Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

If the PLA wants to fight with no mercy, China should increase migration of young Taiwanese to the mainland. Anyone pro reunification should be safe from the fighting. China should also follow the Russian strategy of distributing passports. Once someone holds a PRC passport, they're likely to become more friendly to the mainland.

It would also be helpful to deprive Taiwan of men of fighting age. 30 years ago, about 160,000 boys were born on Taiwan, 18 years ago it was about 100,000 and now it's down to 75,000. The more Taiwanese go to the mainland in search of better salaries, the less defensible Taiwan will be

Gloire_bb said:

There is a given density of combat formations in battle order a given amount of ground can accept. Overdoing it is just increasing losses for no worthwhile tactical gain - troops are too expensive to waste them against statistics.
Basically, if ROCAF is allowed to fully mobilize, they will probably have enough troops to fight it in any sensible configuration.

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Urban combat is extremely manpower intensive. With enough troops, the PLA can capture urban centres while minimizing collateral damage.

Squidward said:

Assuming TSMC and other important industries on Taiwan somehow avoid getting bombed over the course of an armed reunification, and remain operational afterwards, I think it's very unlikely that there will be a serious effort to boycott TSMC.

The US was happy to ban Xinjiang cotton because while it was good cotton, it's not like it was the only place in the world that produced cotton. The people in the states weren't going to suddenly be unable to buy new clothes and freeze to death in the winter, either (although it still happened, in Texas of all places). This move impacted China more than it did the US, which is why the US was willing to go through with it.

If the PRC were able to reunify, there's not a chance in hell they aren't going to reverse engineer every last scrap of TSMC technology they get their hands on to pass onto their own domestic manufacturers. So if the US wants something to actually happen with such a ban, it would presumably include other Chinese manufacturers as well. It would be incredibly hard for the US to replace this source of chips (TSMC + existing Chinese ones) in the short to medium term, which if my google search is correct, represents over half of global chip production. Not only is it hard to replace, it's also very hard for the US to go without a steady supply of chips. Think about the chip/semiconductor shortage last year, its effects on the US economy, and now imagine if the US decided to just ban over half of the already insufficient supply. Sure, the present US may already manufacture enough domestically to keep its military and government running, but you try telling the people that they can't get their new 3090ti gpus because uncle Joe wanted some international clout, they'll get pretty angry.

Finally, any reverse engineering of TSMC tech would place China at the cutting edge of chip R&D, which would only further increase the demand for Chinese chips. If the US really goes through with such a ban, there will be plenty of other new countries lining up to buy from China. The only way for such an embargo to have a noticeable effect on China is if the US were somehow able to convince its allies and vassals to also boycott Chinese electronics and cripple their economies. To that, all I have to say is good luck.

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There is no possibility of TSMC surviving. Semiconductor fabs are the softest of soft targets.

There's also nothing to reverse engineer from TSMC, all their equipment is bought from elsewhere and they implement the design of others. Their advantage is in process and in operational costs.

FairAndUnbiased said:

There is no possibility of TSMC surviving. Semiconductor fabs are the softest of soft targets.

There's also nothing to reverse engineer from TSMC, all their equipment is bought from elsewhere and they implement the design of others. Their advantage is in process and in operational costs.

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Fair enough, which ultimately leads back to why I don't think the US is gonna do anything substantial with TSMC following reunification.

I will post my Quora answer to here on this question. It is a few months old and it got quite a lot of upvotes there.


Is China now reevaluating their military strategy against the West given how abysmal Russia is doing in Ukraine?

I think many of the events in Ukraine have shown China that its way was correct. China’s military procurement started differing from Russia's around 15 years ago. The national strategy was always different. Some of the key points:

1- China avoids war and security guarantees (read: alliances) if possible. Ukraine has shown again that war is risky and expensive. It must be avoided if possible. And there is only a single place that China may hit first, Taiwan.

2- The USSR’s airforce was a supporting force to the army. Russia continued that. China, starting in the early 2010s, made its airforce the center of its military. Long bombardments before land operations, and air superiority as a strategic goal have been hallmarks of the US military strategy. China adopted the same 10–15 years ago too. Looking at what happened in Ukraine, air support and aerial surveillance are indeed very important.


