Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

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mossen

mossen

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AndrewS said:
The US Net International Investment Position is is already at negative 69% of GDP, and based on current run rates, I reckon we're looking at negative 100% of GDP around 2026.
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That's simply a function of being the world's reserve currency issuer. You have to run perpetual current account deficits, which in turn means that the world's claims on you grow. As long as the greenback was tethered to the gold standard, there was a natural limit but when it became a full fiat currency it was inevitable this would happen.

That's also partly why some Chinese economists are skeptical of the Yuan becoming a reserve currency. Is China prepared to run up consistent current account deficits?

Otherwise, I agree with much of your comment.
 
M

Minm

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Registered Member
China should also discreetly ensure that Russia wins in Ukraine and that the leadership survives the sanctions. It's important to give Taiwanese residents the message that no matter how hard you fight, you will lose anyway, so it's not worth fighting in the first place. Ukrainians may cause extreme losses to the Russians, but the destruction of their cities and the likely partition or partial annexation of their country will make it all in vain. In WW2 the Nazis fought until the end, trying to achieve the Endsieg (ultimate victory). An early surrender would have saved the nation from much suffering. The Chinese offer of one country two systems is not very appealing to many in Taiwan, but it's certainly much better than causing the destruction of their homes, jobs and families only to be defeated anyway. If China manages the propaganda war carefully, it might be possible to convince Taiwan to take the one country two systems deal while it's still on the table.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
I think it goes without saying that if possible, China is willing to wait until Taiwan can be peacefully integrated.

The increasing uncertainty, however, is whether the US is willing to standby and allow that to happen without instigating some kind of conflict.

So any armed reunification scenario will happen as a reaction to US actions.

I see the US as having two possible goals in instigating conflict:

1. They want to start a war with China.

2. They want to weaken or destabilize China without starting a war.

I don't see #1 as very likely, because if the US was confident of winning a war against China, they would have started a kinetic war instead of a trade war.

It's possible that the trade war was meant to be Iran/Iraq style sanctions designed to weaken the country before a war, but as we can plainly see, this did not pan out.

Furthermore, we can see in the examples of Iran and North Korea, that the US will not attack unless they are certain of victory.

So, I think the most likely objective for the US would be to try to weaken China in order to derail it's rise.

Therefore, it's almost certain that the US is going to play the Taiwan card in one of two situations:

2A. There are other events which China is forced to attend to, or

2B. The US sees Taiwan as hopeless and wants to use it before it becomes worthless.

I see the HK riots and the Uighur genocide accusations as attempted preludes to 2A. It was hoped that the unrest in HK would spread to the mainland, and it was clear that the Uighur genocide claim was designed to turn Muslim countries against China and forment insurgency in Xinjiang.

Obviously both attempts failed. Therefore, I don't think the US will play the Taiwan card again UNLESS peaceful reunification was imminent. If we start seeing a shift in public opinion in TW, that's when we should start to be wary.

Until then, so long as China can competently handle US attempts at destabilization, the US will not attempt to play the TW card just yet.
 
H

hkbc

Junior Member
Bltizo said:
The PLAAF does not have equivalents of every type of non-powered PGM the USAF has. In that thread I specifically mention that the PLAAF's only type of non-powered PGM in meaningful service is the 500kg LGB (LT-2/GB500), and that they do not have any other PGMs in service, like the FT family, LS family, or other ones of the LT or GB families.

Those systems are offered for export and have had testing yes, but the PLAAF has definitely not committed to any of them, and we cannot by any reasonable estimate say that the PLAAF "has" them.

Instead, we can say that the Chinese aerospace industry has equivalents of most non-powered PGM types that the US aerospace industry has developed.
But the PLA itself has yet to put its money where its mouth is and to actually buy stocks of PGMs in number.
Buying them in number and possessing them in inventory is a very very very major milestone and isn't something that can just be assumed to be able to easily happen. It requires money to buy the weapons, money to integrate them into the various aircraft types, money to train people to maintain and operate them on the airbase, money to train the pilots to operate them across your entire aircraft fleet.


===


I'm not sure what you mean by standoff PGMs. If you're talking about powered standoff PGMs/ALCMs, the PLA has KD-88 in service, which should be an excellent missile with multiple modern variants of it... but it is still a relatively large weapon.
Good for striking targets at standoff range where air control has yet to be attained, yes, and by virtue of being guided with man in the loop options, it can hit moving targets yes.

But unpowered PGMs can also hit moving targets (laser guided PGMs, ImIR guided PGMs, or MMW guided PGMs), they just have to be employed closer to the target.


The main benefit of standoff powered PGMs versus unpowered PGMs is that you can carry much more of the latter in the place of the former.
On a JH-7/A, you can literally carry six 250kg bomb equivalents (i.e.: convertible to six 250kg PGMs) on a multi-ejector rack in the place of one KD-88. That's six targets you can engage in one sortie compared to one target in one sortie. The cost is that you have to get closer to your target with the 250kg unpowered PGM versus one KD-88.
You are trading range of the munition for engaging many more targets.


.... Also, I'm pretty sure C-704 is not in PLA service.
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For a Taiwan scenario WS2 series of rocket artillery has the range to hit anywhere on the island add a SAR satellite and you have targeting, once air superiority is established WZ-10s have precision weapons and loiter time to take out point targets, assuming things last that long. Taiwan is not the European steppe where distance matters and there's a huge freedom of movement. End of the day there's more than one way to skin a cat.
 
