PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Forget about Singapore. They are bananas. They may look yellow on the outside, but they are white inside. They also have significant Indian representation in their government. Very doubtful that they will want to be any part of a Han Chinese 5 eyes club.

As for Taiwan, I have serious doubts on the feasibility of any US/Canada arrangement or 10,000 year blood brother formal alliance. The reunification of the motherland is burnt into the psyche of all Han Chinese. 100 years of humiliation has to be avenged. Taiwan will be reunified with the motherland, peacefully or otherwise.
I am banana too, but that doesn't mean I do not have pride in my Chinese ethnicity. I have never been to a place in the world where being Chinese is viewed as a good thing as much as Singapore. The Singapore elite is desperate to keep han Chinese majority in their country. They are importing ethnically Chinese people from all across Asia and around the world.

As for Taiwan, there are many different levels of reunification that may or may not satisfy mainland psyche. Mainland will definitely be willing to grant more autonomy to Taiwan in a peaceful reunification than it did with hk.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Thinking about it a little bit more, the US response to the conflict in Ukraine might not be a positive indicator towards what the US response to a Taiwan contingency might look like, but open up the potential for a new problem.

If it doesn't impact the mid-terms, the conflict in Ukraine will certainly impact the presidential election. If the Republican candidate wins, response to a crisis that threatens a democratic country will be seen as vital in their domestic political considerations. The debate on Taiwan in the US has been mixed so far, but this could be enough to tip the balance in favor of intervention when the actual shooting starts and people are (or will allegedly be) dying.

A historical example that might validate my theory is the state of the Russian attitude towards NATO following the 1999 bombings in Yugoslavia. The lack of Russian action on their periphery was not an indicator of Russian impotence, it triggered the chain of events that lead to the current conflict.

This isn't an inevitable outcome, however. There are some things China could do to discourage and prevent foreign intervention post-Ukraine-

1. "Formally" announce the expansion of China's nuclear arsenal. The exact number is secret, but if simple PR releases are not viable, there are ways to leak the size without actually leaking it. A Ministry of Foreign Affairs fact sheet from 2004 states China "has the smallest nuclear arsenal", which would imply less than 200 (the British nuclear arsenal at the time). China could quietly state somewhere that they have the 3rd or 4th or whatever largest nuclear arsenal which could indicate size to other countries "officially" without compromising the exact number. Eventually, the PLA will probably need to announce the activation of the new ICBM units anyways, so the cat will be out of the bag- there is no way China could keep its arsenal at such low levels while expanding its ICBM force to such an extent. But a direct announcement would go a long way in breaking the widespread belief that China's arsenal poses little to no threat to the US*.

2. Make a warning to other countries not to intervene when announcing the beginning of PLA operations, threatening a massive response but not using the "consequences you have never seen before in your history" type language, so as not to contradict China's no first use policy.

These two things would have a pretty good likelihood of keeping foreign intervention at bay; politicians in Japan, the US, and Australia accused of turning their back could merely take advantage of strategic ambiguity and claim they had no need to defend Taiwan due to the lack of a treaty obligation.

*This will be extremely important. During Biden's first press conference during the day following the beginning of the conflict, he specifically mentioned nuclear weapons as a reason why NATO intervention was completely off the table. Unfortunately, from what I can tell, many believe that a) the Chinese nuclear arsenal is small and insignificant or b) the Chinese nuclear arsenal is small and ABM can completely deal with it. Mere speculation regarding silo construction has not seemed to help the situation, from what I can gather from this forum, and looking at US political and think tank discussion on the subject of intervention.

The second thing would also be very important. Current discussion around intervention seems to focus upon a massive Chinese first strike which kills many Americans and Japanese. If this doesn't come, there will be a strong movement, especially in Japan (where despite its best attempts, the LDP has been unable to quell widespread pacifist sentiment), to not intervene. Regardless of the social media reaction, Americans are not up for another war according to polling regarding Ukraine. A similar situation could be expected if the "Red Dragon/Panda Bear/whatever" doesn't actually attack US forces as predicted.

