Oriana Skylar Mastro is a renowned expert in Indo-Pacific security and strategy. She is a Center Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on China’s foreign and defense policy, deterrence dynamics, and strategic competition in the Asia-Pacific region. She is also a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In addition to her academic work, she serves in the United States Air Force Reserve, currently stationed at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve China Global Strategy.
Dr. Mastro was the featured guest at an event held on March 17, 2025, at Sapienza University of Rome, organized by the Center for Geopolitical Studies “Geopolitica.info” in collaboration with the Taiwan Studies Center at Sapienza. On this occasion, she presented the ‘Upstart strategy’, as outlined in her recent publication Upstart: How China Became a Great Power.
This interview was conducted following the event and delves into Dr. Mastro’s analytical framework and its implications for China’s approach to security and foreign policy. The conversation ranges from her strategic assessment of China’s rise to its impact on relations with the United States, Italy, Taiwan, Russia and the European Union.
Intro:
China’s rise is often described as the defining feature of 21st-century international politics. From your perspective, which strategy, or combination of strategies, has been most responsible for this rise? How has China pursued these strategies to achieve such remarkable growth and influence?
For this question, I would refer to the core argument of my book, which outlines what I call the “upstart strategy.” I argue that China’s rise has been driven by a combination of emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship. Each of these components has played a distinct role in enabling China’s growth and expanding its influence on the global stage.
Emulation refers to China adopting U.S. strategies in areas where the United States is already active. This approach has been particularly effective in reassuring the United States and the international community. For instance, when China engages in free trade, participates in international organizations, contributes to peacekeeping operations, or undertakes diplomatic initiatives and high-level visits (so essentially mirroring U.S. behavior) it signals a willingness to follow established norms, which tends to reduce alarm among other actors. In some cases, China also finds competitive advantages in these areas, but it made sense to act similarly.
Exploitation, on the other hand, involves China adopting U.S. strategies but applying them in new domains. This has allowed China to accumulate power incrementally without provoking a strong U.S. response. While the book does not explicitly rank the effectiveness of each component of the upstart strategy, my research suggests that exploitation occupies a middle ground: it is more concerning to the United States than emulation because it reveals direct competition, for example, in arms sales or anti-access/area denial strategies, but it is still less provocative than a full-scale challenge in areas where the United States has clear advantages. It builds power, but not an exorbitant amount.
Finally, entrepreneurship is when China develops entirely new strategies in domains where the United States is not active. It is the most effective in building power while avoiding a forceful U.S. reaction. These innovative approaches often go unrecognized by the United States until much later, and their effectiveness is frequently underestimated precisely because they differ from traditional U.S. methods. As a result, entrepreneurial strategies enable China to expand its influence significantly in new arenas of competition.
On Upstart analysis and Chinese strategy:
In Upstart, you outline three strategic approaches that China employs: emulation, exploitation, and entrepreneurship. Since 2015, particularly following developments like the construction of the Mischief Reef and the UNCLOS arbitration ruling, do you think China is still balancing all three strategies? Or has it shifted to rely more heavily on one approach, especially in the Taiwan Strait and the broader Indo-Pacific region?
There are various reasons why China chooses one component of the upstart strategy over another. In my work, I identify five main factors that influence this decision: strategic effectiveness, efficiency, domestic political considerations, potential U.S. response, and the existence of strategic gaps that China can exploit.
In cases where China seeks to compete directly, so when it views a U.S. strategy as effective and beneficial for sustaining Communist Party rule but lacks the necessary capabilities, emulation may not be immediately feasible. However, as China’s capabilities improve, it tends to shift toward more direct forms of competition.
This pattern is evident in the military realm. Initially, China focused primarily on impacting U.S. power projection capabilities through an anti-access/area denial strategy. Under Xi Jinping, however, we have seen a transition toward building China’s own power projection capabilities. This includes the expansion of naval forces and significant investments in satellite constellations and space-based architecture to support strategic reach. Certain goals, such as territorial advancement through gray zone tactics, represent an entrepreneurial approach that has proven effective in contexts like the South China Sea. However, such methods are not applicable in the case of Taiwan. Given that Taiwan is a populated territory, any serious attempt to alter the status quo would require the deployment of ground forces; something gray zone strategies alone cannot achieve.
To the question of whether China now relies more heavily on one strategic approach, I would say there has been a proportional shift toward emulation compared to the past. Nevertheless, exploitation and entrepreneurship remain integral components of China’s overall strategy. What has changed significantly is that the potential U.S. response is no longer a primary limiting factor. China now largely assumes that its actions will provoke some level of concern from the United States: they now take that as a given.
On Upstart analysis and Italy:
In Upstart, you explain how China adopts flexible strategies to exploit opportunities and gaps in the international system. Italy’s participation in, and later withdrawal from, the Belt and Road Initiative seems like an example where China’s entrepreneurial diplomacy faced unexpected limits. How might Beijing adapt its strategy toward countries like Italy in response?
That’s a great question. It connects to the broader dynamic of how China tried to extract as much benefit as possible, what I would describe as “getting all the juice” from its engagements with developing countries and with U.S. allies and partners. The idea was to make these countries economically dependent on China as quickly as possible before they fully realized the strategic challenge that China represents. I think we’re now at a stage where countries are more cautious, Italy included. Still, due to existing economic activities and ties, it is not the case that these countries want to completely disengage from China.
