Initiative is an ephemeral thing, easily lost when things go wrong.
No, I'm not advocating what a Douhet-style obliteration of Taiwan. It would be counterproductive and would tilt world sympathy to Taiwan -- and if you think the Euros were on our backs about Iraq, wait until they have to choose between a democracy and the "China market." The PRC would try to ape US doctrine and take out C4I targets.
Then you're back to using nukes. The miss distances and likely reliability figures on those missiles mean that you HAVE to use nukes to be reasonably sure of a kill.
And from what's out there in the public domain, they seem to be focusing on cyber-war capabilities as well.
Cyberwar is one of those overhyped notions from RAND that promises, at most, mutual assured annoyance. Read The Crypt for a more realistic notion of "cyberwar."
They wouldn't have to be anywhere near 100% effective to gain an advantage during the first few days.
Actually, they would. You're talking about very high-risk operations in return for a relatively modest gain. If ANYTHING goes wrong early on, they're hosed.
And just because they would be wise to have a nuclear arsenal, doesn't mean they do. I would, but hey, who knows?
Never assume that people are dumber than you are just to make your wargame scenario work.