PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

C

CMP

Captain
Registered Member
vincent said:
A false narrative from the West. Pacific Ocean is a big ocean. Ships from/to Japan can go through the middle of the Pacific and the middle of Indonesia. They don’t have to go through the South China Sea , the Malacca Strait and definitely not the Taiwan Strait. The only way China can sever Japan’s lifeline is through a blockade.
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I just drew the two routes on Google Earth and asked Kimi to perform a comparison. From just outside the mouth of the Malacca Straight directly to Japan is around 6,000 KM. Going around via Indonesia makes it about 10,000 KM, depending on how much extra safety distance you want to maintain away from the South China Sea and China itself. You're looking at about 10 days for the former and about 16 days for the latter, at a total extra cost of $600,000 to $1.2M per ship. I am pretty sure the Nip navy would be completely sunk soon enough if the Nips actively took up arms against China. There would be nothing to stop the Chinese navy from simply sailing back and forth around the East and South of Japan to stop ships from passing. Insurers would not cover commercial ships traveling those routes during a war scenario, so most ships would decline to ship to Japan regardless. The only ones that would, would do so only at price points high enough to cover losses from sunk ships. In other words, it would not be long before Japan ran out of industrial inputs, fuel, and food.
 
vincent

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
CMP said:
I just drew the two routes on Google Earth and asked Kimi to perform a comparison. From just outside the mouth of the Malacca Straight directly to Japan is around 6,000 KM. Going around via Indonesia makes it about 10,000 KM, depending on how much extra safety distance you want to maintain away from the South China Sea and China itself. You're looking at about 10 days for the former and about 16 days for the latter, at a total extra cost of $600,000 to $1.2M per ship. I am pretty sure the Nip navy would be completely sunk soon enough if the Nips actively took up arms against China. There would be nothing to stop the Chinese navy from simply sailing back and forth around the East and South of Japan to stop ships from passing. Insurers would not cover commercial ships traveling those routes during a war scenario, so most ships would decline to ship to Japan regardless. The only ones that would, would do so only at price points high enough to cover losses from sunk ships. In other words, it would not be long before Japan ran out of industrial inputs, fuel, and food.
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My point is China retaking the Taiwan Island is not an existential threat to Japan as their American puppet politicians made out to be.
Ships had to go around Africa when Yemeni threaten the Red Sea traffic and it is not the end of the world.
 
C

CMP

Captain
Registered Member
vincent said:
My point is China retaking the Taiwan Island is not an existential threat to Japan as their American puppet politicians made out to be.
Ships had to go around Africa when Yemeni threaten the Red Sea traffic and it is not the end of the world.
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My point is that those ships would never make it to Japan anyways. If Japan began military hostilities with China as a consequence of a Taiwan AR scenario, those ships would be intercepted and never permitted to dock at Japan. Very soon, no ships would sail there anyways due to refusal by their insurance companies to cover those routes. Logistically those routes could still be made viable and profitable, but only with the assumption those ships would not be sunk or turned back. China would obviously not stand by and watch Japan engage in armed hostilities with her while doing nothing to disrupt its trade routes. And so no ships would attempt to sail those routes to Japan, period.
 
vincent

vincent

Grumpy Old Man
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
CMP said:
My point is that those ships would never make it to Japan anyways. If Japan began military hostilities with China as a consequence of a Taiwan AR scenario, those ships would be intercepted and never permitted to dock at Japan. Very soon, no ships would sail there anyways due to refusal by their insurance companies to cover those routes. Logistically those routes could still be made viable and profitable, but only with the assumption those ships would not be sunk or turned back. China would obviously not stand by and watch Japan engage in armed hostilities with her while doing nothing to disrupt its trade routes. And so no ships would attempt to sail those routes to Japan, period.
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Geez, i was saying there is no need for Japan to get involved because it is not an existential threat to it.
 
C

CMP

Captain
Registered Member
vincent said:
Geez, i was saying there is no need for Japan to get involved because it is not an existential threat to it.
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The US would not likely give Japan a choice in the matter. Their puppet prime minister would be coerced into ordering military hostilities at gunpoint/threat of assassination of her entire family if necessary. Even if the US decides it does not want to get directly involved, I am certain it would be happy to sacrifice the lives of millions or even tens of millions of citizens from its vassals if it can harm China even slightly. Even if only just reputational damage.
 
A

A potato

Junior Member
Registered Member
RoastGooseHKer said:
Think about Japan’s alliance with the British Empire from 1902 until 1919. By aligning itself with the strongest power at the time, Japan was able to receive battleship tech transfers from the Brits, whilst helping the Brits to defeat the Russians and effectively kicking the the Tsar out of northern China, putting the entirety of Korea and Manchuria under its control. So for Japan, the bet would be US winning a war against China over Taiwan or the South China Sea. Japan would then reemerge as the leading maritime power in Asia again in the back of the strongest power. Looking back, Japan’s most fatal mistake was that it became a revisionist power in the 1930s and started to directly challenge the hegemons of the day. Whilst Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in 1931 was arguably a military operation conducted within its own sphere of influence, the 1937 invasion of China Proper directly challenged the geo economic security of US and UK.
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It’s actually when Japan invaded Indochina and Burma that the west turned against Japan. Before that they were secretly supporting Japan. But after ww2 they pretty much forgave Japan because Japan wasn’t really punished.
 
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