting on March 8, 1996, the PLA fired multiple M-9 missiles into waters uncomfortably close to Taiwan's two busiest ports, Kaohsiung in the south and Keelung in the north, effectively bracketing the island's main shipping approaches. The PLA simultaneously staged large-scale amphibious assault exercises and live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait, mobilizing an estimated 150,000 troops. Commercial airlines and shipping companies scrambled to reroute around the danger zones, and global markets watched nervously as fears grew that Beijing might attempt a blockade or invasion. Far from cowing Taiwanese voters, however, the coercion appeared to backfire: on election day, Lee Teng-hui won decisively with 54 percent of the vote, a result widely interpreted as a rebuke of Beijing's pressure tactics and a strong public endorsement of Taiwan's young democracy.
The U.S. Response and Aftermath
Alarmed by the scale of China's exercises, President Bill Clinton ordered the largest U.S. military deployment in Asia since the Vietnam War. In March 1996, the Pentagon dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups, led by the USS Independence and the USS Nimitz, to waters near Taiwan, a show of force intended to deter any Chinese attempt to escalate beyond missile tests and exercises. The Nimitz group transited the Taiwan Strait itself, a symbolically pointed maneuver. Beijing, lacking the naval and air power to challenge the American carriers directly, concluded its exercises as scheduled on March 23, 1996, the day of Taiwan's election, without further escalation. The crisis proved a turning point on multiple fronts. It exposed the vulnerability Taiwan felt in the face of Chinese coercion and hardened American commitment to the island's defense, while also convincing Chinese military planners of the need to modernize their forces to deter future U.S. intervention, spurring a sustained buildup of missile, naval, and anti-access capabilities in the decades that followed. The episode remains a foundational reference point for understanding cross-strait tensions and U.S.-China strategic competition to this day.