Sunk costs without tying hands: Multiple signaling in China’s coercive diplomacy during the 2022 Taiwan Strait crisis

This paper investigates China’s coercive diplomacy during the 2022 Taiwan Strait Crisis. Using quantitative natural language processing techniques, we unveil the key emotional, operational, and semantic characteristics of China’s propaganda campaigns during Pelosi’s Taiwan visit. While the literature focuses on how China signals its resolve in diplomatic disputes by generating audience costs, we find that Beijing’s coercive diplomacy relies on sunk-cost rather than hand-tying signals, as it escalated military threats in the wake of Pelosi’s visit. Our finding suggests that China’s coercive diplomacy serves to moderate domestic audience, aiming at shaping the public sentiment and retaining societal approval.