PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

I think that China would indeed gain status and respect from a relatively justified, brief, clean, victorious war with a weaker opponent.

I don't think any of the things we've been discussing mean that China is going to go out and seek war. What it means that in a situation where it's a toss-up between taking military action or not, there will be forces pushing China towards military action under the right circumstances. And that's something policy makers who are dealing with China need to take into account.

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Well said. It's not that the PLA will push to go to war with the U.S., that's biting off too much for them to chew. But in future international disputes, especially with weaker countries, they're going to be pushing the "use force" option. They'll want to warm up on a weak country first. Libya is a great patsy because they're weak and nobody likes them, it's an easy "feel good" war in the desert. Eventually they'll work their way up to Taiwan. Taiwan would be a big war, not a warm-up war. But I suspect once they win a few small wars that have whetted their appetite, they'll start fishing around for bigger targets.

Finn McCool said:

To add to what Geographer is saying, I think it would be fair to say that China is a nation with a historical "chip on its shoulder". China is rising to superpower status after a long and relatively recent history of being at the mercy of imperial powers. China very much wants to be recognized as a strong nation and be respected. Throughout history, victorious wars have marked the arrival of a new nation as a major power player (for example, Japan's victory of China in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 caused the Western powers to sit up and notice that Japan was a force to be reckoned with). I think that China would indeed gain status and respect from a relatively justified, brief, clean, victorious war with a weaker opponent.

I don't think any of the things we've been discussing mean that China is going to go out and seek war. What it means that in a situation where it's a toss-up between taking military action or not, there will be forces pushing China towards military action under the right circumstances. And that's something policy makers who are dealing with China need to take into account.

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A very good point which I agree with.

However, I would like to add that China is very much aware of history and places great importance and value on the place in the world it has built over the past decades.

It will not jeopardize its future and risk everything they have already achieved by giving in to military muscle flexing impulses.

If China does go to war, it will either because its key core interests are seriously threatened or because itself or its interests have been attack. Even if a perfectly legitimate military action that the UN can firmly get behind comes up, it will still take something extra special to get China to even vote for military action never mind actually participate in it.

I can only see China fighting a war of choice if the case for action was so strong and legitimate that even China's harshest critics cannot deny it if they are honest, and on top of that, it will be an easy military victory for China.

Casting around, the only likely scenarios I can think of is if some crazy African leader decided to make Chinese a scape goat and there was widespread attacks on Chinese nationals with great loss of life in that country. That might be enough to drive China to military intervention.

Other examples are for threats to core interests, like if Taiwan declaring independence, or Vietnam made an aggressive land grab attempt in the South China Sea, or if NK becomes so unpredictable it becomes a real threat to China's security, in which case China may make serious behind closed doors offers to SK about a combined operation to take over in exchange for Korean neutrality and the removal of US military bases.

Of all of those, only NK could be really classed as a war of choice, as its hard to see many other nations backing down if they were in China's place.

Geographer said:

Well said. It's not that the PLA will push to go to war with the U.S., that's biting off too much for them to chew. But in future international disputes, especially with weaker countries, they're going to be pushing the "use force" option. They'll want to warm up on a weak country first. Libya is a great patsy because they're weak and nobody likes them, it's an easy "feel good" war in the desert. Eventually they'll work their way up to Taiwan. Taiwan would be a big war, not a warm-up war. But I suspect once they win a few small wars that have whetted their appetite, they'll start fishing around for bigger targets.

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Yet China didn't even vote for military action in Libya. Another case of reality diverging from your expectations.

What you say is certainly possible, there is no denying that. But there is a world of difference between possible and likely, and you simply cannot use possibilities as arguments to suggest something is likely to happen never mind predict that it will happen that way.

Your comparison of the the American and Chinese officer corps misses my point. The American military has since World War II been continuously engaged in missions around the world, in conflicts big and small. At almost any given time there was action to be had. Even between the Vietnam War and Desert Storm there was Lebanon and Grenada. China hasn't even done a mission on the scale of Lebanon or Grenada since 1979. The U.S. military has had not to cast about for conflicts in order to prove its mettle, the civilian leadership fed it a steady diet of engagements. But even now there are dire warnings about not pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan, they want to keep fighting the war. They want more troops, more money, more freedom of action.

The PLA, on the other hand, has not seen action since 1991 Tienanmen Square, and no foreign action since 1979. You could make an argument that current U.S. military is war-weary, but the PLA is just getting started. While the U.S. has seen the long-hard grind of counter-insurgency, China has only engaged in blue on red exercises with no casualties.

There are more examples of the military pushing hard for war, and not just fascist countries. In Vietnam, the military always wanted more, more, more. Even 500,000 troops in country wasn't enough for the military leadership. They wanted to invade North Vietnam. General MacArthur wanted to invade China and use nuclear weapons in the Korean War, and was fired for insubordination. In 1958, French military officers led coup d'tat attempt against the civilian government to prevent the de-colonization of French Algeria. Despite the hopelessness of Algeria, the military could not fathom giving up because war was a way of life for them.