The distribution of Chinese military related labs according to their primary research domain. The graph is from American publications. The focus on the airforce is very visible even at the research level.

3- Importance of UAVs and satellites for surveillance. China has been procuring a lot of these, which turned out to be another good choice. UAVs are turning out to be very useful in a conventional war too, unlike most had predicted.


The CH-5 Rainbow… With its new engine, it has 120 hours of endurance. Perfect for observation and counter-insurgency/anti-ambush

4- Importance of securing the borders of the enemy to prevent the inflow of weapons. China has been working on this a lot too. China’s desire to be able to blockade Taiwan even despite American intervention is among the greatest reasons behind the PLAN’s rapid growth.


All of these were acquired in just 2021. There is half a Japanese navy in firepower here. This is still like just 40% of what China acquired in the last 5 years.

5- Importance of shutting down enemy communications and lowering enemy morale… Social media was used to bolster morale for the war in Ukraine to a tremendous effect. China has been procuring a lot of psychological warfare aircraft capable of jamming civilian TV, radio, satellite and GSM signals. These aircraft are also capable of broadcasting PRC propaganda to said devices and releasing leaflets. China has been procuring carbon filament warheads to short circuit grid stations too. If China doesn’t already have them, it will definitely procure capabilities to cut underwater internet cables (which facilitate much of the international communication) fast.


Y-8XZ. The aircraft I described


Conductive fiber warhead for export

6- Importance of shock and awe tactics and usefulness of ballistic missiles… Both Russia and the USA used a lot of long-range missiles during their wars in the last 20 years. It benefited both of them. China currently sits on top of the second largest cruise missile and largest ballistic missile arsenal in the world. And ballistic missiles turned out to be very hard to intercept indeed. The vast majority of them are penetrating defenses in Ukraine despite the S-300's very significant anti-ballistic missile capabilities.

7- Importance of military communications, joint operations, and decentralized command. China has been big on these too. Lower level units are increasingly obtaining more capabilities and autonomy. The PLA’s organization based on domain branches (land, air, sea, etc…) was abolished and theater commands were established. Each branch had its own Office of Generals. These were merged into a single joint office with 15 specialized departments. These mean that the existence of the airforce, navy, etc… is nothing but peacetime bureaucracy now. During wartime, the entire PLA is a single branch organized around theater commands. Communications are getting investment too. Nowadays even trucks in the PLA have SATCOM terminals.

8- This one is not related to the military but is still very important in order to decrease the economic impact of the war. Developing domestic alternatives to all foreign tech… The government was a big proponent of this for a long time. The private sector was hesitant. Trump made it so much easier to convince the private sector.

9- Morale. China is in an inherently better position than Russia since it runs a fully volunteer military. Even then the PLA started investing in soldier accommodations a lot.


PLA soldier dormitories close to the Sino-Indian border in the Himalayas.

Some things China probably did wrong:

1- Neglecting infantry… The infantry has been at the lowest end of the modernization priority for a long time. The PLA almost views it obsolete. It is being proven to be critically important in Ukraine.

2- China has been shifting its focus from amphibious forces to airborne forces in the last few years. Airborne forces being proven to be lacking in the bite in Ukraine. The PLA may re-shift its focus again.

3- Too much focus on long-range guided munitions… Almost nothing is known about China’s guided bomb inventory. There are no known large orders by the PLA despite the huge variety of such munitions displayed by the Chinese defense industry in exhibitions. Some even got exported in large numbers but we don’t know if the PLA has them in numbers. The opposite is the case for long range guided missiles. The PLA has a lot of them. If there is no proper guided bomb inventory, the PLA might have to use dumb bombs or expensive missiles. Both of these situations are not ideal.

4- Neglecting urban combat… In Ukraine, the Russian strategy to encircle cities is using a lot of manpower. Worse, there are paramilitary forces and militias in these cities who keep harassing Russian supply lines. So the avoidance of urban combat is slowing Russia outside built-up areas too. China can not bet on avoiding urban combat anymore. It has to prepare for it.

5- Straight to Taipei arguments… Those arguments weren’t very common but I guess they will cease to exist after all of this.

