Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Broccoli said:

If things go wrong China loses everything and in best case scenario they get an island where many people hate them and China's economy get's pummeled.

I don't see what's the logical point in whole Taiwan invasion, and I feel same way about Putin's Ukraine war... war based on sentimentalism and lack of common sense, like those weirdly shaped Americans who shot a guy because they were arguing about dirty mattress.

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No, not really. In the medium term China will have full technological self-sufficiency, which is really the only trump card the West holds over anyone. I don't think people appreciate how profoundly different the world will be when China reaches a stage of development where it can provide every country in the world with any technology the West can - with better quality and lower prices, I might add. And China's economy doesn't get "pummeled" without the world economy getting flatlined.

One important lesson for China to learn (after the crucial lesson about the power of thermonuclear deterrence) is to lose the sentimentality about reuniting with a kindred people. It's nothing of the sort - any "reunification" is simply the conquest and subjugation of an enemy. An enemy who will resist until his dying breath. This is the mentality China must adopt.

It's far better, of course, that reunification be accomplished without war. However, if it comes down to war then China must wage it without any illusions.

ZeEa5KPul said:

it can provide every country in the world with any technology the West can - with better quality and lower prices

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I don't agree with that, if you are good at selling something that everybody needs, and your products are truly better than your competitors, then why sell at a lower price? why not use this as leverage for higher profit margin which in turn will sustain your lead in future products?

this also comes back to the point a lot of people are making on how china can sell "high tech" products at "cabbage prices", which is good for the short term to take up market share but definitely not sustainable in the long term. what china needs is to absolutely dominate a product's industry to the point where it can price gouge however it sees fit.

sorry getting off topic here.

Gloire_bb said:

We're talking about human organizations - and the capability of a human organization lacking major fighting experience for 70 years is...up to debate. There was more than enough time for peacetime career officers to build their dynasties. Almost 10 times more than Russians had since 2014.

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The potential PLA war on Taiwan would be very likely the kind of war that no countries have ever had the experiences. It'll be high-tech, highly-coordinated, and multidimensional. It'll be quite different from the Normandy landings, Battle of Inchon. It'll also be quite unlike the Gulf War, Iraqi War or NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia or the current Russia-Ukraine war. PLA can learn some elements from each of them, but they would have to figure out on their own with how to fight the war with all the high-tech weapons and platforms and industrial capabilities at their disposal.

Put simply, the objectives would be taking Taiwan relatively quickly - I've always said "landing in three days and taking over the island in seven days" and if you don't think that's achievable then PLA should make sure that it will make the necessary investment and training to make it achievable. They should also demonstrate a "shock 'n' awe" effect much like the Gulf War and the 2008 Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony, sort of a coming-out-party of Chinese military after so many decades. This is first to show to Taiwanese society, but also to the world at large. It'll have a deterrent effect. Finally, they should minimize the civilian casualties, but do not spare the civilian targets and infrastructure. Indeed, they should target civilian communication, the internet, electricity, broadcasting towers and stations, and key transportation nodes etc. China can rebuild Taiwan after the war relatively quickly and give Taiwan a world-class infrastructure, to showcase how the world's largest advanced industrial nation conduct war business, end-to-end. This is something Russia can not afford to do in Ukraine and the US has never been able to do in all their wars after Cold War.

Essentially, I'm approaching this war as a large-scale industrial and organizational problem.

ecaedus said:

I don't agree with that, if you are good at selling something that everybody needs, and your products are truly better than your competitors, then why sell at a lower price? why not use this as leverage for higher profit margin which in turn will sustain your lead in future products?

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To undercut your competition and take market share. Once you're established, then you can jack up the prices. It's not that simple, of course, you still have to build brand recognition and consumer loyalty, but that's the gist of it.

ecaedus said:

I don't agree with that, if you are good at selling something that everybody needs, and your products are truly better than your competitors, then why sell at a lower price? why not use this as leverage for higher profit margin which in turn will sustain your lead in future products?

this also comes back to the point a lot of people are making on how china can sell "high tech" products at "cabbage prices", which is good for the short term to take up market share but definitely not sustainable in the long term. what china needs is to absolutely dominate a product's industry to the point where it can price gouge however it sees fit.

sorry getting off topic here.

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Price gouging isn't a sustainable approach, it breeds complacency in your organisations and gives an inroad for scrappier competitors to enter the market, eventually causing your own downfall.
By keeping your prices low, for a better product, you're crushing the competition before they can even enter the market, and expanding your footprint by saturating the market with your own product and platform.

gadgetcool5 said:

So that ends up with everyone in hell?

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If the opposing sides choose deem it sufficiently important to escalate, then yes.

