PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

RobertC · Apr 12, 2023

coolgod said:
China's coast guard has or will board (Taiwanese) ships and any excuse will do.

Yes but some excuses are prettier than others. And a "protecting the environment" excuse is harder to refute than an "ugly paint job" excuse.

The key is to incrementally elevate the scope and effect of the stop-and-board actions. At some point the CCG will be stopping and boarding all commercial shipping into and out of Taiwanese ports. Papers will be examined; equipment will be inspected; container contents will be verified; etc etc. And there will always be some sort of infraction. With law enforcement there always is. And these actions will always be under the umbrella of safety-at-sea.

As the commercial shippers face longer inspection queues their annoyance will increase especially if they are carrying perishables or other-time sensitive products. Perhaps raising costs for Taiwanese-related operations. Perhaps declining shipments leaving lower-quality shippers to carry Taiwan's products at greater risk, including promised pickup and delivery times.

It's like a brake. China can slow or speed the traffic flow to signal approval or disapproval of Taiwanese actions at will. And the US and its partners have no legal or kinetic means to force a change.

And it's apparent to everyone who is watching this is what China is doing.

Biscuits · Apr 12, 2023

PLAN doesn't really have a shortage of smaller vessels it can use for hit and run attacks.

Persistent spending under 2% is basically a huge "come and take it" sign for the US. China will fight and win using only the PLA with the advantages in it's network capability, the tyranny of distance and ability to outrange and outstick the invaders. And the fighting will start once the enemy pushes into Chinese seas.

US is being baited into this fight by a China that is almost certainly very confident with how it's defensive layout looks.

RobertC · Apr 12, 2023

FairAndUnbiased said:
3. Unmanned ships are just as civilian if they're unarmed. Why even have them belong to maritime militia which could be argued to be military? A single crewman that doesn't want to die for PR and defects or deserts would utterly destroy Chinese credibility permanently. How's that for ruining all future casus belli? You want to pin the entire future of Chinese diplomacy on the question of whether a single individual with the means and motive to defect, will not defect?

The legal status of unmanned ships is still evolving. And so far they aren't large enough to threaten the ramming (properly shouldering) maneuvering operations I was proposing. Besides China already established a precedent for seizing another nation's unmanned ship so turnabout is fair play?

China's three-prong PLAN-CCG-MM maritime fleet is a masterpiece of grayzone policy. The US and partners have no counters. China is managing the conflict on its terms in its region without firing a shot and I expect it will continue to do so.

H2O · Apr 12, 2023

kwaigonegin said:
That can't be true is it?

From what I gather, the NOTAM was meant for a rocket launch. Once the launch date was determined, they've narrowed it down to an hour or so.

FairAndUnbiased · Apr 12, 2023

RobertC said:
Yes but some excuses are prettier than others. And a "protecting the environment" excuse is harder to refute than an "ugly paint job" excuse.

The key is to incrementally elevate the scope and effect of the stop-and-board actions. At some point the CCG will be stopping and boarding all commercial shipping into and out of Taiwanese ports. Papers will be examined; equipment will be inspected; container contents will be verified; etc etc. And there will always be some sort of infraction. With law enforcement there always is. And these actions will always be under the umbrella of safety-at-sea.

As the commercial shippers face longer inspection queues their annoyance will increase especially if they are carrying perishables or other-time sensitive products. Perhaps raising costs for Taiwanese-related operations. Perhaps declining shipments leaving lower-quality shippers to carry Taiwan's products at greater risk, including promised pickup and delivery times.

It's like a brake. China can slow or speed the traffic flow to signal approval or disapproval of Taiwanese actions at will. And the US and its partners have no legal or kinetic means to force a change.

And it's apparent to everyone who is watching this is what China is doing.

all this works up to the moment where shooting is about to begin.

once the shooting is about to begin, unmanned sonar ships would be 100x more useful for finding if there's any hostile subs tailing carrier groups.

supersnoop · Apr 13, 2023

RobertC said:
Yes but some excuses are prettier than others. And a "protecting the environment" excuse is harder to refute than an "ugly paint job" excuse.

The key is to incrementally elevate the scope and effect of the stop-and-board actions. At some point the CCG will be stopping and boarding all commercial shipping into and out of Taiwanese ports. Papers will be examined; equipment will be inspected; container contents will be verified; etc etc. And there will always be some sort of infraction. With law enforcement there always is. And these actions will always be under the umbrella of safety-at-sea.

As the commercial shippers face longer inspection queues their annoyance will increase especially if they are carrying perishables or other-time sensitive products. Perhaps raising costs for Taiwanese-related operations. Perhaps declining shipments leaving lower-quality shippers to carry Taiwan's products at greater risk, including promised pickup and delivery times.

It's like a brake. China can slow or speed the traffic flow to signal approval or disapproval of Taiwanese actions at will. And the US and its partners have no legal or kinetic means to force a change.

And it's apparent to everyone who is watching this is what China is doing.

Only problem is the majority of Taiwan shipping is going to the mainland.
The busiest port is Kaohsiung which is on the East side towards the mainland.
Inspecting these ships are probably slowing down your own business, lol.
China tends to take direct economic action to hurt the DPP support. Agricultural products being deemed "unsafe" (hurts the southern producers which usually vote DPP), Fish being deemed unsafe. Tourism hurdles, etc.

The pineapple ban was seen as a joke, but the fruits trade can be very... fruitful...

With the improvement of relations between Vietnam and China, Vietnam is scrambling to get durian growers approved for importation into China. Why? The PRC durian market was 4b, and almost all went to Thailand.

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The pineapple ban was more of a warning sign as pineapple is not a big export, but these are the more likely levers rather than inspection.

RobertC · Apr 13, 2023

supersnoop -- thanks for that information.

Only problem is the majority of Taiwan shipping is going to the mainland.
...
The pineapple ban was more of a warning sign as pineapple is not a big export, but these are the more likely levers rather than inspection.

Temstar · Apr 13, 2023

siegecrossbow said:
I listened to Yankee’s most recent podcast and there appears to be some element of truth to this post. The map provided by ROC MND is pretty much bogus as they’ve reiterated multiple times in the past, and the situation seems to have worsened post Joint-Swords with them essentially reporting the same types of aircraft shown on CCTV-7. That seems mighty sus to me. They are very interested in what caused the four sonic booms near Hualien since both ROCAF and ROCN denied that they were responsible.

Here's another hard proof that those ROCMND maps are bull:

Besides canard, note the shark on the J-15's tail.
I wonder if the J-15 looped around the south of the island or did the Y-8 ASW go around to the east side.

Blitzo · Apr 13, 2023

Temstar said:
Here's another hard proof that those ROCMND maps are bull:
View attachment 110968 View attachment 110969 View attachment 110970
Besides canard, note the shark on the J-15's tail.
I wonder if the J-15 looped around the south of the island or did the Y-8 ASW go around to the east side.

It's possible they met well outside of the ROC ADIZ, in which case the ROC MND wouldn't have reported on it even if they had detected it.

That said it's possible it occured close to or in the ADIZ boundary, so who knows.

kriss · Apr 14, 2023

For all we know they could have been doing this kind of report based on released CCTV footage.

PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

RobertC

Junior Member

Biscuits

Major

RobertC

Junior Member

H2O

Junior Member

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier

supersnoop

Major

RobertC

Junior Member

Temstar

Brigadier

Blitzo

Lieutenant General

kriss

Junior Member