PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

A lot of people do not see that any action to blockade China's trade will cause casualty first and foremost not on China but the countries that trade with China, especially during the first year of the war/blockade.

The first and immediate outcome is high inflations in countries that stop imports of afforable Chinese goods, sure these importing countries can try to set up manufacturing in their own country, but at what costs?

China's energy consumption is not solely for pure domestic comsumption, a part of it is for manufacturing of exports. If blockade reduced China's export, so is China's requirement for energy from imported fossil fuel. Also in war time all those bright neon signs and city lights will be dimmed, further reduce energy use, and non-essential non-war related transportation will be cut down, especially those related to tourism, further reduce energy needs.

In 2025, Solar, wind, hyro and nuclear supplied 55-60% of China's energy generation, plus China itself has substatially large fossil fuel reserve as well as huge coal deposits. China is cutting down coal in favour of renewable energy but they can revert back to coal for energy for war needs.

China's self-reliance and sustainability has increased many folds unlike during WW2 and Korean war era. 6 months food reserve can be spread to 12 months in food rationing, meanwhile food production can still continue with human and AI robotic machinery.

In short, choking and blocking China's external trade can only do minimum damage, Western wines, lobsters, cheese and butter, spanish porks, Gucci, Rolex etc may not be coming into China, but does that really matter?

ougoah said:

China is considerably stronger than it is presented and presents itself to be. But it's not US + Japan + South Korea + Australia + UK + NZ + India + Canada strong. Like, lets be real. This conflict if it starts wont be restricted to military and even if conventional military China has an edge vs that combination while in China's near periphery, the economic warfare that the US would be forced to commit (they would have to bare the pain which they've continuously shied away from) would devastate China.

China is not able to develop at the same pace if it was restricted to internal economic activity and trade only. China would get all its foreign assets frozen. It would need to retaliate to discourage such a move. Sort of like if your opponent is able to deny you access to your space based assets, you would be forced to deny the entirety of space based assets. Trade nukes mean trade MAD and China hasn't yet got the total advantage if the US were to pull off trade nukes like 150% tariffs for instance. They've shied away in the past but if war starts, it is a certainty.

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If war breaks out, we're going primal. There is no modern integrated economy and international money/trade, etc... In that case, China will have excess manufacturing capacity, which can be used towards wartime manufacturing and those consumption-driven economies will have excess demand with no stuff to live on or industrialize off of. They will be looting/panic-buying/empty shelves, massive disruptions to those economies while Chinese manufacturers will be wondering whether to use savings to pass the time or transition to making items for the military. In war time, real stuff, or the capacity to make real stuff is always an advantage to useless printed currency even though the customer holds considerable power in maritime.

Ultimately, building a massive global fleet for escort and patrol missions becomes indispensable. Consider this: even if Japan possessed nuclear weapons, it would still be deeply fearful of China severing its trade routes.

Xiyazhou mentioned another factor killing the ROCAF pilots: due to the PLAAF's significant increase in air patrols across the Taiwan Strait in recent years, bases west of the Central Mountain Range are constantly operational, with many training exercises being moved to bases east of the Central Mountain Range. The waters east of Taiwan are typically rough with high winds and rough seas, but the ROCAF prioritizes deploying its rescue helicopter fleet to the west. This results in ROCAF's youngest pilots have to train in the most dangerous waters, and if they eject, rescue helicopters often take one to two hours to arrive, making their chances of survival extremely slim.

Meanwhile the construction of bridge that will join Xiamen to Taiwan controlled Kinmen island is progressing. The bridge will aslo supply electricity, water and gas from Mainland China to Kinmen island.

No AR required for Kinmen, just a phone call will be sufficient.

I wanted to ask about that.

My understanding is that the bridge is not approved from Taiwan's end. This means that they are literally building a bridge to nowhere?

Surely they will not be seizing the land on the other end to finish the bridge? Kinmen is controlled by Taiwan.

Dante80 said:

I wanted to ask about that.

My understanding is that the bridge is not approved from Taiwan's end. This means that they are literally building a bridge to nowhere?

Surely they will not be seizing the land on the other end to finish the bridge? Kinmen is controlled by Taiwan.

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Also is it really wise to invest money into a bridge that even if completed would probably get bombed in a AR scenario?

lcloo said:

China's energy consumption is not solely for pure domestic comsumption, a part of it is for manufacturing of exports. If blockade reduced China's export, so is China's requirement for energy from imported fossil fuel. Also in war time all those bright neon signs and city lights will be dimmed, further reduce energy use, and non-essential non-war related transportation will be cut down, especially those related to tourism, further reduce energy needs.

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It's usually suboptimal.
Government normally tries to maintain normality to the degree achievable, as anything else tires out the nation.

I.e. yes, China isn't nearly as vulnerable to blockade in a short run as some other examples, as it's to a degree self-sufficient, and a lot of rest is covered by close neighborhood which can't be blockaded. And even if China is unable to close the bills of oversized manufacturing via accessible neighborhood - yes, it is solvable in a short term via means of wartime economy.
But those are suboptimal, and best direction is not looking at cutting off the parts which make China great(and presenting it as a merit - no, ukrainian citizens defying odds without heating in -15 is heroic sacrifice you do not want to copy), rather it's (1)cutting vulnerabilities and (2)building a navy strong enough to close the issue. For a stupid reason that it's exactly oversized manufacturing sector which is China's single largest global strength; China's government largest claim to legitimacy is wellbeing of its citizens.
Hence the goal shouldn't be cut both down as vulnerabilities as much as possible, goal should be to keep both running - against hostile intention if so necessary.

In a current geopolitical situation, given China's neighborhood, availability of new energy and powerful shipbuilding industry, all 3 are achievable.

Gloire_bb said:

It's usually suboptimal.
Government normally tries to maintain normality to the degree achievable, as anything else tires out the nation.

I.e. yes, China isn't nearly as vulnerable to blockade in a short run as some other examples, as it's to a degree self-sufficient, and a lot of rest is covered by close neighborhood which can't be blockaded. And even if China is unable to close the bills of oversized manufacturing via accessible neighborhood - yes, it is solvable in a short term via means of wartime economy.
But those are suboptimal, and best direction is not looking at cutting off the parts which make China great(and presenting it as a merit - no, ukrainian citizens defying odds without heating in -15 is heroic sacrifice you do not want to copy), rather it's (1)cutting vulnerabilities and (2)building a navy strong enough to close the issue. For a stupid reason that it's exactly oversized manufacturing sector which is China's single largest global strength; China's government largest claim to legitimacy is wellbeing of its citizens.
Hence the goal shouldn't be cut both down as vulnerabilities as much as possible, goal should be to keep both running - against hostile intention if so necessary.

In a current geopolitical situation, given China's neighborhood, availability of new energy and powerful shipbuilding industry, all 3 are achievable.

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Thank you for showing another part of the elephant that I did not touched. You know, there are so many parts to make an elephant whole.