So, does China need to actively pursue new strategies, or can it rely on what it has already built? I would argue that Beijing will now focus on convincing countries like Italy that economic ties are more important than any political or military developments. The hope is to preserve the strategic and economic partnerships already established and to prevent countries from moving further away from China.
On Taiwan:
In your works and interviews, you mention that economic sanctions wouldn’t be enough to deter China over Taiwan. Given the U.S.’s recent military posturing and new economic defense alliances, is there a viable deterrence strategy now, or is Beijing still likely to perceive an invasion as feasible?
I don’t mean to say economic sanctions wouldn’t be enough. What I mean is that the effectiveness of sanctions depends greatly on their severity. In order to credibly deter China from invading Taiwan, the level of sanctions would likely need to result in a 10 to 15% drop in Chinese GDP. For comparison, current sanctions on Russia are estimated by economists to have caused a decline of only around 3 to 5%.
If the international community, particularly U.S. allies and partners, were to commit to a complete cessation of trade with China in the event of an invasion, that would likely be sufficient to deter Beijing. In that case, China would not attack Taiwan. However, no country is making such commitments today. Even if these sanctions were imposed post-invasion, they are not being communicated in advance in a way that would serve a deterrent function. My sense is that countries like Italy, for instance, are unlikely to adopt a policy of total economic disengagement from China: especially in the case of a swift invasion that does not result in prolonged repression. Realistically, economic interactions would likely resume.
In light of Taiwan’s increasing integration into global supply chains, and recent moves by the U.S. and allies to diversify away from Taiwanese semiconductors, how does this affect China’s calculus? Does it lessen or heighten the urgency to act?
Regarding Taiwan’s increasing integration into global supply chains, particularly in the semiconductor sector, this actually works to China’s advantage. If China were to control Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, it would be in a position to reassure the international community by signaling a willingness to maintain business as usual. In that scenario, it would fall on Western countries to voluntarily sever economic ties—to choose economic suffering and supply chain disruption—in order to respond to Chinese aggression. China would not be the one refusing to supply semiconductors; the pressure would be on others to boycott. That said, it is important to clarify that China does not seek to annex Taiwan because of its semiconductor industry. Even if that industry ceased to exist tomorrow, China would still pursue unification. The semiconductor issue is simply an added benefit—an extra arrow in the quiver, so to speak.
As for the recent shifts in U.S. military posture and new economic defense alliances, I would argue that they are still insufficient to ensure deterrence. Effective deterrence requires a military denial capability—that is, the physical ability to prevent China from successfully crossing the Strait and taking Taiwan. It is not enough that such an invasion would be costly; it must be physically impossible to achieve. Currently, the U.S. and its allies do not possess the types or quantities of munitions necessary to win a conflict under a “quick war to completion” scenario, in which the conflict is resolved in a matter of weeks. And on the economic front, as I mentioned, no actor has made the kind of credible, large-scale commitments—at the level of sanctions that would truly matter—that could serve as an effective deterrent today.
On recent Trump-led global order changes and EU impact:
You’re working on China-Russia military alignment. How does the upstart model apply to that partnership, particularly in the context of the shifting global order and the Taiwan question?
When it comes to Russia, China’s approach reflects both entrepreneurial and exploitative elements. It is entrepreneurial in the sense that China does not have a formal military alliance with Russia. Instead, it pursues strategic partnerships, which function differently from traditional mutual defense pacts.
What China and Russia are doing is somewhat unique: they are working together to serve as strategic rears for one another, helping to reduce the impact of sanctions and other external pressures.
The EU has been debating ‘strategic autonomy’ for years, but Trump’s latest global posture might accelerate those efforts. Do you think the EU can avoid becoming merely a secondary player in the U.S.-China competition? How can Europe assert itself as an independent pole in the international system without being caught in the middle?
I’m not sure you’ll appreciate my American perspective on this. When European actors delay or avoid making difficult decisions about China, and when they argue that the security environment in Asia is not their concern and that their priority is maintaining strong economic ties with Beijing, such positions risk rendering Europe strategically irrelevant. If Europe genuinely wants to achieve strategic autonomy, it must embrace its role as a strategic player. And to do that, it must be willing to engage directly in the Indo-Pacific. That means not standing back or avoiding confrontation with Beijing in hopes of securing trade deals, especially when China is engaging in coercive behavior in the South China Sea, vis-à-vis Taiwan, or elsewhere. Of course, I recognize that China’s behavior is shaped by relative power dynamics. The United States can take certain positions without facing severe repercussions, whereas other countries, like Australia, have faced significant economic retaliation for similar actions. So, it’s not an even playing field.
But when we talk about EU autonomy, it’s essential that this not be pursued on a purely national basis. It cannot be that President Macron travels to China to assure independence from the United States, while other European leaders call for stronger pressure on China over Taiwan. Strategic autonomy requires a unified message and, ideally, a coordinated economic strategy in the event of conflict; one that has been thought through and rehearsed in advance, much like NATO conducts war games and military exercises.
In the end, to be strategically relevant, Europe must be willing to take risks. Only by actively participating and playing a role in shaping outcomes in the Indo-Pacific can Europe truly claim to possess strategic autonomy.