. Only idiots would train their future military leaders to think they will make their country stronger through war, as that is a sure fire way to make sure you start WWIII and will likely end up on the loosing end of it.

The role of high ranking generals in the government is to give good sound, realistic military advice and options. Their opinion would hardly be worth listening to if they are all frothing at the mouth screaming WHAAAARRRGH! as the answer to every problem, and they only behave like that in the most silly movies (or satires).

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You have to separate what you want to be true and what is more likely to be true. There have been countless military leaders with their own agendas, concerned with their own personal aggrandizement or accumulation of wealth, their own belief of what is good for the country, who for whatever reason disagreed with civilian leadership. The generals who pushed Japan into war against China and the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, among others. During World War I, the Western military leadership was notoriously careless with their soldiers' lives. They threw hundreds of thousands of bodies at enemy trenches to scrape out a few miles.

Earlier I cited the 1963 Gulf of Tonkin incident and 1931 Mukden incident as examples where the military influenced national policy through dishonesty. Those incidents demonstrate that militaries (and all bureaucracies) can work to further their own agenda. They don't just take orders.

That hardly equates to a desire to attack Taiwan for no good reason other than for the hell of it as you seem to suggest.

It is probably true that there are such feelings and desires amongst some of the rank and file, as it is only nature. But it is a massive stretch to go on and suggest that that is the prevailing view within the PLA to the point where the civilian leadership could barely keep their mad attack dog generals from throwing the leash and attacking others for the sake of it.

If a situation arrises where China could quite reasonably and legitimately need to use military force, the generals will present a military option and may well push for it. But only if it is an easy win with little risk and cost.

If China was truly threatened or attacked, there would be no question that the PLA will fight their hardest no matter the cost or odds. But you do not go starting wars of choice for fun, and even if you do, you would not go picking the hardest fight you can conceivable be in.

What you are suggesting is in effect that the PLA generals will push to attack Taiwan out of boredness. That is just not going to happen.

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Here you go with the strawmen again. There is a psychological undercurrent that will influence the PLA's thinking in a "pro-use-of-force" direction. That undercurrent is a desire to try out their new tactics and equipment, and to prove themselves to their superiors, their countrymen, to the world. The military is not going to attack Taiwan out of boredom, I never said or implied such, but rather this undercurrent would push them increasingly in a pro-war direction. They need a pressure release valve, just like the U.S. military has a constant plate of conflicts in which military blows off steam.

Your argument that China is different has to do with their legacy as a victim of foreign powers. You said the century of humiliation makes the Chinese more sympathetic to foreign countries suffering under foreign militaries. Well, China sees Taiwan, the Spratly Islands, and Daioyu Islands as internal conflicts because it claims the territory as its own. China's lack of control over those islands is seen as a continued grievance from the century of humiliation.

Finn McCool made a good point that China has a chip on its shoulder, and you seem to agree. They were wronged by the West and Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries and are finally coming back in a big way. They've got a lot of new stuff and tactics to try out. The CCP may be firmly committed to "peaceful growth" but the military will have its own agenda. They have a different organizational culture than the Party. An organizational culture, that, in similar circumstances in the West, led to a push for war.

Geographer:

All you are doing is making baseless speculations. If you are going to argue that the PLA is itching for war, then you need to provide some EVIDENCE, not just pseudo-psychobabble.

It's equally speculative to say the PLA is content to amass an enormous army and do nothing with it. Has any other country in the world amassed such a large, expensive army and done nothing with it?

Solarz, maybe you haven't fully read my posts, I provided historical evidence of what militaries do and want. It's valid because human and organization nature doesn't change. I could just as easily be describing the local fire department with a shiny new firetruck and no fires to fight. They're going to get stir crazy and find excuses to go out and show their skills.

Some militaries, like those of Pakistan and Egypt, have gotten into making money. Real estate, telecom, that sort of thing. They like making money so much they have forgotten how to be gung-ho and fight a real war. They grow soft and corrupt. The CCP saw the detrimental effect on readiness such commercial enterprises were having on the PLA so they forced the PLA to focus only on practicing for a war. No more money-making distractions. But taking away the commercial side business took away a key peace-time distraction. Practicing for something all the time, thinking about it, practicing some more, conditioning yourself how to act when it comes...then telling yourself you hope it never comes just defies logic.

Solarz, I never said they were itching for war. My argument is more nuanced than that. The accumulation of money and new weapons, the rise in international prestige, and the desire will push the military to advocate pro-war positions in international disputes. There is a possibility they take matters into their own hands and stage incidents that push the civilian leadership toward a conflict. It's not pre-determined, it is a possibility to be aware of. I know the CCP keeps a close on the military, they would probably secretly agree with me that the military needs a close eye kept on them. I'm really not picking on China here, all governments should keep a close eye on their militaries. But China's circumstances demand the CCP be especially wary.

plawolf said:

However, I would like to add that China is very much aware of history and places great importance and value on the place in the world it has built over the past decades.

