The China Thread (Threat)

I'd expect initial Chinese landings forces to be carried and supported by mostly light vehicles, while facing basicaly everything Taiwan can throw at them with home advantige and good quality anti-armor weapons. That small force of elite Chinese troops would likely be brutaly mauled or wholly defeated before China is able to land more substantial numbers and heavier equipment.
 
This is me spitballing, but we can cripple the PRC's military before they even get on their ships and planes. Create enough dissent and havoc in their part of the world and the excursionary forces the PRC built up will be turned inward. Right now, the PRC is not as unified as they make themselves out to be. There is a lot of internal dissent in China, it's also how Xi was able to gather as much power as he did.

If we really want to stop 'Mainland China's' expansion we need to stop trading with them. MC has an excess of single males, widespread food insecurity, food pollution, corruption, bankrupt pensions, unsecure energy/resource supply routes, etc. The PRC's house in in disarray, hence their police state. Cut China's revenue streams, kill/imprison/deport their spies, scientists, & exchange students, and China's house of cards will start to crumble.

You can't innovate when you're best people are dead or rotting away.
 
I think if China was to surround and quarantine the island the whole world would lash out. I don't think China would do that. The economic sanctions alone would cripple their economy to the point that they would resemble the 1800s. I also think at that point some non -Chinese subs in the strait would be engaging in target practice.
 
I've war-gamed this one out quite a bit. Our Navy and Air Force are not in the numbers they once were. China has a lot expendables. If they were to seize the Island it would likely look Kings Landing after Denaerys heard the bells. The number of missiles targeting governmental and military facilities there are, well they're in the thousands. The Chinese have to continued to expand their blue water and amphibious capabilities.

If we had to commit a third of our naval capacity and a significant portion of our Air Force to fuck with Iran over whatever they've got a helluva time to re-deploy to the South China Sea. China doesn't have a lot of friends in the region, but the naval capabilities of Vietnam and the Philippines are nominal at best. You'd need Japan and Korea fully deployed to counter and push them back. Now, Japan has been building out their Naval Capacity for years. But would Japan and Korea see this as their fight? Would Australia who has a small but very competent Navy deploy? Would India take up this fight?

This would not be like fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq the same time.
 
China is getting more and more assertive in the region, and the only reason they haven't achieved hegemony in the Pacific is because of the US. If we appear to waver, or to lose interest, there's nothing anyone else can do to stop China from doing anything else they want to do in that area. And everyone knows it. That's one of the reasons the US and Viet Nam are getting all chummy these days. Same thing with Philippines. It wouldn't surprise me to see a lot of other regional players, including ones we don't traditionally think of as partners, climbing on board as well.

I admire the Taiwanese but they would get crushed. Their coastal defenses are not particularly useful against a force that can go over them by air, or through them, or simply bypass them by going upriver in hovercraft. I believe the Taiwanese would fight, but they have no staying power. China's also not particularly concerned with human rights, and there are literally no neighboring coutries to the island of Taiwan, so there is no ability to easily flow in troops or supplies, and no Western-style governments worried about what the troops on the ground are doing in order to secure the populace. They would probably also throw whole bunch of economic development and social services at the population and try to keep things as close to status quo ante as they could in order to tamp down resistance.

The population of Taiwan is approximately 23.5 million. That's considerably smaller than both Iraq and Afghanistan. It's also considerably closer, in terms of distance, culture, and language. For many reasons, the issues we had with Iraq and AFG simply won't be at play with China/Taiwan.
 
Devildoc said:
I think if China was to surround and quarantine the island the whole world would lash out. I don't think China would do that. The economic sanctions alone would cripple their economy to the point that they would resemble the 1800s. I also think at that point some non -Chinese subs in the strait would be engaging in target practice.
Click to expand...

You could very much say that they already are with the occupation of the Spratly Islands and other man made islands in the nearby reefs. I still think the US is looking at these incidents or potential wars in the sense of an Army vs Army, but China is making economical moves, technological advances, and territorial gains moves by taking these islands and ultimately having the potential to control important shipping lanes in the South China Sea.

China is waging a much larger and more impactful type of war. Control the world in an economic sense with the shipping lanes, then with the new Belt and Road initiative they've potentially developed a system that circumvents the old tradition of controlling the sea. In addition to this, China has put a huge focus on the technical and scientific plane of warfare. This plane has yet to be fully understood or have actual ROE's developed and we have constantly seen China take advantage of this.

I do believe getting Taiwan under Chinese control is an end-game goal of China, but many other initiatives will come first. We also have to worry about the possible takeover of the Senkaku Islands.
 
