This isn't a post advocating for China attacking Taiwan, but you have to look at the incoming Trump administration, transition period, tariff threats (specifically Canada, Mexico and China), mass arrests / deportations of illegal immigrants and nominations of incompetent people to positions of power as potentially golden opportunity from a purely opportunistic perspective. The first year of this new Trump administration, depending on the outcomes of the policies outlined above, could provide basically a perfect shit storm in America for such an operation to be considered.
PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency
- Thread starter pugachev_diver
- Start date
So what. American military is deteriorating. China’s military advantages can only increase over time.
Look at the procurement of major naval and air platforms such as stealth fighters, aircraft carriers, frigates, destroyers and submarines.
At a minimum, China is matching the US procurement rate. In some cases like frigates and destroyers, China is at twice the US rate.
And looking to the future:
1. In the case of stealth fighters, with the introduction of a 2nd stealth fighter design, my guess is that the Chinese procurement rate somewhere between 1.3-2x higher.
2. On submarines, with the ridiculous amount of shipyard capacity they've built out for nuclear submarines, I would expect a further ramp to somewhere between 1.3-2x higher
3. On aircraft carriers, once they've got a nuclear-powered design they're happy with, then in the 2030s, they'll be at the equivalent of 2x the US rate - at least till 2040.
It may end up as a mix of full-size nuclear carriers, complemented with smaller LHD drone carriers with electromagnetic catapults
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So we're looking at a situation where China is building a military that with enough time, ends up as significantly larger than the US military. If US-China relations remain bad, I could see China building a military 2x larger than the US military.
So there is no rush to attack Taiwan, as the military balance in 5 years and then 10 years will be far more favourable.
In terms of economic resilience, China will also be in a far more favourable position. For example, I expect China to have a completely self-sufficient mature semiconductor industry in terms in 5 years time. For the latest semiconductors requiring EUV lithography machines - I expect this to follow with a 5-10 year lag.
The latest IMF estimates are that China will still grow 2x faster than the US for the next 5 years. So the economic balances will continue to shift in China's favour.
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I would also add that as the years pass by, Chinese society will continue to become "softer" and presumably a "softer" generation of political leaders will be in charge.
I think the problem with this line of thought is that it is assuming everything that happening right now will continue to happen. China will continue to get stronger, America will continue to get weaker. I think if you are being purely opportunistic about retaking Taiwan, then wouldn't you want to take advantage of a historically weak and divided America? What happens if you wait those 10 years and China falls into some sort of economic or political hardship of its own, while America is able to rebound? Are you looking at another 10 or 20 years of waiting?
Again, this is taking the perspective of Taiwan reunification being of the utmost paramount for Chinese leadership and recognizing that the opportunity that could present itself within the next year could be historic in nature.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
China isn’t looking to take Taiwan the moment it gets a good chance of succeed. It’s looking to take Taiwan when the odds are so stacked in its favour the US has no chance of preventing it.
China’s leaders knows full well that to fight America for Taiwan is almost certainly going to lead to WWIII. And if it doesn’t want to endure WWIV a short while later, it needs to be able to win totally rather than settle for a WWI style armistice.
It is doing the build up before the fight instead of during it. That should both shorten the length of the war, as well as reduce Chinese casualties and losses.
You don’t need to worry about magical total reversal of fortunes. Great powers like China and America carry massive momentum with them and don’t go from ascendancy to decline quickly. Just look at America, it took decades of resting on their laurels since the fall of the Soviet Union and many many calamities, most of which were totally avoidable and self inflicted, for it to fall to its current state. If China suffers a reversal, it will have decades to course correct before it starts to get into serious trouble.
I also think the political aspect is often overlooked by military enthusiasts. It is true that China's power will almost certainly become greater relatively to the US's, but this isn't just a military issue.
A conflict like a Taiwan war demands immense political will. Xi is expected to be in power until at least 2032. If the Taiwan issue remains unresolved by then, it raises doubts about whether his successor will possess the necessary political power to address it should a war be needed.
Then looking even further ahead to his successor's successor, the issue of China's population—while overstated by some at present—becomes a significant and unpredictable factor.
The potential benefits (both domestically and geopolitically) of a unified Taiwan should also be considered. At some point, it might be better to just go, even if waiting slightly longer could mean in a few more planes or ships.
Well, isn't that really an issue of the current government ensuring that the next generation of political leaders do have the political power and will?
But in the long-term, yes, each generation of political leaders will become "softer". Eventually you would have Chinese millennials in charge of the government. But by that point, we're looking at a high-income, high-tech China which dominates the Western Pacific in every respect.
In 2030, the Chinese navy almost certainly be unable to stop the US Navy imposing a distant seaborne blockade on China.
But in the year 2045, that would be enough time to build a Chinese Blue Water Navy significantly larger than the US Navy and be capable of wresting control of the seas. So now we have a scenario where the Chinese Navy can impose a blockade on the USA.
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There are definite costs to a Taiwan invasion, whereas the benefits are much less certain.
The status quo is fine, especially when you consider how the power balance will continue to shift even in China's favour after 2032.
In real terms, today's Chinese economy is like between 1.5-2x larger than the US economy, if you do all the corrections to make them comparable.
So even if America rebounds and China falters, we're still looking at the Chinese economy being 1.5x larger.
And over the next 10 years, Chinese military strength would still trend towards 1.5x larger - if they simply maintain current spending levels.
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Also, how would America conceivably rebound?
In pretty much every industrial or technology vertical - we now see Chinese companies which are world-leading, or which are clearly on the way to becoming world-leading in the next 10 years. And remember that:
a) they will be working with a middle-income Chinese cost base
b) also operating on Chinese volumes rather than a smaller US market
The big hope was in AI LLM development, but that has now reached a plateau where:
a) everyone has run out of additional data to train on
b) additional compute results in significantly decreasing levels of improvements
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The US currently has a budget deficit of 7% per year. CBO expects this to still be 7% in 10 years time. This is very high, considering that 3-4% is considered sustainable. But the US gets away with this because the USD is the global reserve currency. But the USD as the global reserve currency isn't compatible with a world where the Chinese economy is 2x the size of the US economy.
It would be a huge *gamble*
It's far less risk to simply wait another 5 years, then another 5 years, then another 5 years, as long as the power balance continues to shift in China's favour. Which it likely will.
攻其必救 Attack where the enemy must defend. i.e. Guam, Hawaii, after taking out all American assets on the First Island Chain.