Ugly part: China may be getting lessons that Western commentators wouldn’t like.

1- Nuclear brinkmanship… The USA and NATO definitely have enough power to kick Russia out of Ukraine, but we all know they will never try it for the obvious reason. China is in a much better condition in the Pacific. It doesn’t border 28 relatively powerful NATO members. But the USA may still try its chance militarily against China. At least this is the impression we have. The risk of annihilation is less. Unfortunately, we are very likely to see massive growth in China’s nuclear arsenal. I mean really massive. It may be followed by an explicit declaration of how many nukes China has (China didn’t give any numbers since the 80s), then by the cancellation of no-first-use policy during a crisis.

2- Foreign public perception. It will be horrible. There are no ways around it. This may cause a change in China’s behavior. Its threshold for violence may increase a lot. If there is no further economic and political loss from using more violence then using more is usually better. This makes a shock and awe style operation more likely. Also, it seems being explicit rather than trying to downplay the war gets more respect. Russia’s “special military operation” phrase is widely getting mocked for example.

Later addition: This article was recently published by the Japanese Ministry of Defence.


It confirms my claim on the Chinese command structure. Army, Navy, and Airforce don’t really exist anymore. Instead, there are regional commands which have control over all assets in their region from the seabed to the air. This is similar to the US Unified combatant commands but it seems China unified the branches even more.

FairAndUnbiased said:

One thing that we should've learned from the Ukraine war is that morale matters. How did Ukraine, which went from basically refusing to fight Russian troops in 2014 and people in Donbass and Crimea seeing them as liberators from a bigger and richer brother country, go to fighting to the death against Russian troops against literally hopeless odds i.e. Mariupol?

Nationalist radicalization.

A bit of history: US has always flirted with ethnic nationalists, fascists and right wing dictators, especially in small countries. Meanwhile they hate socialists and more authoritarian large, multiethnic empires. Whether that be Spanish fascism and

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, to being soft on German Nazis and Imperial Japanese fascists after WW2 to the degree where

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and

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, the US has always had a soft spot for the Nazis. For those a little bit below fascism, like mere nationalist authoritarian dictators such as Syngman Rhee, Chiang Kai Shek, etc. the examples are almost too numerous to list. The US antipathy towards socialism, on the other hand, has never been a secret, and it is common knowledge.

But why? What's in it for them to support fascist dictators while opposing socialism and pure authoritarians?

You see, the US recognizes one simple fact that was even declared in the Project for a New American Century: if a single country or alliance controls Europe or Southeast Asia, they'll have the resources to push the US back to the western hemisphere and become irrelevant.

So why nationalism? Why is nationalism not a real threat for the US? A right wing nationalist government has 0 foreign attraction. Everyone asks, what's in it for me? And a right wing nationalist government really has nothing to offer. Their ideology holds 0 attractiveness for anyone outside the country, this has been proven over and over again. German Nazi's allies all turned on them. Imperial Japan could never stop rebellions. Thus, it is unlikely to be capable of making the necessary alliances, and can be checked by US own alliances. Thus, a right wing nationalist government is no threat diplomatically.

Note this: they keep saying how nobody in China's neighborhood actually likes China, and point to the examples of India, Japan and Vietnam. But even ignoring that being objectively untrue (China has North Korea, Russia, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Laos, etc) guess what? actually that's far more true for India, Japan or Vietnam. Japan - surrounded by enemies (China, Russia, North/South Korea). India - surrounded by enemies (China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar). Vietnam - surrounded by enemies (China, Laos, Cambodia). Can India, Japan or Vietnam ever gather a large enough alliance to consolidate the resources of Afro-Eurasia? No.

What about right wing nationalist governments in major countries? Also no threat. In democracies like India, they can be kept perpetually destabilized by arming the opposition with a constant stream of negative news to keep them on their toes. India today is actually weaker than it was in 2014 when Modi became PM. India has declined relative to China, from 1/4 Chinese GDP per capita to 1/6 Chinese GDP per capita. In autocracies, they can pull the democracy card, ethnic oppression card, and they'd actually be right. See India, again.

