PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
I think people underestimate how fast one of these “exercises” can become real literally on a dime. They happen so often that they are not even publicized anymore, indicating that they are the new routine going forward. As a very wise man once noted in a comparison to another tumultuous period during Chinese history:

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Meanwhile, when Emperor Wen asked Gao for tactics in preparing to conquer Chen, Gao suggested harassing Chen's border regions in two ways: sending troops on exercise without actually attacking, to cause Chen's farmers to be on alert and unable to farm and causing Chen's guards to be down when an actual attack would come; and to send spies to burn Chen's border farmlands. Emperor Wen agreed, and these tactics helped damage Chen's resistance capabilities.
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We are seeing a similar thing happening with the encirclement exercises. ROC assets are being worn down trying to intercept PLA assets during the exercise. Their guard is relaxed due to the routine nature of the exercises. Their ranks are being infiltrated with mainland spies. All of which are happening as PLA improves jointers between the three branches and enhances familiarity with the actual theater of combat.

There is also credible rumor that conventional ground troops stationed in Fujian have begun close quarters combat training in urban areas. Make of that what you will.
 
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3SonsAndaPhD

Banned Idiot
Registered Member
Iron Man said:
I don't think so. The US can start a war with China at any time it wants to. There are so many ways to push China's buttons and force it into a war against its wishes. The US doesn't do this because it doesn't want to. Years before it was the risk of nuclear escalation; now it's probably both the risk of nuclear escalation as well as the risk of losing a conventional war. You have to remember that the US didn't view China as a true threat until the last several years, certainly less than the last 10-15 years, and within that time the Chinese military had already grown very substantially. I think nowadays it's just a matter of the US hoping and praying that AR is delayed into the distant future as it doesn't want to be dragged into a war with China over Taiwan. But local politics and other circumstances beyond its control may force the US to confront China militarily even though I think it doesn't really want to.
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Disagree !

Look at Trump's action ! He is purging the democrats, even in the Pentagon !

He wants a centralized government so that he can wage war !
 
Sinnavuuty

Sinnavuuty

Captain
Registered Member
Overbom said:
I personally think with Trump in charge there is opportunity for an unprecedented salami slice on Taiwan.

Maybe we could have PLAAF regularly conducting patrol flights in Taiwanese airspace, overflying the island.

The only thing that is needed is a good excuse. Hopefully someone in Trump administration or a hawkish Congress member can give one. I greatly doubt that Trump could come forcibly on this if it appears that the US provoked China
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I believe that the next Chinese action is to carry out a temporary quarantine, if Beijing is provoked as it was in 2022.
 
Iron Man

Iron Man

Major
Registered Member
3SonsAndaPhD said:
Disagree !

Look at Trump's action ! He is purging the democrats, even in the Pentagon !
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Democrats are at least as hawkish as or even more than he is towards China. What are you even talking about? Him purging the "Democrats" in Pentagon has literally nothing to do with gaining more personal power and everything to do with fulfilling campaign promises to root out DEI in the military.

3SonsAndaPhD said:
He wants a centralized government so that he can wage war !
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No. Just no.
 
Wrought

Wrought

Senior Member
Registered Member
A scathing review of US grand strategy like Alice in Wonderland, in light of the mismatch between political demands and material capability. Channels some of the same spirit as good old Patchwork. Frankly, I'm surprised it was ever published academically.

Yet before the first shot has been fired in anger across the Taiwan strait, the American military has already admitted that it cannot build enough ships, cannot staff the ships that are being built, cannot repair ships that get damaged, cannot protect seaborne logistics, and cannot source enough sealift vessels for those seaborne logistics to matter, and in any case it currently lacks the sailors for those ships anyway. All of these points are not actually controversial in and of themselves: they are all regularly discussed inside the Beltway establishment. What is controversial and in fact incredibly sensitive, however, is to combine all these points of incontrovertible data into the kind of military conclusion that would have appeared as natural and indeed fully inevitable to any sane American or Japanese war planner in the 1930s.
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In this clash between ideology and reality, ideology is almost always the victor. And it is winning at the cost of destroying the U.S. military itself.
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AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
coolgod said:
Yes, China will be more economically prosperous after reunification. Which is why people are demanding reunification sooner than later.
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Where do you see Chinese people "demanding" reunification?

It is possible that China will be more economically prosperous after reunification in the longer-term.
But there is no doubt that in the short-term, there will be economic pain due to sanctions or war with the US.
 
B

Biscuits

Colonel
Registered Member
AndrewS said:
Where do you see Chinese people "demanding" reunification?

It is possible that China will be more economically prosperous after reunification in the longer-term.
But there is no doubt that in the short-term, there will be economic pain due to sanctions or war with the US.
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No real person thinks that China should not defend itself if US attacks "because of the economy". That's not something any real people have as an opinion. It's just what desparate American nationalists cope about China since they're heading into a fight where they're massively out gunned and out produced.

Same dumb cope as Tojoist "if we sink a lot of ships at pearl harbor and capture some islands, Americans will get scared and sign advantegous peace".

There is no public desire to surrender populated territory let alone strategically important islands. Unless US can inflict on bare minimum as much damage on China as Russia inflicted on Ukraine (proportional to the size of China), there's no chance of even negotiations about whether China should keep her eastern territories or not.
 
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