And yes, naturally it means China will be increasing their nuclear deterrent, which is what we see they are doing since the last year or two.

ecaedus said:

do you see these vertical attack squads getting deployed right after the 1st wave PGM strike, before establishing complete air dominance or spearhead amphibious landings? i think i see them getting deployed preferably after major SAM sites have been shut down, and in coordination with amphibious landings, give the defenders more things to worry about and also the two groups can cover and support eachother.

also, i think it's critical to make sure these vertical attack squads are "mobilized", "mechanized" and "armored" so as not to get taken out so easily. not sure if the PLAAF has enough heavy transport helicopters to accomplish this. i agree huge POs have to be made to satisfy this need.

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I don’t think the PLA will rush quite so much, and I don’t think big heavy SAMs will be their main worry.

You sometimes got to take risks and make sacrifices when there is a compelling operational or strategic need, but I don’t think they will do such a high risk op just to prove they can.

While it worked out well for the VDV, it could very easily have ended in disaster for them had a few tiny things gone slightly differently.

One of the stand outs for me is that helicopters are extreme vulnerable to MANPADs over water as they don’t have terrain to hide behind and use to limit LOS as they could flying over land. The two stand out instances where the Ukrainians were able to bring MANPADs to bear were over water.

They messed up the first time through incompetence, and probably also surprise, by giving away their positions with useless small arms fire early and waiting to shoot missiles way too late (I think they might have jammed their own WEZ as much as been decoyed off); but the second time they scored at least one, maybe two kills despite frantic flaring by the helicopters because they engaged at a sensible range.

The PLA need to take careful note of that since any heli-borne air assault they mount in a Taiwan scenario will be coming in over water as well.

This is probably what the 075 is all about as they have already realised trying to launch massed air assault directly from the mainland, flying into the teeth of the bulk of Taiwan’s MANPADs and coming in over water, is not a very great scenario.

I think they will ideally want to spend a few days killing Taiwan’s radar and missiles as much as possible and to give time for their 075s to move some distance from their opening positions to launch air assaults from totally unexpected vectors to get over land ASAP and then fly nap of the earth over land to their intended targets.

I think they will also be investing much more into night vision and thermal and attack helicopters and launching air assaults during the night as much as possible to further limit the effectiveness of MANPADs. Since even with the latest and greatest NODs you are not going to be able to see as far or as well as your standard issue mk1 eyeball during daytime.

ecaedus said:

nope, just sprouting my opinions away that's all. i don't think it takes an expert to figure out right now china is not "leading" in semiconductor or any extremely high tech industries.

with enough time and determination all the "hurdles" of "decoupling" can be overcome, it's just a matter of how united can the west be, and how thorough they want the decoupling to be. obviously it's in china's best interest to make the cost of decoupling as high as possible so as to delay it from happening.

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China is leading in telecom hardware which is one of the most high tech industries in the world, so you are wrong.

I'm of the opinion China should pursue a Trojan Horse strategy since it does so much cross-border trade with Taiwan. Yes, it's going to negatively affect the perception of commerce and trade with China but if they're going to sanction China to hell for securing Taiwan means the drawbacks are limited. Loading up a few modified container ships or even passenger jets with undercover PLA marines and equipment and time it to when the attacks begin so the ROC military is busy distracted with missile strikes, dogfights and etc allows China to easily gain a toehold by seizing a naval port or airport in the confusion.

ecaedus said:

nope, just sprouting my opinions away that's all. i don't think it takes an expert to figure out right now china is not "leading" in semiconductor or any extremely high tech industries.

with enough time and determination all the "hurdles" of "decoupling" can be overcome, it's just a matter of how united can the west be, and how thorough they want the decoupling to be. obviously it's in china's best interest to make the cost of decoupling as high as possible so as to delay it from happening.

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Hmm. I did my research, and you are 100% correct. China is a stone age country that's easily replacable.

It's stone age even.

Telecom is I guess, also not such a big deal. between Huawei and ZTE. since 2020. What a shame. , it could not have possibly extended its lead.

.



I guess drones is also not a big deal. Here you see DJI, a definitely 100% not Chinese company called DaJiang Innovations, definitely not have a 50%+ market share.



Let's talk batteries. At its core batteries are a mere 19th century invention that nobody cares about. Thus China is at best, a 19th century country. In addition, electric vehicles were invented before gas vehicles. Thus gas vehicles are the future, clearly, and electric vehicles are some 19th century relic. I can't see the flaw in my logic here.







I definitely can't find more facts to show you were wrong, in fact, all my facts show that you are 100% right. I had to check the facts for myself, I'm a simple minded Chinese that doesn't understand advanced technology.

But facts are facts. China is a hopeless stone age country that should cower before your might.