Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

lcloo · Mar 1, 2022

Psychological warfare application should play a very important part in pre/ongoing/after battles. We can see that the Ukrainian have not lost their will to fight despite facing a supposely mighty Russian forces (which turn out not so). And that posed a problem bigger than anticipated by the Russians.

Mainland China should subtly (as in the Western media) feed Taiwanese, especially the younger generations, the ideas that there is no hope of winning and no point of fighting to death, and after reunion with mainland China there will not be discrimation between the islanders and mainlanders. It will be easy choice of fighting to death or refuse to fight and live to see a better days later on unless they are hardcore believer of independence from China.

Fighting a large but demoralised army is more easier than fighting a small but highly moral one. This we can see in Iraq war and the current Russia-Ukraine war. Moreover, larger number of Taiwanese civilians will side with Mainland China if they think reunion can bring better economy and better lives.

On the battlefield side, I think there are already many postings before this post, so I will just bypass it.

supersnoop · Mar 1, 2022

latenlazy said:
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.

I always thought this is the worst strategy.
Kinmen and Matsu are what Taiwan is to China, thorns that prick the ruling government. They do not see themselves as "Taiwanese" because they simply are not.
Kinmen relies on mainland for fresh water even.
Now the population of these islands is not significant enough to affect any sort of political instability, but if the islands well being are being ignored by the big island government, it is a narrative play.

lcloo · Mar 1, 2022

supersnoop said:
I always thought this is the worst strategy.
Kinmen and Matsu are what Taiwan is to China, thorns that prick the ruling government. They do not see themselves as "Taiwanese" because they simply are not.
Kinmen relies on mainland for fresh water even.
Now the population of these islands is not significant enough to affect any sort of political instability, but if the islands well being are being ignored by the big island government, it is a narrative play.

True, the near shore islands under control of Taiwan will likely just change side peacefully. They have more access to true information about Mainland China than the brained washed younger generation on Taiwan island. They know the power and prosperity in China, and the hopelessness in resistance to PLA.

A phone call from Fujian or Zhejiang to Jinmen and Mazu is all that is needed to convince tham.

tphuang · Mar 1, 2022

Mohsin77 said:
e.g. "more EW/ECM, more ARMs" for SEAD/DEAD. If you're depending on fixed wing aircraft for this mission, then sure. However, if you're planning on using Drone Swarms and Saturation via Cruise Missiles, you won't need as much ECM or ARMs (but you will need other assets for real-time targeting data.)

Even with a huge build up in cruise missiles, there is still finite number of them that you'd want to keep around for a wider conflict. As such, you want to use EW/ARMs to suppress air defense in a place where you know you can overwhelm the air defense. Ideally, you don't expand more than the SRBM a few CM. Those should be used to give PLAAF time to get in the air and do what it needs to do. From that point, they need 24/7 EW aircraft coverage and psychological warfare coverage over the top

Phead128 said:
What's the rush? China is not a weak declining power who needs to rush against the clock. China should be fully developed/industrialized and a strong conventional/nuclear force, then still wait for an opportune time when US is quagmired in Middle East and Eastern Europe again, then MAYBE perhaps strike. Maybe this will take +100 years, who know, but Time is on China's side.

Exactly, no rush here at all. The vast majority of Taiwanese favor indefinite status quo. We are past the stage where a significant portion of Taiwanese population wants re-unification. Waiting longer will not change any of this. Heck, I wouldn't want to live under the current PRC regime. Remember, Dengxiaoping said they are willing to wait 100 years or longer. China has long history. 50 years is a small blip in China's long history.

lcloo said:
Psychological warfare application should play a very important part in pre/ongoing/after battles. We can see that the Ukrainian have not lost their will to fight despite facing a supposely mighty Russian forces (which turn out not so). And that posed a problem bigger than anticipated by the Russians.

