PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

[bsdnf]

Let me explain why China's reaction this time was so strong.

Shinzo Abe amended the constitution, allowing the Self-Defense Forces to participate in combat when a "closely related country" is attacked.

Abe left a loophole: if Japan doesn't want to participate in a war across the Taiwan Strait, it can simply use "we have never recognized Taiwan as a country" as an excuse.

However, Takashi’s statement that “conflict in Taiwan could constitute an existential crisis for Japan” indirectly recognizes Taiwan as a country within this framework. Taro Aso had said this before as Deputy Prime Minister, and Abe had said it after leaving office, but this is the first time a current Japanese Prime Minister has publicly said it.

Later she claim that Japan "relinquished its rights to Taiwan but did not recognize its ownership" is a further provocation, leaving no room for maneuver

This is a series of blatant provocations to China; It's not far from diplomatic downgrade, seriously

 

[GulfLander]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1994630850642940396

 

[CMP]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1994630850642940396

These leaders in Taiwan should really just do the world a favor and all jump off a cliff.

 

[jiajia99]

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How Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 Taiwan Trip Helped Japan Decide to Rearm

What was widely expected at the time from Pelosi’s visit — the first in a quarter century by one of the most powerful of US political officials — was a sharp reaction in Beijing, where the Communist leadership claims the island as part of its territory. And, indeed, China massively ramped up military exercises around Taiwan, including repeated crossings of a US-defined median line in the Taiwan Strait.

But when it subsequently launched ballistic missiles over Taiwan and into the exclusive economic zone of neighboring Japan, that set off a chain reaction. Hirohito Ogi, a former Japanese Defense Ministry official, said “that was a kind of wake-up call for ordinary Japanese citizens.” By the end of that year, he said, the Japanese public was solidly behind a major revamp of national security strategy.

Now at the Institute of Geoeconomics in Tokyo, Ogi explained in an interview earlier this month that the August 2022 incident had a powerful effect on Japan’s lawmakers and public at large. Whereas opposition party members previously were robust in their rejection of increased defense spending, by late 2022, debate had shifted to how to pay for it, not whether to proceed.

Fast forward to today, and Japan’s defense industry is one of the most dynamic parts of Asia’s second-biggest economy. The broad realization of Taiwan’s role in Japan’s security landscape, which the Pelosi trip and its aftermath prompted, also laid some of the groundwork for the latest confrontation that’s erupted between Tokyo and Beijing — this time over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s public indication of military support for Taipei.

Someone’s life expectancy is about to be cut short for this stupidity

 

[AndrewS]

Some thoughts on what a Chinese naval buildup could look like, in the event of a worse case scenario where there is a long conventional war.

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There's an interesting parallel to the situation in 1940 between Imperial Japan and the USA, when the US had 5 fleet carriers whilst Japan had 13.

In the months leading up to Pearl Harbour, the US initiated a crash programme to simultaneously build 13 fleet carriers (which would be the equivalent of adding an entire Japanese Navy carrier fleet). Then after Pearl Harbour, the US ordered another set of 15 carriers from the same shipyards, to immediately follow. In comparison, Japan built barely any new carriers.

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If you extrapolate that to today's situation, China is behind on carriers, so I reckon they would want to start on simultaneous construction of about 15 fleet carriers. Once these are assembled, the same shipyards would immediately start assembling another 15 fleet carriers.

There's enough large drydocks in China to do this, and as the US Navy presentation points out, China has 232x the shipbuilding capacity of today's USA.

Now, if you're building 15 fleet carriers at the same time, nuclear isn't an option because there isn't a mature nuclear-powered design available, and I highly doubt the nuclear supply chain can be ramped up quickly.

But China does have a Type-003 carrier design available now, and it would be better to build conventionally-powered carriers because:

1. They can be built faster and from more shipyards
2. They cost less. This matters because some will be sunk and at the conclusion of the war, most of them will be scrapped anyway as they are surplus to requirements.
3. Whilst nuclear carriers have greater endurance, conventional carriers can compensate with an additional attached supply ship(s). And remember that from mainland China to the 2nd Island Chain, where the decisive operations will be, it is only 3000km, which is 3days sailing time at a cruising speed of 20 knots.