Gloire_bb

Gloire_bb

Captain
Registered Member
Broccoli said:
Russian air force is performing very badly. Clearly their "we don't use targeting pods, unguided bombs and rockets are just fine tactic" is clearly biting them in the ass. Don't be be surprised if we beging seeing more targeting pods in PLAAF service in few years time... they are most definetly looking at this.
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Until ground force AD network is truly suppressed into nothing, low altitude penetrations are considered to be a safer way, as it dramatically decreases kill zones of area-defense systems.
And AD network clearly isn't suppressed yet.

Targeting pods are nice (what about thick overcast with heavy snow?), but a single missed SAM battery somewhere in the forest can obliterate a whole flight of planes. s-300, but especially s-300v and Buk batteries are a pain to hunt down when used properly - they're very mobile.

Yes, in the end it's a poor way of doing business against an unsuppressed network, and it doesn't really excuses Russia for failure to buy equipment it actually exports(!), but the other way would be to delay the ground assault till Army AD suppression.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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hkbc said:
For a Taiwan scenario WS2 series of rocket artillery has the range to hit anywhere on the island add a SAR satellite and you have targeting, once air superiority is established WZ-10s have precision weapons and loiter time to take out point targets, assuming things last that long. Taiwan is not the European steppe where distance matters and there's a huge freedom of movement. End of the day there's more than one way to skin a cat.
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I'm well aware of the various strike options that exist.
Precision MLRS, attack helicopters, SRBMs, ALCMs, I know they all exist, and I obviously recognize their importance in a Taiwan contingency.

I am saying that on top of all of those, in terms of the ability to do frequent re-attack and to do dynamic air to ground operations (CAS, interdiction) with rapid battle damage assessment immediately post strike, there is no replacement for A2G PGMs that currently exist.

Let's not try to copium it and pretend those strike systems offer the same profile in capabilities of a robust fixed wing precision strike force.
 
S

secretprojects

New Member
Registered Member
Minm said:
China should also discreetly ensure that Russia wins in Ukraine and that the leadership survives the sanctions. It's important to give Taiwanese residents the message that no matter how hard you fight, you will lose anyway, so it's not worth fighting in the first place. Ukrainians may cause extreme losses to the Russians, but the destruction of their cities and the likely partition or partial annexation of their country will make it all in vain. In WW2 the Nazis fought until the end, trying to achieve the Endsieg (ultimate victory). An early surrender would have saved the nation from much suffering. The Chinese offer of one country two systems is not very appealing to many in Taiwan, but it's certainly much better than causing the destruction of their homes, jobs and families only to be defeated anyway. If China manages the propaganda war carefully, it might be possible to convince Taiwan to take the one country two systems deal while it's still on the table.
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Are you truly advocating China support Russian war crimes and effective genocide in Ukraine to help cow Taiwan into submission?

Are you so far divorced from reality that you can't see the evil inherent in this argument? Why is reunification of Taiwan with China worth that price of human life?

I literally shake my head in disbelief at the callous nature of the discussions here.
 
Broccoli

Broccoli

Senior Member
Gloire_bb said:
Until ground force AD network is truly suppressed into nothing, low altitude penetrations are considered to be a safer way, as it dramatically decreases kill zones of area-defense systems.
And AD network clearly isn't suppressed yet.

Targeting pods are nice (what about thick overcast with heavy snow?), but a single missed SAM battery somewhere in the forest can obliterate a whole flight of planes. s-300, but especially s-300v and Buk batteries are a pain to hunt down when used properly - they're very mobile.

Yes, in the end it's a poor way of doing business against an unsuppressed network, and it doesn't really excuses Russia for failure to buy equipment it actually exports(!), but the other way would be to delay the ground assault till Army AD suppression.
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All armies with money and experience in war use targeting pods and PGM's while flying in hostile airspace. Electronic warfare, suppression of enemy SAM, radar jamming and their targeting, etc all work together.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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secretprojects said:
Are you truly advocating China support Russian war crimes and effective genocide in Ukraine to help cow Taiwan into submission?

Are you so far divorced from reality that you can't see the evil inherent in this argument? Why is reunification of Taiwan with China worth that price of human life?

I literally shake my head in disbelief at the callous nature of the discussions here.
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What he means is that advocating for China to assist Russia to win the war with Ukraine and to enable Russian leadership to survive and continue, is in Chinese interests as it may result in Taiwan being dissuaded and deterred from taking political actions that will result in a very damaging conflict for them.

Now, I have no major position for how much China could or would support Russia, however his overall point is that deterring Taiwan from flirting with China's red lines on Taiwan's political status, is very much a good thing as it reduces the likelihood of conflict.

... And that the opposite is also true -- events in the world which embolden Taiwan to trend towards de jure independence, and promises and transactions which provide them with greater confidence to resist, raises the risk of conflict and creates a moral hazard.
 
M

Minm

Junior Member
Registered Member
secretprojects said:
Are you truly advocating China support Russian war crimes and effective genocide in Ukraine to help cow Taiwan into submission?

Are you so far divorced from reality that you can't see the evil inherent in this argument? Why is reunification of Taiwan with China worth that price of human life?

I literally shake my head in disbelief at the callous nature of the discussions here.
Click to expand...
What's happening to the normal Ukrainian people is a tragedy. But Russia is going to make an example out of them no matter what the rest of the world says. So China might as well use that example to prevent the same tragedy happening in Taiwan.

The US is advocating that Taiwan use a "porcupine" strategy that makes a Chinese conquest as costly as possible, which is pretty much the Ukrainian strategy right now. But a crushed porcupine is still dead, even if its spikes cause the conquer's foot to bleed. If Ukraine wins, the porcupine strategy will certainly be embraced by Taiwan.
 
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