What is the ideal world for them? A world where every major country is broken up into its ethnic constituents, each being weak, easily played off against each other. Failing that, a world where all the small countries are radicalized and major countries are wrecked by instability and ethnic violence while they sit above it all, mediating and controlling everything. Divide and conquer on a global scale. British Imperialism applied to the entire world in perpetuity.

How does this relate to Ukraine? Nationalist radicalization is their playbook over and over again. We've seen it in South Vietnam and South Korea with right wing dictators killing their own people by the millions, we've seen it in Latin America with support for the Brazilian and Argentine military juntas, we've seen it in Iraq with support of balkanizing them between Kurd/Sunni/Shia, we've seen it in Yugoslavia by breaking up the federation and putting Bosnians vs. Serbs vs. Croats vs. Albanians vs. Kosovans, we've seen it in Hong Kong calling Chinese people locusts and radicalizing the students... today we see the result in Ukraine, where Ukrainians hate Russians more than they love themselves. In fact, Ukrainians became so radicalized, they even sent Azov to Hong Kong. If Russians paid attention they would not have underestimated Ukrainian resolve - if Ukrainians are so radicalized that they would send extremists to a far flung country they had little to do with, just to virtue signal, what are they gonna do in a defensive war?

So in the event that the Taiwan situation becomes urgent, expect massive waves of right wing, racist propaganda pumped everywhere. Expect Taiwanese to become extremely radicalized and in fact I'd argue that they are actually extremely radicalized, just like Ukraine in 2015 onwards.

Past doesn't mean future, Ukraine in 2014 is not Ukraine in 2022. When Putin said denazification was necessary, this is what he means by denazification.

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Last time it was driven by anti communist ideology and to retake mainland. Later it was reduced to protecting the survival of Roc.
Now it just about the feeble excuse to preserve their way of life and freedom (to scold their govt and get away with it)

I just don't see the determination of Taiwanese nowadays to fight to their last breath. What i can see is more of trolling and snubbing CPC to make them look bad.

I dare say morale will quickly collapse once Penghu falls.

BoraTas said:

1- Neglecting infantry… The infantry has been at the lowest end of the modernization priority for a long time. The PLA almost views it obsolete. It is being proven to be critically important in Ukraine.

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Remember that they've reformed the conscription system with intakes twice a year and with initial training extended to 6 months before conscripts are sent to a unit.

So now infantry-heavy formations (which are disproportionately manned by Chinese conscripts who happen to all be volunteers) are fully manned all the time, and those soldiers have received a minimum of 6months training.

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Previously it wasn't credible for the Chinese Air Force to achieve air superiority and allow the Chinese Navy to land large numbers of infantry onto Taiwan. So there was no point in focusing on infantry modernisation. But now there is.

But as I've mentioned before, I think the key thing is to develop small autonomous drones and then flood the area in a Taiwan ground campaign.

BoraTas said:

1- China avoids war and security guarantees (read: alliances) if possible. Ukraine has shown again that war is risky and expensive. It must be avoided if possible. And there is only a single place that China may hit first, Taiwan.

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Russia practically cut off Ukraine in supply chain before invading. so the impact on GDP related to Ukraine minimal. while Taiwan still important trade partner to China so impact much larger on GDP.

BoraTas said:

2- The USSR’s airforce was a supporting force to the army. Russia continued that. China, starting in the early 2010s, made its airforce the center of its military. Long bombardments before land operations, and air superiority as a strategic goal have been hallmarks of the US military strategy. China adopted the same 10–15 years ago too. Looking at what happened in Ukraine, air support and aerial surveillance are indeed very important.

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Russia definitely not USSR airforce. its name is changed to Aerospace force. the word Space is now added for integration. Ukraine is unique situation where it has to work as airborne artillery in close support. but it is not how it will operate in high end combat. just look at size of platforms. even the newest AWACS use more powerful engines and those engines are now capable up to 20 tons.
you may want look a little closer to Syria. Israel has done thousands of strikes. and those strikes data is collected by Russia to improve air defenses. and battle damage assessment of impacts. They know whether 50kg or 1500kg warhead needed depend on target. Russian air force is usually airborne when Israel strikes. they want to collect maximum data to improve all the sensors. they may even want to observe missile lunches from fighters.

