PR and diplomacy ain't bringing anything that your military power isn't able to do.
If you think that in AR, PLA would attempt amphibious landings with US forces waiting to strike I got a bridge for you.
Russian lesson is a clear one. If you go into war, you go decisively, not by half measures. US either has to credibly demonstrate that it won't intervene or PLA has to account for worse scenario and strike it
As for your comment of China fearing a US intervention. Dude, if China didn't fear and fought US forces in Korea when it was dirt poor and poorly equipped why do you think it fears US now..
I'll state this again: China wishes to maximize the chance of a successful Taiwan operation and minimize the risk of a larger and potentially-unpredictable conflict. The maximum chance of success depends on the United States staying out of the Taiwan scenario. The moment that China launches an initial attack on US forces is when the prospect of US non-interventionism goes out the window.
Preparing for the eventuality of US intervention is not tantamount to pre-empting it. You seem to be conflating the two concepts. The PLA could very well have built up the materiel, personnel, and strategy to fight the US, but there is no doubt a very clear line between preparing for that possibility versus instigating the very scenario China wishes to avoid.
I didn't say anything about fear; being prudent about US intervention is different from abandoning Taiwan altogether because of the possibility of US intervention.
Your problem is believing US can win a war with China and Chinese leadership is fearful of the US.
And the problem here is that one too many believe that the US is not capable of winning a large-scale war against China.
As it stands, the US will absolutely be providing Taiwan with ISR support in the event of a kinetic conflict between Beijing and Taipei . . . at least until the relevant USG personnel on assignment in Taiwan are evacuated and/or the infrastructure they depend on for ongoing operations are too degraded to function due to cyber and/or kinetic warfare.
Not too sure why more people aren't aware or mindful of this, but the US has been collecting intelligence, especially SIGINT, on Mainland China from Taiwan since the 1950s, if not the 1940s. The associated infrastructure has dwindled, at least visibly, since the 1970s due to the normalization of relations between Washington and Beijing, but why would Washington or Taipei let it all go?
US ISR support to Taiwan has been ongoing for decades, and is in all likelihood happening right now as we speak, and is probably 24/7 as it is with a lot of SIGINT and ELINT mission sets. Granted, Uncle Sam doesn't make an effort to publicize it.
What happens if things heat up, and the PLARF demolishes a SCIF occupied by both ROC and US personnel whose presence has been an open secret for decades, but has largely been concealed from public discourse? Will Uncle Sam even make a fuss about it in public?!
The point I'm trying to make is that when it comes to any future kinetic conflict across the Taiwan Strait, there are going to be grey zones for Beijing and Washington.
There will certainly be grey zones in such a conflict and situations wherein both parties come to a mutual understanding to not escalate further. If Iran and Israel can do it, so can the US and China.
But that wasn't my main argument. Some are suggesting that China launch a surprise attack on US bases and assets in the Pacific in the opening hours of a Taiwan conflict; this would clearly be nothing short of a declaration of war against the US and certainly not a "grey zone" action. The scenario you described stems from escalatory actions & counter-actions, not a blitzkrieg that sets off a whole new war in motion.
I don't think the Chinese military would even need to preemptively attack the US military. The US military would have to fire the first shots in a war with China. Prior to actual conflict, the military buildup in the Western Pacific would ensure that China has eyes and ears everywhere you look, including satellites, UAVs, USVs, UUVs, and of the Chinese merchant marine. It wouldn't be like during the Cold War where the Soviets had great difficulties tracking American CSGs. If the US is in the Western Pacific or SCS, China will know where they are all the time. If the US is going to move on China, it will have to begin by making the Chinese military as blind and deaf as possible by shooting down satellites and UAVs and of course sinking every USV and UUV it finds in the area. It will also have to start murdering Chinese fishermen because it will not be able to tell if that fishing boat sitting on the horizon able to see its CSG is civilian or merchant marine. And so they will all have to die. That would be the sure sign the US (and likely Japan) has committed to the fight and is going in with all its gathered CSGs. In which case China has all the casus belli it needs to immediately counterattack US forces according to whatever plan it has already laid out. And if the US is serious about implementing its Hellscape plan in the event of a Taiwanese invasion by China, it's basically yet another means of declaration that the US will fight China before it even actually joins the fight with the bulk of its forces.
I think we are all in agreement that China would respond militarily if the US intervened in a Taiwan scenario with kinetic means. Obviously, the degree to which China responds would most likely be commensurate with the level of US involvement. And I would agree with your premise that any US intervention in a Taiwan conflict would have to start with US-initiated attacks.
The key part of your scenario is that the US initiates the attacks rather than China doing so against the US.