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Yet the Chinese foreign secretary is not a member of the Politburo or Standing Committee. That indicates that whilst it may see foreign matters as important, how much weight it attaches to the views of other countries is questionable.

If China does go to war, it will either because its key core interests are seriously threatened or because itself or its interests have been attack...

I can only see China fighting a war of choice if the case for action was so strong and legitimate that even China's harshest critics cannot deny it if they are honest, and on top of that, it will be an easy military victory for China.

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Without realising it I think you may have stumbled on to something. First, China isn't going to start or involve itself in random wars that it doesn't think are key to its needs. But what it believes it will have to get involved with will change. With China importing more and more oil from other countries, is it so unreasonable to suggest China will look to increase its military activity elsewhere to keep those supplies going? Or does it (ironically) look to the US and its allies to secure Chinese oil imports?

But more importantly, I think an important point is that China is growing increasingly bullish about its capabilities (a war over Taiwan is being seen increasingly as easy[-ish]) and how other countries should see whether China's position is justified or not. As I mentioned above, the lack of foreign policy heavyweights at the centre of the decision-making process in the Chinese government may be one reason why Chinese diplomatic problems can be acerbic. There is a question as to how much China cares about what other countries think.

You said that even China's harshest critics would accept China went to war for the right reasons, but I doubt a majority of key countries would accept China has a right to go to war with Taiwan, even if it declares independence. Possibly what you're thinking of is that China believes other countries should see Chinese military action as justified because China is in the "right". If they agreed that such action was justified then good for them. If they didn't then it's because they hate China/want to keep China down/etc. Or, even worse, it wouldn't come on to the Chinese government's radar that many other countries would dare oppose China (diplomatically, economically or militarily). This is from China's perspective, I'm not accusing you of believing you back China or hate it.

@Geographer
Two corrections: The general fired because he wanted to attack China was not Eisenhower but MacArthur, the Tonkin Gulf incident was in August 1964.

Geographer considers military psychology to be rather uniform, neglecting history and outside influences. For example the US developed a tradition of militarily intervening in South and Central America long before it became what is now called democratic. These mostly involved only a few thousand marines and protected the interest of US companies at the expense of those countries and their inhabitants. These interventions have now become rare, the last being the invasion of Granada in 1983, and the invasion of Panama in 1989 to get rid of President Noriega.
The wars in the Middle East are clearly related to the oil supply of the world but prove to be more expensive than reasonable.
Even while spending half of the world's total military expenditure no definitive economic advantage can be secured.
China arrives in a very different world from were the US lived in. There are no easy economic gains to be won by attacking small countries and huge disadvantages to be expected. That in addition to a military history that goes back much further than the middle of the eighteenth century.You therefor can expect a much more peaceable attitude from China than from the US without assuming some moral superiority of the CCP over the US Congress.

@Geographer:

Do you know who Locke and Descartes were? Descartes thought that if you could work something out logically in your mind, then that something must be true in the world. On the other hand, Locke said that for something to be true, it must be verifiable via observation.

Guess whose philosophy modern science is based on?

Are you familiar with the Scientific Method? Do you know what the difference between a hypothesis and a theory is? Both are sound logical constructs, but a theory is supported by evidence, while a hypothesis is not. Hypotheses, although logically sound, are routinely contradicted by evidence.

What you are claiming about the PLA is the textbook definition of a hypothesis.

What's more, even your hypothesis is *bad*, because it's based on faulty logic: false assumptions and slippery-slope arguments.

For example, to use your fire department analogy, do you think fire fighters who get a brand new fire truck would want to go out and start fires? No? Then why do you think militaries with shiny toys would want to go out and start wars? Did you mean the fire fighters would want to show off their skills, like at a competition or something? Well guess what, the military has those too, it's called war games. The PLA recently had one with the Russians.

Secondly, you're assuming that every organization, regardless of their purpose, culture, and history, would have the same "psychology". That is a patently absurd claim.

Third, you are claiming that the US went to war because the military pushed it to do so. There are just so many problems with that claim. First of all, the US Military and the PLA have vastly different cultures and mindsets. Second, the US Military *didn't* push the country to war. George W Bush did, and last time I checked, he was a civilian!

But in the end, even if your argument is 100% logically sound, it is still worthless unless you can provide evidence to back it up!

The primary problem with Geographer, and many Western media's arguments, is that they like to use the Western frame to gauge Chinese mindset. Just because every major Western countries and Japan invaded other countries when they were powerful enough, does not mean that China will follow the exact same path. China will be very cautious in dealing with countries involved in the South Sea problem, let alone Taiwan.

Another problem is confusion of personal feelings with national policy. Yes, some Chinese may want some form of revenge against past invaders, especially Japanese. But most would disagree, because they know the generation of perpetrators has long gone. National policies are made collectively instead of individually. So unless a bunch of irrational military fanatics are making policies in China, "revenge" will never be a cause of Chinese military action.