PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

5unrise said:

If the South Koreans don't comply, and the PLA attacks South Korea pre-emptively as a result, how could this be legally and morally justified? Surely, there's no reason for China to fight South Korea if they are not prepared to initiate hostilities.

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If we take the laws of war from the two world wars, any nation hosting troops from a belligerent nation will either have to expel these troops or they become party to the war. An attack on SK is completely legal if they continue providing a safe harbour for Americans.

This practice has simply been forgotten because western countries often participate in wars indirectly by hosting troops of a country which is involved in war, but the host nation is too powerful to make it worth attacking them. The Ukraine war is the best example. But of course China isn't Russia and if you're already in a world war with the US, the marginal danger of involving minor powers like the Philippines or South Korea are smaller

bebops said:

China is the leader of produce anything in huge quantity in the world.

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As long as it has the resources and imports it's energy required to manufacture those goods. When all economic trade is halted due to a war, and the trade you can do is at risk of being destroyed or intercepted by the enemy, building stuff will become way more difficult.

droopy said:

As long as it has the resources and imports it's energy required to manufacture those goods. When all economic trade is halted due to a war, and the trade you can do is at risk of being destroyed or intercepted by the enemy, building stuff will become way more difficult.

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China has plenty of coal. And after huge investments in electric public transportation (high speed rail, subway systems, electric buses) is a lot less dependent on oil than other economies. Electric bycicles have huge penetration, and it is the largest electric car market in the world. Unlike oil, which is burned, the batteries can be recycled. Once you replace most of the car fleet in China the lithium and nickel imports will start to decrease. You can also expect imports of iron ore to dramatically fall once China moves the people who still have to move into cities there. Since most of the imported iron is actually used for infrastructure construction. This could take another decade.

China could vastly increase its oil, gas, coal imports from Russia if necessary as well. For example Russia is presently doing its Vostok oil project. They could just build a pipeline to deliver that oil direct to China. For gas they could build Power of Siberia 2, since Russia is basically left with like 80 bcm/y of gas they were supposed to sell to Europe which has little outlets available, same deal with coal. The largest Russian coal mines are mostly located close to the Altai so they aren't exactly far away from China either. And Russia is also developing deposits closer to the Pacific which are even closer to Northern China.

droopy said:

As long as it has the resources and imports it's energy required to manufacture those goods. When all economic trade is halted due to a war, and the trade you can do is at risk of being destroyed or intercepted by the enemy, building stuff will become way more difficult.

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Not all trade is going to be halted, that's pretty much impossible, lol. China will still export and import massive quantities through the BRI roads and railroads through Central Asia and Russia even through the war. And you forgot that the enemy's trade will also be disrupted (imports).

That's why they built a shit ton of strategic reserves for commodities and energy during the last few years (state and SOEs), buying from abroad (but they also have massive untapped unmined reserves inside of their own territory they didn't overuse so far, instead imported, just for this reason), elevated relations with Russia to the highest level, and became a dominant force in renewable energy technology production at home.

It will be the opposite, China has a massive surge capacity, it has the best industrial ecosystems and infrastructure, and factories, and it has a skilled and patriotic population to work hard for military production, not that you will have a decrease in military production, you will have a massive increase, on a level that the world didn't thought to be possible so far. The US vs Japan in WW2 will simply pale in comparison to this.

droopy said:

As long as it has the resources and imports it's energy required to manufacture those goods. When all economic trade is halted due to a war, and the trade you can do is at risk of being destroyed or intercepted by the enemy, building stuff will become way more difficult.

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Entire east Asia won't be able to trade... except China from BRI land routes, and what China allows ASEAN to export.

Nobody else is going to be shipping anything. An ASBM trading with a cargo ship is worth, 1:100 return on investment. Even a regular IRBM can hit tankers docked to unload cargo, they're not going anywhere for days. And don't forget port infrastructure. Not even going into the naval portion.