Is there any doubt of this happening even without the Ukrainian crisis? The Dems blew it. Economy is bad, Covid didn’t improve, and all they care about is transgender rights. Trump 2024 is a foregone conclusion.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
China needs to be contianed but it's everybody else who's being aggressive huh? If you weren't the aggressors here you wouldn't NEED to be contained. You'd restrain YOURSELF.
I think you raised some good points, but how much of the issues currently facing us china relationship due to actions by china vs the natural interaction between the current de facto power vs the challenger? Obviously, us and uk avoided any type of conflict when America was replacing the British in world order, but that's more the exception rather than the norm. Historically speaking, there has been many conflict between two nations in similar situations like Britain and Germany. Between us and china, there is a clear case of one side feeling disrespected and the other side feeling alarmed. And neither sides have any trust for each other.

I don't think this is an extreme position that I am holding. If you listen to Ian bremmer of geromedia, he has said it multiple times. Us probably has been more responsible of the recent decline in the relationship than china.

As for chinas issues with other countries. How much of that is due to chinas handling of covid and hk situation rather than it's interaction with it's neighbors?
 
Take Taiwan out of the discussion and the only way the US would ever consider fighting China is if China became a dangerous neighbor to it's allies. The US is very much a "live and let live" country. You leave us and ours alone and we couldn't give a damn what you do in your own country, Start claiming other countries territory as your own and that changes the equation. Ask yourselves what prompted both Japan and South Korea to start investing in carriers? What prompted the UK to send a carrier to pay a visit to your backyard? Because you're such wonderful neighbors? Hell, I wouldn't be at all surprised if China's behavior drives both Japan and South Korea to become nuclear powers. Act like shitty neighbors you get treated like it. Act like good neighbors you also get treated like it. This isn't rocket science.

China needs to be contianed but it's everybody else who's being aggressive huh? If you weren't the aggressors here you wouldn't NEED to be contained. You'd restrain YOURSELF.

You're taking a lot more than Taiwan out of the equation. The US has been actively invading, interfering in, and instigating conflicts within China, within its neighbors, and among the whole neighborhood for over a century through the current day. It isn't rocket science to see that you're parroting US lies and propaganda to demonize China.
 

tphuang

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
VIP Professional
Registered Member
This unfortunately is the lesson that certain people who are ignorant of Taiwan situation would think.

As we discussed up thread, China is not Russia. It's military is already a lot stronger. With time, the gap between China/Taiwan military will only grow larger. Unless Taiwan crosses certain red lines, China will not invade Taiwan. Those red lines are well established between the governments. Even DPP is afraid to provoke it too much. China will not really push things against Taiwan until it's convinced that it can take over Taiwan quickly. As we discussed earlier in the thread, PLA still has numerous areas where it needs improvement.

Taiwan is not Ukraine. Sure, Taiwan's air defense and air force is a lot stronger than Ukraine, but we have already seen how easily PLAAF can just wear out ROCAF and mess up Taiwanese air defense radar. More importantly, Taiwan is a small place. You can take over Taiwan by simply capturing their 3 largest cities.

Most importantly, people do not seem to understand that Taiwanese elites have more or less already accepted the inevitability of a mainland takeover. They are not going to get into a guerilla warefare to resist a mainland takeover. That's just complete nonsense.

Before I visited Taiwan a few years ago, I had no idea how close Taiwan is to southern China culturally speaking or how many Taiwanese people work/live in mainland or married to people in mainland. The gap between mainland china and Taiwan in terms of culture is a lot smaller than China and HK. I follow these things pretty closely and I didn't realize these things before I visited Taiwan. If I don't understand these things, how could US political elites understand these things? This kind of article just tells you how certain groups of US military really thinks of Taiwan
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


If you are Taiwanese and read this kind of nonsense, would you think America cares about you? Or would you think you are being used as a pawn in a conflict between political elites of 2 large powers? Don't think Taiwanese public is stupid or brain washed. They are not. They will do what makes the most sense for their everyday life. Not American or PRC elites. China just needs to offer Taiwan something they can stomach while also pairing that up with a lot of stick. If I'm Taiwanese, I wouldn't want PRC so control my life. But if I get to keep status quo and my government in exchange for peace + aligning my military/foreign policy with the mainland, that might be an ok trade off.
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
Chinese economic pull over Taiwan is incomparably greater than Russian economic pull over Ukraine. Taiwanese Guoyu and Putonghua are the same language, Russian and Ukrainian are not the same language. In any case, what can the West offer to Taiwanese to entice them to start a EuroMaiden?
50% of Ukrainian trade was with Russia. And Ukrainian and Russian are mutually intelligible.
 
Top