Mainland China should subtly (as in the Western media) feed Taiwanese, especially the younger generations, the ideas that there is no hope of winning and no point of fighting to death, and after reunion with mainland China there will not be discrimation between the islanders and mainlanders. It will be easy choice of fighting to death or refuse to fight and live to see a better days later on unless they are hardcore believer of independence from China.

Right, this is a gradual process. The current PLAAF domination over ROCAF is already eating into the psyche of Taiwanese military. Keep that up. Ordinary Taiwanese are not going to want to join the Air Force when its facing this much pressure.

supersnoop · Mar 1, 2022

victoon said:
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:

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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.

I think the western media is irrelevant in the Taiwanese psychology in the end.
There is a famous communications thesis, "The medium is the message", that is that the medium is as much influencing as the content itself.
English media will inevitably reflect western ideas and conceptions (or misconceptions as the case may be)

The green political class will obviously try hard to appeal to western media by making statements in English. However, these statements are somewhat irrelevant to the typical Taiwanese whose English skill is not as well developed.

So really, if we think of China's psychological strategy within the domain of Taiwan, it should be to control the Chinese narrative.

Look at how triggered the Taiwan government was by the speed skater that wore the Chinese team uniform? That wasn't even a blip on western media, but was quite viral on Chinese social media. She's not medalling like Eileen Gu, but was definitely a memorable moment.

Another good example is Ouyang Nana. After her performance on the mainland in 2020, DPP threatened to arrest her upon her return. So before the youth are written off as lost, let's not forget that both these ladies are young.

Sardaukar20 · Mar 1, 2022

FairAndUnbiased said:
I don't think it will matter because China is not Russia and Fujian is not Voronezh. Voronezh is one of Russia's major agricultural regions and is mostly flat farmland. The buildup was visible because it was in depots in the open. Russia also wanted to do this to intimidate and hopefully get what it wanted without actually invading.

China knows that it will be an actual war. So the buildup will be attempted to be hidden. How?

Well, that brings us to why Fujian is not Voronezh. Fujian is almost a continuous urban region from Xiamen to Fuzhou. There are thousands of warehouses and massive port facilities. All military supplies requiring stockpile can be brought in during the dead of night in sealed containers and put in warehouses. for military vehicles, ferries/landing craft are pre-loaded and dispersed.

Not a bad idea. Still, there are risks of on-the-ground informants, both witting and unwitting. Large amounts of troops and military hardware concentrating in a relatively small region is surely going to attract attention. There are always excited people who would record the unusual presence of military hardware. And then post it onto Douyin, which will inevitably be picked up by people like us, and the foreign media. Furthermore, there would be large amounts of internet chatter which could lead to panic of an impending war. Such things would be easy for the foreign media and intelligence to pick up. China could impose censorship, but that has never truly worked so far. Things will always get out.

Moving smaller equipment like small arms, and supplies could be hidden relatively well. But the big ticket items like MBTs, APCs, trucks, and SAMs are very challenging to hide. China would need to put those onto a train, unload them, then trailer-truck them into warehouses. All within the night hours. This would still be very challenging to hide from bystanders. We had seen Turkey tried this when they were sending tanks to Syria at night. But there were numerous civilians passing by who were excited to take videos and upload them onto YouTube. I mean who wouldn't?

Hiding the buildup of an invasion force worthy of taking Taiwan would be a near impossible task. My first choice would be to use deception. Conduct large military exercises in Fujian multiple times. Establish a pattern, to reduce suspicion. But this is no longer possible now due to what Russia did in the run up to the war with Ukraine. Now Taiwan, Japan, and the US is gonna be extra suspicious of every type of large Chinese military movement. So, there are no ultimate solutions yet.

HereToSeePics · Mar 1, 2022

In a Taiwan scenario, China will need to recognize that all Chinese investments and assets can be held at risk in Western bloc countries. I think the recent events should make China think carefully about continued business investments, asset purchases, infrastructure deals and loans to countries under NATO spheres of influence.