BoraTas said:

8- This one is not related to the military but is still very important in order to decrease the economic impact of the war. Developing domestic alternatives to all foreign tech… The government was a big proponent of this for a long time. The private sector was hesitant. Trump made it so much easier to convince the private sector.

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When sanctions were imposed. almost all consumer factories production got impacted in Russia regardless of tech involved. China simply cant replace the components on so many different products. and this is reflected in sales number of vehicles that is 1/8 of weekly numbers even in May.
what will happen to dislocation of workers that will be certainly on much larger scale in China if similar situation arise?

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Russians are still more likely to buy cars of domestic (1926 units) and Korean (1582 units) brands, which accounted for 28% and 23%, respectively, in the third week. Chinese brands (1023 units) also managed to overcome the milestone of a thousand sold cars, the share of which was 15%

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Russia still has Turkey/ Middleast that have very large international aviation fleets and connectivity so air travel still at reasonable prices. those counter parties are willing to bear certain risk of doing business. do you think Japan/ Singapore or any other can bear that risks once western sanctions are implemented on China? start with de-certification of airline fleet. look at Non-Oil trade of UAE to get idea what i am referring to.

BoraTas said:

9- Morale. China is in an inherently better position than Russia since it runs a fully volunteer military. Even then the PLA started investing in soldier accommodations a lot.

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Russia operates contract soldiers with high salaries in warzone with secondary militias, contractors.

BorTas:
5- Importance of shutting down enemy communications and lowering enemy morale… Social media was used to bolster morale for the war in Ukraine to a tremendous effect.

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how will shutting down communication lower morale? rather communication will inform the enemy that despite there miserable condition known to the world. no one is seriously considering there rescue. and those who can bargain for it are getting embarrassed.
when external air and missile power is routinely flying around at low altitude over a population for months. this alone should tell the the population to exit unless they are zombies. this social media is for un professional force.

BoraTas said:

2- China has been shifting its focus from amphibious forces to airborne forces in the last few years. Airborne forces being proven to be lacking in the bite in Ukraine. The PLA may re-shift its focus again.

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Practically every airfield where Ka-52 operates. Mi-8/Mi-26 also operates. it all about mobility to tactical level. i am sure there are recon teams airdrop that are operating behind the lines that no one will advertise.
Assault, EW and combat attack helicopters need to have similar ranges for large field operations flying at sub optimal altitude.
note the lack of side door. these things are designed from ground up for extra fuel

BoraTas said:

Too much focus on long-range guided munitions… Almost nothing is known about China’s guided bomb inventory.

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Good read. For this particular point, I think the focus of missile artillery is directed at the USN and not particularly at the ROCAF. The priority has been to first be able to defeat a US intervention.

In the end, I still don't think the PLA will do indiscriminate bombings in TW urban centres. Even if it results in higher casualties, I think the PLA will try their best to minimize damage to civilians.

Keep in mind that the economic/geopolitical stake of a Taiwan invasion just got a lot higher. Given where China's conventional capabilities are at right now, I think the likelihood of them being able to carry out a successful Taiwan invasion and fend off less committed US response by 2025 to be quite high. That would be the likely result of a scenario where Taiwan decides to disrupt status quo and declare independence. The willingness of large part of Taiwanese population to support such a move would be pretty low.

The big question is vs a more determined Taiwanese opposition and determined US response. This would be the likely outcome of a unilateral move on the mainland side to take Taiwan by force after it deems that all peaceful unification route have been exhausted. I would say that this is not something mainland should rush into. Most recently, it seems that US govenment would view this as a fight about its position in Pacific region rather than just about Taiwan. As such, this would mean a full blown decoupling and one where US is willing to commit large part of its forces As such, they should only try to do this if they are convinced they can beat back 2/3 of USN/USMC fleet (assuming the remaining is needed for homeland security and responsibilities in the Atlantic and Europe) or convince America that this it not a winnable fight. In this case, if PLA actually does get strong enough where it can beat US military in a war close in West Pacific or convince US military to not fight, then I don't see how Taiwan could stand against Chinese unification pressure. I think most Taiwanese elites/ruling class would just surrender in that case and accept the long awaited time has come. Keep in mind that this scenario is still quite far away. Maybe 2035 to 2045 range.