PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

coolgod said:

But what is the best way to reunify if nukes are already on Taiwan?

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First, it would be extremely difficult for Taiwan to hide the nuke and for China not to know beforehand that Taiwan is acquiring nuke from US with the amount spies within their military and government, plus constant surveillance of Taiwan using satellites tracking military shipments and buildup, so China should be capable of identifying where the nuke is located. I'm not knowledgeable on nuclear weapon maintenance, but should there be facilities built to accommodate them?

Now on how to disarm them of the nukes, they could do a first strike on those nuclear weapons before coming in, or have spies/special ops disarm/sabotage those nuclear weapons. China doesn't have to act on announcement of the nuclear weapons, and could start with economic blockade and terrorism to force Taiwan into submission, maybe turn Taiwan into an issue similar to NK and ask for sanctions to be placed on Taiwan until they give up their nukes.

But the scenario of US giving nukes to Taiwan is an extremely politically and geopolitically sensitive move, like @luosifen said, it'll start another "Cuban missile crisis" and possibly turn US into a pariah in the region. China could also declare or communicate with US that if Taiwan uses the nuke on China, it would count as US being a belligerent in the act and give China the justification to use tactical nukes on US military bases and assets, there's also an opportunity to use this situation into an international issue in order to degrade US reputation and standing.

Also would the administration in Taiwan even have the guts to accept stationing nuclear weapons the territory or even have the guts to launch nuclear weapons in retaliation?

zhangjim said:

Well, let's get back to the military.
View attachment 91796
This is the news on June 21.This means that the eastern part of Taiwan island is not as safe as expected.

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Taiwan's east side should never be safe from the attacks by the PLAAF, PLAN and PLARF. That way, they would have no where else to hide.

Now, every single nook and crany of Taiwan is within China's line of sight and line of fire.

The period where Taiwan's mountain ranges could shelter Taiwanese military from attacks coming from mainland China is over.

My Cuban missile crisis 2 refers to repeating deployment of nukes in Cuba to force the US administration to back off from placing nukes in Taiwan (the US did have nukes aimed at the mainland from Taiwan back when they recognized the ROC as the official government of China).

coolgod said:

But what is the best way to reunify if nukes are already on Taiwan?

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The short answer is indefinite blockade

luosifen said:

My Cuban missile crisis 2 refers to repeating deployment of nukes in Cuba to force the US administration to back off from placing nukes in Taiwan (the US did have nukes aimed at the mainland from Taiwan back when they recognized the ROC as the official government of China).

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I thought that's what you mean, but I'm not sure Cuba or any other Latin American countries would do this favour for China this time around.

Coalescence said:

Now on how to disarm them of the nukes, they could do a first strike on those nuclear weapons before coming in, or have spies/special ops disarm/sabotage those nuclear weapons. China doesn't have to act on announcement of the nuclear weapons, and could start with economic blockade and terrorism to force Taiwan into submission, maybe turn Taiwan into an issue similar to NK and ask for sanctions to be placed on Taiwan until they give up their nukes.

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Let's assume somehow the US was able to smuggle nukes to TW, I mean the US delivers weapons to TW regularly, nuclear weapons wouldn't be impossible.

NK sanctions are from UN, the US would veto any sanctions on TW for sure. So you are proposing that China blockade TW until they give up their nukes? This definitely messes up China's own reunification plan.

I don't want to derail the present line of discussion, so please do not feel obliged to respond unless there's disagreement. My question on the potential pathway forward between mainland China and Taiwan is irrelevant on a pragmatic basis. It was a hypothetical exercise, and it probably garnered more responses than it is worth. In hindsight, it was probably obvious that the Chinese people, at least given their current upbringing and education, will not accept an independent Taiwan under any conditions.
I will say though that I am interested in preventing war if at all possible, and perhaps that is what motivated me to 'think out side the box'. It bothers me that the prospect of a peaceful resolution is slipping lower and lower over the years. What the DPP is doing is dangerous for everybody involved, and I have no doubt that Tsai, Chen and Lee will be remembered as villains by future generations.

ACuriousPLAFan said:

I believe you are the guy on Youtube, correct?

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Yes

coolgod said:

Let's assume somehow the US was able to smuggle nukes to TW, I mean the US delivers weapons to TW regularly, nuclear weapons wouldn't be impossible.

NK sanctions are from UN, the US would veto any sanctions on TW for sure. So you are proposing that China blockade TW until they give up their nukes? This definitely messes up China's own reunification plan.

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So somehow China failed to track nukes and weapons being smuggled into TW, which includes delivery systems, nuclear maintenance facilities and the nuke itself, then the intelligence branch responsible for Taiwan needs to be disbanded and overhauled, and surveillance capabilities be further improved. Even then Taiwan would need a good amount of nukes to survive the first strike and air defense to ensure MAD against China, and after their announcement of obtaining nukes they still need to battle with economic blockade and possibly sabotage or terrorism over the course of the years.

They could try gathering support from countries in UNGA to overrule the veto or do a joint sanction with countries that they can get on board. China has multiple ways or plans for reunification with Taiwan, but they prefer the peaceful peaceful reunification route if possible, though I don't think anyone here have a clear idea what is China's plan with Taiwan. Reunification through military is definitely last resort however, and there's plenty of ways to weaken Taiwan to get it to capitulate or make it easier to militarily reunify later on, like economic or naval blockade, terrorism.

I do apologize in advance, but in contrary to some of the suggestions proposed above, I have a different take on this.