Marauder06 said:
China is getting more and more assertive in the region, and the only reason they haven't achieved hegemony in the Pacific is because of the US. If we appear to waver, or to lose interest, there's nothing anyone else can do to stop China from doing anything else they want to do in that area. And everyone knows it. That's one of the reasons the US and Viet Nam are getting all chummy these days. Same thing with Philippines. It wouldn't surprise me to see a lot of other regional players, including ones we don't traditionally think of as partners, climbing on board as well.

I admire the Taiwanese but they would get crushed. Their coastal defenses are not particularly useful against a force that can go over them by air, or through them, or simply bypass them by going upriver in hovercraft. I believe the Taiwanese would fight, but they have no staying power. China's also not particularly concerned with human rights, and there are literally no neighboring coutries to the island of Taiwan, so there is no ability to easily flow in troops or supplies, and no Western-style governments worried about what the troops on the ground are doing in order to secure the populace. They would probably also throw whole bunch of economic development and social services at the population and try to keep things as close to status quo ante as they could in order to tamp down resistance.

The population of Taiwan is approximately 23.5 million. That's considerably smaller than both Iraq and Afghanistan. It's also considerably closer, in terms of distance, culture, and language. For many reasons, the issues we had with Iraq and AFG simply won't be at play with China/Taiwan.
Click to expand...

Too add, if China were to make a large move such as retaking Taiwan I believe it would appear as though it were all legal. I mean this in the sense in the lanes in which they have generally been operating. Creating islands, taking over the Spratlys, heck even the treatment of their own people, it's all shown in a way that "Hey this is perfectly legal". I believe they would negotiate some deal, possibly flex some trade/economic power to Taiwan and ultimate force Taiwan under their rule, but with almost zero military operations. Without the US there to run interference (Such as being distracted with Iran) I see this as a possible avenue, but still find it doubtful in the near future.
 
I don't think Taiwan can be subjugated by just a hail of cruise and conventional ballistic missiles. I could be entirely wrong though. But, you deplete your hundreds of missiles, may or may not take out most strategic targets and all the destruction achieves was an increase of bitter resentment towards the Chinese and probably also not that much destruciton in the first place. It would be better to try winning hearts and minds over a longer period or otherwise. But via war that is only achievable after with a successful invasion, and that's where I see too many hurdles.

China must be willing to invest enormous resources into that conflict and accept potentialy high losses. It would need to scramble most of it's naval and air assets. The preparation of such a large scale operation will probably not go unnoticed, especialy with so many Taiwanese living in China and it has to be a surprise attack on an unsuspecting Taiwan for maximum effect. At least in order to quickly seize the smaller islands without much trouble. Use many merchant / civilian vessels.

I don't think a direct invasion of the main land would be very smart. Shore defences are not the only concern even if they were quickly dealt with. The Taiwanese will fight, and China can only deploy limited manpower at a time for an invasion and localy they would be dramaticaly outgunned and quickly outnumbered in every proposed landing area, pushed back into the sea, even with air and naval support. Especialy on the mountainous eastern coastlines Those are long distances for air sorties. That's why I think it would be in their best interest to at least secure all the smaller islands first and establish a of bases around the main island from which to make further moves.
 
I defo agree about the long game, that's the only reasonable and successful strategy I see. Ideally without any conflict and crisis at all.
 
ThunderHorse said:
The Chinese have done a significant IO on Taiwan. There is a significant amenableness to the population it seems. Whereas the population in HK is becoming agitated.
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100% agree. IO is a huge capability that is being built up by China. While attending a recent Rand Corp. open source presentation, they spoke about the PRC's interest in heavily building up their Information Operations Unit which has Cyber and EW falling under it.

Was trying to navigate their website to find the white paper, but couldn't locate it. However, found a nice breakdown of the PLA's modernization efforts.
 

Attachments

Jaknight said:
Question how good is China’s manufacturing capabilities? Is it better than ours?
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I think it depends.....

Rapid hardware prototyping?

I doubt there is a better hardware prototyping ecosystem in the world than Shenzhen.

The US and other western countries still possess much of the very best niche/sector manufacturing capability, but China is investing very heavily in a range of strategic manufacturing sectors with the intent to be the world’s best, or “fast follow”.

Huawei started out with some stolen Cisco tech. Now it’s massive R&D budget means it has a legit shot at winning the global 5G war.

In the early 1980’s President Reagan expended a LOT of political capital to disrupt the TransSiberian Pipeline. Disrupting Soviet hard currency revenue(and influence) gained if NATO partners bought Soviet gas.

Fast forward 40 years and the pipeline is in place and was only stalled. And Huawei is pushing hard in UK(halfway), Germany, and Italy.
 
DA SWO said:
Can China feed itself?
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It can't at the moment, most of their foods and food based commodities are imported. They are sending lots of student to colleges with successful Agricultural, Horticultural, and Animal Husbandry programs. Pakistan send a fair amount of Ag based goods their way too.
 

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