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Then you've got all the naval aircraft to operate on the carriers
Plus submarines and smaller ships such as destroyers, frigates, etc
And interestingly, the Type-076 has an electromagnetic catapult, and should be able to launch ISR and strike aircraft (like the GJ-11) with few compromises

Like I said, this is what I imagine would be the worse case scenario, and would take years.
And afterwards, the world would be transformed...

 

[Michael90]

im not talking about "democracy" im talking about the will to...bomb other nation here .

wolf warrior talk useless if you show no balls to actually bomb and kill someone wrong you .

how long you expect some weakling like....philipines back down their south china sea ...claim , island holding , rusty ship guard post if everything they need to worry about are just water spray and boat ramming ?

20...more years ?

that just the philipines ....what about US/european/australia ? they just keep setting missile in philipines , send weapon to taiwan , sending warship pass taiwan strait and SCS non-stop . you expect them to back down just with diplomacy talk , rarely freedom of navigation ....400km "near" australia alone ?

while china still show no sign willing to openly help russia , setting military base on solomon island , send weapon to venezuela to help them defense from being invade and maybe ....."magically" upgrade red sea houthi anti-ship/anti-air tech again US warship/aircraft?

long story short : right now what china need the most is ....the fighting spirit of russia and the will to accept and withstand economic consequences come along with it .

the west still scare of russia not because the nuke , not because how good russia can fight , or how good russia weapon tech are . they scare because russia feel no pain (gave zero fk about economic consequences) , never stop fighting once the battle start ....

I agree to some extent with you. However, China is not Russia and will never be, so comparison between the two is meaningless. Russia has always been an expansionist imperial military power just like the West. It's for that reason that they were part of the 8 nation alliance with other western powers that carve out China into zones of influence and took territories from China. Russia has done this with countless other countries as well(Japan included). So Russians have a history of imperialism , a culture of expansion, war and control over other countries and territories and a phobia for any major power infringing upon what they consider their zone of influence and they are ready to do anything to stop that(including war, which is natural part of live for them) once they deem that is being threatened .
China by contrast doesn't have such a history and culture of such things. If anything Chinese culture is naturally actually more insulated /isolationist and prone to shutting doors to protect herself from outside influence or wars,so its more defensivethan offensive. I believe China is actually more of a peaceful power(especially for her size). The only empire in Chinese history that ventured to conquer other far away countries as a policy was were the mongols(not Chinese) when they were in power and had control over China and they expanded far away as much as they liked and deem necessary. They had a similar mindset to Russia and western powers (having a penchant of greed, control, wars , and expansionism into others land/territory). The most real Chinese empires demanded after the Mongols was merely tribute, that's as far as they were willing to go, not control.

So we should differentiate the two. Russians(like western powers) have grown with a different mindset and thus have a tolerance for wars and losses, especially when they consider their interests being threatened (look how the US reacted to the Cuban missile crisis, and imagine how Europe or the US will react if China ever even considered placing any military facilities anywhere closed to Europe or the US), the same way Russia will never tolerate western powers infringing upon her sphere of influence, reason they went to war in Georgia and then seized crimea to warn the west and then went to full scale war with Ukraine when the West still choose to ignore their warnings . This would never have happened if CCP was in charge of Russia. It's also a reason of mindset, culture and history . You dont just change a country's overnight while ignoring her history,culture and mindset which has been shaped by centuries of history%tradition.

 

[manqiangrexue]

im not talking about "democracy" im talking about the will to...bomb other nation here .

wolf warrior talk useless if you show no balls to actually bomb and kill someone wrong you .

how long you expect some weakling like....philipines back down their south china sea ...claim , island holding , rusty ship guard post if everything they need to worry about are just water spray and boat ramming ?

20...more years ?

that just the philipines ....what about US/european/australia ? they just keep setting missile in philipines , send weapon to taiwan , sending warship pass taiwan strait and SCS non-stop . you expect them to back down just with diplomacy talk , rarely freedom of navigation ....400km "near" australia alone ?

while china still show no sign willing to openly help russia , setting military base on solomon island , send weapon to venezuela to help them defense from being invade and maybe ....."magically" upgrade red sea houthi anti-ship/anti-air tech again US warship/aircraft?

long story short : right now what china need the most is ....the fighting spirit of russia and the will to accept and withstand economic consequences come along with it .

the west still scare of russia not because the nuke , not because how good russia can fight , or how good russia weapon tech are . they scare because russia feel no pain (gave zero fk about economic consequences) , never stop fighting once the battle start ....

