Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Any invasion of Taiwan will be unnecessary. Taiwan is an island, unlike Ukraine. In addition, Ukraine has land borders with *several* NATO countries, making reinforcements of supply and infiltration of saboteurs/spec ops trivially easy.

That isolation of Taiwan means it is harder to assault, yes, but it also means it is much harder to come to the rescue of. China's most rational strategy is to simply institute a massive trade blockade and wait out the Taiwanese until they surrender. China has a massive navy now and it has huge amounts of missiles which could easily wipe out any navy trying to come to the rescue.

The bigger question is if China wants to deal with the economic fallout that Russia is now seeing. China is much stronger, but it is not yet as strong to laugh it off. It would need to be 50% larger than the US GDP at least not to be affected much by sanctions.

Godzilla said:

In terms of seaport, aside from Pingtan, Quanzhou and Putian, Fuzhou & Xiamen ports are way too close to Jinmen & Matsu. So I am curious, in terms of staging, and given just the shear quantity of ports available along the Eastern sea board, wouldn't they utilize all of the ports in Guangdong / Zhejiang & coordinate between the Southern & Eastern theater command for some rendezvous point in the strait for the first wave, and use Fujian as a faint and only utilize it for the second wave / logistics hub? The rail & highway network would really come into its own by then.

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China might take Jinmen and Matsu well before they mount a full invasion, as a kind of warning flex. But a lot depends on specific sequences of events.

Bltizo said:

You are making these complex and resource and competency intensive operations sound like they are easily achievable, and that once they succeed at the operation then it will be game over.

But attaining those operations in the first place is far from easy, and instead of thinking about what the PLA can do after they've succeeded, we should be thinking about what they need to organize and procure to achieve those operations to begin with.


Re-read your post and see the number of times you've written "if China just does xyz". And think about how difficult it is to actually do those things.

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Like I said they are just hypotheticals and ideas. I don't actually think this will happen and I don't want it to happen either.

In reality the best thing china can do would be to up it's information and media game, and meddle in Taiwanese domestic politics, overthrow hostile govs and install pro china govs. Of course that would make china hypocritical and against it's non intererence foreign policy but it can also be argued that Taiwan is not sovereign country and is part of china and unended civil war so it's fair game.

tphuang said:

Stop saying things like flattening the whole island. PLA is not going to do that. We are having this whole discussion because the best way for them to take over Taiwan is a quick campaign that causes local to give up and surrender without causing large amount of casualties. You don't want rest of the world charging China with war crimes.

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You are expecting best case scenario where I'm expecting worse case scenario. I'm looking to save as many lives and equipment of chinese military as possible. A light/quick campaign only works if they surrender. If they don't, then what? I'd rather not drag things out and give time for the world to get involved.

Even if china flattens Taiwan, it will be under the scenario I mentioned with all innocents given chance to leave to safe zones, so anyone remaining is fair game. Afterwards the money china saves in lives, sanctions and equipment losses can be used to rebuild Taiwans lost infrastructure. It won't take long at all with full power and resources that china has. That will be the easiest and cleanest way.

Also, china would not resort to force unless there is no other option. I'm of the mindset that you don't fight unless you're 100% committed. Even in a street fight. You don't fight expecting things to be easy and the enemy to not be trying to kill you, and you holding back from seriously hurting them and refraining from "dirty moves" etc. They could pull out a knife and just shank you after.

You don't fight a war and do it half assed hoping your enemy will surrender instantly. Otherwise you might as well just do blockade and not even go in and have zero casualties. But that will drag it out and china will probably take more damage from world co ordinating sanctions like they are doing agaisnt Russia.

Or better yet not fight at all, which is china's current position. But if forced, I suggest go 100% straight in hard and fast, no half assed shit. Imo if there was chance of quick surrender or whatever china would not even attack in the first place and just negotiate.

Charging china with war crimes? China just needs to ignore it like usa. Sanction their families and relatives like usa. ICC is a joke.

China can win a war with Taiwan alone easily, the problem is how to avoid the US getting involved and how to limit economic losses. That means the operation has to be as fast as possible and the information war is more important to get them to surrender.

China has to build up momentum to convince Taiwanese nationalists that fighting is futile. So use bribery and massive landing fleets to take all the small islands in two days and get just a small number of troops on the main island on the first day. There should ideally be a victory every day of the campaign.

If China can't achieve that, it should be patient, even if Taiwan declared independence today.

This war might very well convince the Taiwanese that their freedom is worth fighting for. Will to fight is the most important factor in a war.

sequ said:

This war might very well convince the Taiwanese that their freedom is worth fighting for. Will to fight is the most important factor in a war.

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Wanwanese are not stupid. Did you miss the news when the West tried to equate the island with Ukraine and then all the Wanwanese government officials publically strongly denied it...

They may talk big game, but in reality they know how to stay clear of the redlines. They know that if China commits to something it doesn't do half-arsed measures

Ex0 said:

Like I said they are just hypotheticals and ideas. I don't actually think this will happen and I don't want it to happen either.

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Sure.

I am just explaining to you that your ideas and hypotheticals are overly simplistic and excessively optimistic as to how such operations would be carried out.

The fact that no one wants such a conflict to materialize doesn't change that the way you've described it.

China faces a strategic dilemma, should she strike now not fully prepared, or should she wait.
China would like to wait for all conditions to be favorable, and time is indeed on her side.
China also would not want to smash up everything in Taiwan and want to keep bloodshed to the minimum, as this is a civil war between 2 brothers, not fighting to the death between 2 sworn enemies.
BUT, the US knows it, and the US is a most cunning crafty old devil. She has many tricks and tools in her toolbox to make life extremely difficult for China.
1, the US will arm Taiwan to the teeth to cause PLA blood to be spilled as much as possible so that in anger the PLA, in turn, would bomb Taiwan into oblivion-->years of animosity afterward between the 2 brothers. Making post-unification governance very difficult.
2, China would like to have a quick and decisive battle to cause the least bloodshed and destruction, but of course, the US would like to turn it into a prolonged war of attrition, coupled with Anglo-Saxon/western economic sanctions and MSM media demonizing and smearing campaign against China, to set China's economic development back 2-3 decades so that the US can remain as the sole Hegemon on Earth.

Not an easy choice, I tell ya. the world is slowly but inevitably turning into an East-West divide. Or, perhaps this is exactly what the elites in Washington want: Cold War 2.

We all saw the importance of cognitive warfare during this Ukrainian war. I am not one to spew disinformation. China need to do a better job using facts to fight brainwashing in Taiwan and their disinformation in the west. Here is an example by Taiwan independence forces:


Something like this can easily sway public opinions in the US! technique? pick and choose history! So what's the real story? 228 and the white terror was done by KMT, a regime supported and protected by none other than the US of A!!! And Who are they trying to kill? The CCP or CCP sympathizers. Yes, that CCP that is running China.

victoon said:

China need to do a better job using facts to fight brainwashing in Taiwan

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You can't fight brainwashing in western media platforms. Have you seen what's happening in Ukraine. All western media platforms have cut out any Russian supporting content.

China needs a lot more to combat this than simply using "facts"