ThomX · Mar 1, 2022

Chinese people do not want to make haste... Because we are not that urgent to acquire some buffer area like Russia is. The first island chain is meaningless to us now, since we have enough navy power to perform area denial in the water. The major problem here is the military bases in South Korea, Japan and Guam, they may have the capability to deter us in the air, so we are still evaluating whether we need to attack first. That would be a complex situation.

And a bit off topic, I believe Russia didn't want this war, but now they have to. Had the clown Zelenskyy and his neo-nazis not squeezing people in eastern Ukraine so hard, Russia might have just put these things aside.

FairAndUnbiased · Mar 1, 2022

Godzilla said:
Actually it is not that simple to hide in Fujian. We have very few flat plains with the bulk of the area very hilly. The equipment will probably be on railway coming through from Zhejiang & Guangdong, and not through the hills as it is a bitch to drive through. There are some good stretches of highway but also lots of country/village roads. There are also alot of Taiwanese business people in Fujian, so nothing gets hidden there for too long.
Its definitely a good place to hide air defense assets though. When I was in primary school in Longtian, they organized tours into some of the radar sites in Jingshan. There was alot of shelters cut into the mountains and there were alot of them, most of them empty. This was back in the 80s!

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.

Does Jinmen have any sensors or bases? From what I know Jinmen has been demilitarized.

For maximum operational speed, Fujian will be a good staging ground for small landing ships. Large landing ships like 071s and 075s can and should be launched from far beyond TW's range such as from Zhanjiang or Ningbo.

Sardaukar20 said:
Not a bad idea. Still, there are risks of on-the-ground informants, both witting and unwitting. Large amounts of troops and military hardware concentrating in a relatively small region is surely going to attract attention. There are always excited people who would record the unusual presence of military hardware. And then post it onto Douyin, which will inevitably be picked up by people like us, and the foreign media. Furthermore, there would be large amounts of internet chatter which could lead to panic of an impending war. Such things would be easy for the foreign media and intelligence to pick up. China could impose censorship, but that has never truly worked so far. Things will always get out.

Moving smaller equipment like small arms, and supplies could be hidden relatively well. But the big ticket items like MBTs, APCs, trucks, and SAMs are very challenging to hide. China would need to put those onto a train, unload them, then trailer-truck them into warehouses. All within the night hours. This would still be very challenging to hide from bystanders. We had seen Turkey tried this when they were sending tanks to Syria at night. But there were numerous civilians passing by who were excited to take videos and upload them onto YouTube. I mean who wouldn't?

Hiding the buildup of an invasion force worthy of taking Taiwan would be a near impossible task. My first choice would be to use deception. Conduct large military exercises in Fujian multiple times. Establish a pattern, to reduce suspicion. But this is no longer possible now due to what Russia did in the run up to the war with Ukraine. Now Taiwan, Japan, and the US is gonna be extra suspicious of every type of large Chinese military movement. So, there are no ultimate solutions yet.

You don't need absolute surprise, just warning reduction. All supplies, ammo and small vehicles prepositioned in secret warehouses at night. Large vehicles redeployed to military bases in the southeast that are covered by tents built years ago at night with trains.

The easy part would be to start building tents for parking spaces now. Yes it will be seen as aggressive but this is the time. Then... Nothing. Just the tents.

solarz · Mar 1, 2022

I think people need to realize that Taiwan isn't Ukraine and China isn't Russia. Ukraine had been fighting separatists in a military conflict for 8 years now. During that same 8 years, Russia's economy had been trying to recover from the Crimea sanctions while China's economy nearly doubled. Chinese technological advancements have surpassed the West in many areas.

Some will say never underestimate your enemies. I would say you shouldn't overestimate them either. Pretending things will be a lot more difficult than they really are leads to indecisiveness, possibly at the worst moments.

Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

lcloo

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supersnoop

Major

lcloo

Captain

tphuang

Lieutenant General

supersnoop

Major

Sardaukar20

Captain

HereToSeePics

Junior Member

ThomX

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FairAndUnbiased

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solarz

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