PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

CaribouTruth

CaribouTruth

New Member
Registered Member
Someone earlier in this thread posted that they don't bother rebutting arguments that aren't well thought out or 'stupid'.
I'd like to say as someone with not much understanding of these issues and willingness to learn, I appreciate all the thought out and well written responses to such arguments that posters here make.
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
HardBall said:
China's biggest vulnerability would be its trade routes and sea lanes. If you look at it from a purely objective POV. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to guess where the US and its allies would choose to focus their efforts in a prolonged conflict.

It currently does not have the same capacity to do sustained deployment of large CSG away from its continental shelf. It also has very sparse over seas bases and resupply depots. Its refueling assets for the PLAAF is also a small fraction of that of the US, and cannot have large fleet of strike platforms too much beyond the first island chain. The US is also beefing up its marine expeditionary units to do air and sea control around island groups.

Given this, places like the strait of Malacca, and too lesser extent Lombok and Sunda, would be major choke points that adversaries can use to choke off trade and especially energy. Some amount of increase in over land routes could mitigate some of the issues, but at a much higher cost, and possibly some delays. Other straits like Tsushima, Batanes, and Miyako would also be choked off to some extent, although those locations would be highly contested. The Indian Ocean is another area that would even be more difficult for China to do any commerce protection and the like.

Just looking at this dispassionate way, the current platforms and force structure of China would not allow much possibility of countering those types of moves.
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You're about five years out of date.

Trump's trade war has induced China to shift to a dual cycle economy, with the domestic economy as the main driving force, and the foreign trade as a support.

The Ukraine war has also dramatically increased energy supply from Russia into China, further decreasing China's reliance of vulnerable sea routes.
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Luke Warmwar said:
One point is that Japan/South Korea/Philippines are not the US mainland.

If ASEAN becomes a hellhole, with the major players shelling each other’s infrastructure and ship traffic cut off, the US still has a whole continent of production untouched. There are questions as to how fast they’d be able to re-industrialise, but without competition from China, and with the right impetus, it’d happen eventually.

it’s a similar calculus as Ukraine. Russia is shelling Ukraine, and Ukraine is (to some extent) shelling Russia. As far as the US is concerned, they’re just bankrolling a former Russian ally and neighbour to kill Russians. The only big loss was European access to Russian gas, which was a win from the US perspective.
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Your scenario is not realistic.

China would be perfectly happy with a neutral ASEAN. After all, ASEAN is China's largest trading partner and this trade gets intermingled. Most of China's global trade passes through the South China Seas and then the Malacca Straits.

If anything, it would be the US turning ASEAN into a "hellhole" as you put it. Because this hurts China far more than the US which is on the other side of the Pacific.

But I doubt this will happen, because this will force an overt China-ASEAN alliance against the USA.
 
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AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
HardBall said:
Small suicide drones / persistent loitering munitions are great for relatively close by operational area, usually dozens of NMs, or maybe up to a couple of hundred NM. First Island Chain, sure, I think that's a goner once there is total war between China and the US, there won't be much left of Naha or any of the Luzon bases, and maybe Amami and parts of Kyushu as well.
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HardBall said:
Yeah, the US, and perhaps Japan, may lose access to certain SEA markets in the mean time, and Japan / SK would also need to reroute certain supplies over alternate routes, such as routing to the east of the Marianas, through western Caroline islands, the Banda sea, then go through Lombok to the Indian Ocean. It will be more expensive, but should avoid the bulk of the PLAN/PLAAF's reach.
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1. If Japan is under an effective maritime blockade, there are no ships arriving or leaving Japanese ports.

2. Take your statement on the "1st Island Chain being a goner" to its logical conclusion. It means the US no longer has local bases available, and very limited basing in the 2nd Island Chain. At the same time, it means those 1st Island Chain countries (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines) are defeated or have flipped to China.

If this happens, China has won and the US has lost, no matter what happens elsewhere. If a US-China war continues, then mainland China will be pretty secure. Then we'll see China build a bigger Navy and defeat the US Navy and then control global sea lanes. Remember the US Navy report that China has 232x the shipbuilding capacity of the US. See below

twz.com/alarming-navy-intel-slide-warns-of-chinas-200-times-greater-shipbuilding-capacity



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The US will not have the luxury of conducting a distant blockade on China.
The US has no choice but to try and resupply the 1st Island Chain countries, no matter how much it costs.

Take Taiwan as an example. The ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung account for the vast majority of Taiwanese trade. These are chokepoints that are less than 300km from mainland China.

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My guess is that in 5-10 years time, we'll see Japan go the South Korean route, and decide that they have to remain neutral in any US-China conflict.
 
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LuzinskiJ

Junior Member
Registered Member
HardBall said:
China's biggest vulnerability would be its trade routes and sea lanes. If you look at it from a purely objective POV. I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to guess where the US and its allies would choose to focus their efforts in a prolonged conflict.

It currently does not have the same capacity to do sustained deployment of large CSG away from its continental shelf. It also has very sparse over seas bases and resupply depots. Its refueling assets for the PLAAF is also a small fraction of that of the US, and cannot have large fleet of strike platforms too much beyond the first island chain. The US is also beefing up its marine expeditionary units to do air and sea control around island groups.

Given this, places like the strait of Malacca, and too lesser extent Lombok and Sunda, would be major choke points that adversaries can use to choke off trade and especially energy. Some amount of increase in over land routes could mitigate some of the issues, but at a much higher cost, and possibly some delays. Other straits like Tsushima, Batanes, and Miyako would also be choked off to some extent, although those locations would be highly contested. The Indian Ocean is another area that would even be more difficult for China to do any commerce protection and the like.

Just looking at this dispassionate way, the current platforms and force structure of China would not allow much possibility of countering those types of moves.
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I always wonder about how blocking the Malacca Strait strategy would work. If it were blocked, wouldn't that also affect both Japan and Korea? They would just be as adversely affected than China, probably worse as neither have land routes.

I am pretty sure both SK and JPN know that as well. So I wonder how much credence there is that SK and JPN are going to willingly sacrifice a good chunk of their nations for Taiwan since if they do join in with the US, US will suffer disproportionately less if it loses in terms of lives and treasure while gaining disproportionately more if it wins.
 
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Index

Senior Member
Registered Member
LuzinskiJ said:
I always wonder about how blocking the Malacca Strait strategy would work. If it were blocked, wouldn't that also affect both Japan and Korea? They would just be as adversely affected than China, probably worse as neither have land routes.
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If they sit at near Malacca itself, that's just an invitation for repeated attrition attacks. So I think that is a trap laid by the PLA.

They can stay far west of Malacca and China probably wouldn't bother them, because they'd rather go for Ryukyu and Guam first before worrying about the Indian ocean routes.

It circles back to the issue that US would be the one justifying an aggression war and as so they're on a timer to achieve something. While China just needs to defend itself and the 1st island chain which acts as a shield/buffer for the mainland.
 
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