Having said this, I don't believe that a war with Taiwan is imminent or even likely in the next decade or two. The primary reason is that while a nuclear expansion solves the problems of vertical escalation China has, it doesn't address the problems of horizontal escalation. The US has options beyond direct military attacks against China - for instance, it can blockade Chinese shipping or disconnect China from the dollar trading system. These problems require different (and much slower) solutions that I'll touch on here. China can neutralize the threat of blockades by expanding the PLAN (most crucially, the nuclear attack submarine fleet) and basing it in friendly countries along its sea lanes. I have in mind specifically Cambodia and Pakistan, and perhaps others like Myanmar, Iran, and Syria. The problem of trade sanctions can be resolved by developing China's interbank payment system CIPS and its central bank digital currency. More importantly, strategies like dual circulation would reduce and eventually eliminate China's vulnerability to foreign technology, and carbon neutrality would obviate the need for hydrocarbon imports.
Overall, a very significant development that augurs greater things to come.
Let me be frank with you. His approach to increasing Chinese nuclear power is correct in my view, but his conclusions about China's "horizontal escalation problems" is another story.
1st option: naval blockade.
So far, only one admiral considers a naval blockade a realistic option to contain the Chinese, this in a public way. We do not know until now whether there is widespread adherence by US admirals and officials to this execution plan to limit Chinese growth and influence. For this to happen, the entire USN (US Navy) needs to be engaged to carry out the naval blockade, an option like that would be a declaration of war against China, not even against the Soviets in Cuba, the Americans called quarantine a naval blockade. Knowing this, a naval blockade is a prerequisite for all-out war.
Second part, even if the US considers this option, the USN does not have enough ships to operate in the Western Pacific to carry out the naval blockade. This is a fact supported by dozens of stories on the subject and even official USN reports confirm this. In order to carry out the blockade, they would necessarily need to rely on their allies such as Japan, South Korea, the Philippines... among others. The chance of this happening is very remote, not to say impossible.
The third part of the comment is that even if they managed to block, there are numerous ways to get around it. There is no efficient way to carry out the naval blockade, some ships from other nations will be blocked, even if they have no relationship with the Chinese, this can lead to many frictions on a global level. One way to make this happen is for the Chinese to change the flag and registration of commercial ships, this can be done in a week, imagine the mess this will make for those who joined the naval blockade, simply in this situation, all ships of all flags would have to be blocked, world trade would stop, world prices would soar, looting would happen all over the world, even in the countries that carried out the blockade, imagine the people's dissatisfaction with this situation.
I, considering all these aspects, the chance of an effective naval blockade against the Chinese is very remote, not to say that it would be completely nil. Therefore, the US military is very reluctant to assert that the naval blockade option is a military "option".
2nd option: Compulsorily withdraw China from the dollar trading system.
I do not think it's a good idea. Frankly, I think it would be even worse for the Americans than for world trade itself. I explain.
China is the largest maritime nation in the world, the largest trading nation in the world, the largest exporting nation in the world, the second largest importer in the world, on the way to becoming the largest importer in the world as well. This means that China trades with the whole world, and most countries in the world are countries that have China as their main trading partner, Brazil, the country I live in, is no different.
Do you know how world trade is done? I explain in a simple way not to go into too much detail why this topic is of another subject. I'm going to put China and Brazil, the country I live in, so I can explain it in an easier way.
When a Brazilian exporter exports its product to China, that Brazilian company does not receive yuan or in Brazilian national currency, but in dollars, the same thing happens with a Brazilian importer. When a Brazilian decides to export or import, he necessarily needs to resort to an American bank, because the dollar is the international exchange currency, therefore, the Brazilian Central Bank needs to exchange the "ownership" of an American bank account in dollars with the amount spent in the negotiation for the Brazilian importer, in this case the Brazilian importer would have to send the Brazilian national currency to the Brazilian Central Bank to receive in dollars in an American bank in the US, then the Brazilian importer decides to deposit the money in the Chinese exporter's account (if the Brazilian importer wants to keep ownership of the account for future negotiations) or again, change the "ownership" of this account to the Chinese exporter, if the Chinese exporter wants to keep the US bank account with the dollars for future negotiations, he keeps , otherwise it exchanges the "entitlement" of this account with the dollars deposited with the Chinese Central Bank in exchange for yuan in a bank. the Chinese in China, because there is no current use of dollars in China. That's how world trade is done.
Imagine a context in which China is forced to stop using due to an international blockade unable to use the dollar in trade, it would be a complete disaster. China can use different forms of negotiation with the Russians for example, but with most of the world it is still done in dollars, and that would be harmful to world trade, even more so to the US. As China is the biggest trading partner of most countries that use dollars for international exchange, if that were impossible, the demand for dollars would collapse. As the largest exporter in the world and the second largest importer in the world, on the verge of becoming the largest importer as well, the fall would be devastating for the dollar and would affect the dollar standard that maintains the global financial system, it would do away with the US. If world trade were to come to a standstill because of this, the US would suffer an even worse fate, because the demand for dollars would collapse, consequently the value of the dollar would plummet, the public debt would have to be defaulted, inflation would soar, I believe that even there would be hyperinflation in some sectors.
This measure taken as an option by the Americans would be even worse for the Americans than for the rest of the world, because the sudden change in world trade would affect countries, but there are countless ways to get around this, and the world would be forced to finding a way out to normalize international exchange, the US would simply be taken out of this equation, relegating itself to a secondary country, because it would no longer play the game in world trade. Therefore, this option has even less to be implemented than naval blockade.
It is for these reasons that China is changing international exchange in a safe and focused way in some countries, without harming world trade, and even itself, because even with this sudden drop in the dollar, China simply would not have more US$1 trillion in dollar reserves it holds. China is doing the right thing and long enough to allow a gradual change without getting on the nerves of any country, while increasing its self-sufficiency, such as electric vehicles for transportation, decreasing its dependence on oil and increasing investment in reactors nuclear power, decreasing its dependence on coal and gas.
Please forgive me for deviating the focus of matter, but a lot is still said to be simply easy to accomplish, but the reality is that it is not.