You just posted perfect evidence for why China should not act like Russia. Russia always exhibited aggression that scared the West. For that, they were never able to move forward, always meeting resistance in everything they do. They could not build their economy with much global integration because the West always feared what they would do with all that money. Russians couldn't climb the global ladder stealthily like China; I guess their balls were too heavy? LOL And for all that fear, what did Russia get out of it? Did the West back off? Were they scared to send weapons to Russia's enemys? Hell no. All that fear got them to be the center of attention in terms of Western hostility for decades, hiding China, the real threat. On the other hand, China played the game of wolf in sheep's clothing, tranforming in record time from a third world country much poorer and more backwards than the Soviets into the only country in the world that threatens the US on every technology including politically and economically. China integrated itself into the economies of every major nation and sucked from their education systems what was needed to expedite Chinese growth. By the time they realized China's threat, they could do nothing about it. Your post, from start to finish, perfectly demonstrated why China played a smarter and more effective game than the "ballsy" game you wanted to see.

 

[Engineer]

Some thoughts on what a Chinese naval buildup could look like, in the event of a worse case scenario where there is a long conventional war.

---

There's an interesting parallel to the situation in 1940 between Imperial Japan and the USA, when the US had 5 fleet carriers whilst Japan had 13.

In the months leading up to Pearl Harbour, the US initiated a crash programme to simultaneously build 13 fleet carriers (which would be the equivalent of adding an entire Japanese Navy carrier fleet). Then after Pearl Harbour, the US ordered another set of 15 carriers from the same shipyards, to immediately follow. In comparison, Japan built barely any new carriers.

---


If you extrapolate that to today's situation, China is behind on carriers, so I reckon they would want to start on simultaneous construction of about 15 fleet carriers. Once these are assembled, the same shipyards would immediately start assembling another 15 fleet carriers.

There's enough large drydocks in China to do this, and as the US Navy presentation points out, China has 232x the shipbuilding capacity of today's USA.

That is not realistic, at all.

First, the weapon platforms today are far more sophisicated than WWII. It takes many years to complete one ship instead of months, so there is no parallel.

Second, the number of dry docks isn't the limiting factor, the specialised equipments and skills for handling military products are. The 232x number is just typical fear mongering from US's MIC for more fundings. Most of the capacity for building commercial vessels is nearly useless for building military vessels.

Third, since ships became much more sophisicated, the required crew competency is also much higher. That means, the required training time is also much longer. It is pointless to order that many ships because there would be no crew to man them.


In short, it is not possible to build 15 carriers at the same time.

 

[Tomboy]

Third, since ships became much more sophisicated, the required crew competency is also much higher. That means, the required training time is also much longer. It is pointless to order that many ships because there would be no crew to man them.

And no planes to put on them because planes also now take much longer to built and unkike WWII you can't just convert car factories to get extra production.

 

[AndrewS]

That is not realistic, at all.

First, the weapon platforms today are far more sophisicated than WWII. It takes many years to complete one ship instead of months, so there is no parallel.

Second, the number of dry docks isn't the limiting factor, the specialised equipments and skills for handling military products are. The 232x number is just typical fear mongering from US's MIC for more fundings. Most of the capacity for building commercial vessels is nearly useless for building military vessels.

Third, since ships became much more sophisicated, the required crew competency is also much higher. That means, the required training time is also much longer. It is pointless to order that many ships because there would be no crew to man them.


In short, it is not possible to build 15 carriers at the same time.

The assumption is that this would take years to convert civilian industry for such a buildup

Optimistically, call it:

a) 1-2 years lead time for advance components and module fabrication
b) <2 years for module assembly
c) 1 year fitout
d) 1 year shakedown

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4 years is long enough to build a pipeline of trained crew

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And what specialised equipment and skills for handling military products are you specifically referring to?