You cannot just tear pages out of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis playbook and apply them onto the Taiwan-stationing-US-nuclear-weapons scenario.

You see, the USSR stationed her nuclear-tipped missiles on Cuba wasn't mainly because of previous attempts by the US to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro - It was mainly because the US having stationed her nuclear-tipped missiles in Turkey. That means what the Soviet did against the US in Cuba is a direct response to what the US did against the USSR in Turkey. There is a clear and obvious justification for the USSR's actions, because you can say it was a geopolitical and strategical reciprocacy.

The same cannot be said about Taiwan, China and the US.
Has China stationed any nuclear weapons in the immediate vicinity of the continental United States? No.
Has China directly threatened the US with her nuclear weapons first? No.

Besides, with the PTSD coming from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, I don't think that any Latin American country would be brave enough to host Chinese nuclear weapons without risking open hostile response from the US, as long as there is no permanent PLA presence in Latin America, and/or there is no NATO-like military alliance between China and the Latin American countries.

Therefore, unlike the Soviets who actually had the viable means to "pay back" in case the US launched her nuclear missiles against the USSR from Turkey back then, China has nothing close to that, apart from her DF-31As, DF-41s, JL-2As and JL-3s.

Furthermore, if you want to force the US to pull her nuclear weapons out of Taiwan, it is almost certain that the US would demand certain concessions from China - such as China promising to never attack Taiwan, for instance.

Why? Because we have to speak from the realist POV, i.e. the US is the one having an edge over China in this scenario. Those American nukes stationed on Taiwan would only take a few minutes to reach Chinese cities, while the Chinese nukes would take tens of minutes to reach American cities. Not yet mentioned in this scenario would be the larger window of opportunity for the US and her allies to intercept Chinese nukes heading towards the US from China, compared to the very tiny window of opportunity for the PLA to intercept those American nukes heading towards China from Taiwan.

There exists a huge and glaring disparity of threats that both sides can put up against each other, which also renders any sort of MAD between China and the US redundant.

Furthermore, remember that Cuba is a sovereign nation and a full member state in the UN.
Taiwan is a renegade province of China, of which China vows to reunify the island under Beijing's control one day.

If China is somehow forced to agree to any kind of consession demanded by the US in exchange for the removal of American nuclear weapons from Taiwan, that would also mean that China would have:
1. Admitted China's own defeat;
2. Admitted that China cannot stand toe-to-toe and shoulder-to-shoulder in face of the United States;
3. Admitted that China is weak;
4. Admitted that China is incapable of protecting her national security and interests; and most importantly
5. Admitted that China agrees on the fact where Taiwan is an independent state, both de-jure and de-facto.

With that, how do you even expect the CPC to face the fury of the Chinese people?

In a nutshell, does anyone really believe China would accept that kind of concession demands? Nope.

Therefore, I believe that in case Taiwan does station nuclear weapons from the US, China would just launch her reunification war against Taiwan right away.

Yes, even if that means going into an open military conflict with the United States.

Because when you have nothing else to lose, what else would you be bothered with? Either you win big, or you die fighting - There is nothing else that you can do but fight until the very end.

I bring this idea of nuclear arming Taiwan up because I see it as a quite rational choice for US to do. They are already resorting asymmetric warfare strategy via Taiwan and the US already openly declared it wants to make China's reunification as painful as possible. Even the threat of this idea would throw a massive wrench in China's reunification plans. Let's not underestimate what a warmongering declining power will go do to slow its demise.

Besides nuclear-tipped missiles and gravity bombs, US can also smuggle in tactical nukes. What if the US planted nuclear landmines in Taiwan as a scorched earth policy? These plans were implemented in Germany during the cold war.

A nuclear-armed Taiwan will understand that the actual use of nuclear weapons against another nuclear-armed power will mean the destruction of the state, its people and everything it has. It will enjoy the benefit of being able to threaten to use nukes, but for the above reason it cannot use nukes except as a last resort. If the PLAN simply maintains a full naval blockade against Taiwan, the DPP cannot possibly respond with nukes against Chinese cities. That would be a disproportionate level of escalation that incurs too much risk of a retaliatory nuclear strike, relative to the magnitude and immediacy of the threat associated with a naval blockade. If they choose to use nukes against PLAN warships, perhaps that can be seen as a lower level of escalation than a strike on cities, but the PLAN can retaliate via conventional means in proportion to the amount of damage it sustained (e.g. land attack strikes). What I am saying is that a rational decision-maker cannot hope to break out of a naval blockade with nukes.
Given that Taiwan is heavily dependent on imports for all of its resource needs, a naval blockade will force domestic instability and resentment against the DPP to reach a critical level. Taiwan obviously does not produce mineral fuels. It has some hydro-energy and nuclear power, but these are not enough and can in any case be put out of action. While Taiwan is obviously known for its agriculture, it is still a net food importer, and food production still depends heavily on imported fertilisers and fishery, which can be shut off. I won't go again into what I see as strong residual Chinese nationalism, but put it simply I think most people are not ideological enough to follow the DPP to the grave. Given a sustained blockade, I am certain the DPP will lose the support of the military and be overthrown by the public.
The main problem I see with a blockade is that it takes longer to take effect, and a longer conflict does leave more possibility of foreign intervention. But if Taiwan does obtain nukes, it is probably the least risky option. A frontal assualt in this situation is undesirable, because it increases the probability of human actors making irrational decisions on both sides.