Once the first few or as many as needed are sunk, insurance will refuse to cover anybody within a 3000 km radius of China. And without insurance nobody will risk losing ships and crew in a war zone. Governments will have to step in to force cargo ships to make the run... but most ships are under a flag of convenience and arent subject yo their jurisdiction. Spam ships? China makes half the world's cargo ships and South Korean yards under fire control make most of the resr. So they're irreplaceable.

War with China isn't just no trade with China. It's no trade with entire East and Southeast Asia. And if necessary, the Middle East too. Good luck with that.

FairAndUnbiased said:

War with China isn't just no trade with China. It's no trade with entire East and Southeast Asia. And if necessary, the Middle East too. Good luck with that.

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That is my point, trade ... it goes both ways.

gelgoog said:

Once you replace most of the car fleet in China the lithium and nickel imports will start to decrease. You can also expect imports of iron ore to dramatically fall once China moves the people who still have to move into cities there. Since most of the imported iron is actually used for infrastructure construction. This could take another decade.

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China has the 4th largest reserves in iron and lithium and 7th in nickel. China prefers imports for strategic and environmental reasons.

Minm said:

If we take the laws of war from the two world wars, any nation hosting troops from a belligerent nation will either have to expel these troops or they become party to the war. An attack on SK is completely legal if they continue providing a safe harbour for Americans.

This practice has simply been forgotten because western countries often participate in wars indirectly by hosting troops of a country which is involved in war, but the host nation is too powerful to make it worth attacking them. The Ukraine war is the best example. But of course China isn't Russia and if you're already in a world war with the US, the marginal danger of involving minor powers like the Philippines or South Korea are smaller

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Another option is for neutral countries to intern the foreign military forces in their territory.

An example is the Graf Spee, which had 72 hours in port before they would be interned by the Uruguayan government.

droopy said:

As long as it has the resources and imports it's energy required to manufacture those goods. When all economic trade is halted due to a war, and the trade you can do is at risk of being destroyed or intercepted by the enemy, building stuff will become way more difficult.

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Over 82% of all semiconductors are produced in China, Taiwan, Japan or South Korea.

If there is a general war, you're talking about manufacturing meltdown as factories everywhere shut down.

But because China has so much manufacturing capacity (of all sorts), it would likely be the least affected.

FairAndUnbiased said:

Entire east Asia won't be able to trade... except China from BRI land routes, and what China allows ASEAN to export.

Nobody else is going to be shipping anything. An ASBM trading with a cargo ship is worth, 1:100 return on investment. Even a regular IRBM can hit tankers docked to unload cargo, they're not going anywhere for days. And don't forget port infrastructure. Not even going into the naval portion.

Once the first few or as many as needed are sunk, insurance will refuse to cover anybody within a 3000 km radius of China. And without insurance nobody will risk losing ships and crew in a war zone. Governments will have to step in to force cargo ships to make the run... but most ships are under a flag of convenience and arent subject yo their jurisdiction. Spam ships? China makes half the world's cargo ships and South Korean yards under fire control make most of the resr. So they're irreplaceable.

War with China isn't just no trade with China. It's no trade with entire East and Southeast Asia. And if necessary, the Middle East too. Good luck with that.

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I see the trade between China and SE Asia continuing.

Cargo ships can hug the Chinese coastline until they reach Vietnam for example. At which point, the cargo is transhipped and who knows where it originally came from?

The same applies to the overland routes to Vietnam, Myanmar and Laos-Bangkok.

In general, SE Asia becomes a transhipment zone where Chinese trade with the rest of the world can continue. The Chinese bases in the SCS are the outermost part of the defensive line that protects the trade routes between China and SE Asia.

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Note that the FT recently reported on how ASEAN sees the US as being excessively aggressive towards China. We had similar public comments from Ray Dalio and also the late Henry Kissinger that the rest of the world sees the US as "overly aggressive" towards China.

In general, the ASEAN countries don't want to become a battleground where the US military and Chinese military fight.