I'm not sure what the age of us on the forum is lol.
That said, I'm sure that at some point China will deliver an ultimatum to Taiwan with the threat of military force but I can't see it happening within the next decade or so if China can help it. If you note in my previous post I was rather time specific.
As for the sweeping of presidential terms for the CCP; I don't think changing it was either easy or obvious. There were a set of rather unique domestic and more importantly external geopolitical factors at play which made the formalization of state power more sensible in that regard. Not to mention the role of president was always less important than general secretary, now the two are just both more in line with each other. But this is a completely different topic, so I'm sure you can appreciate why I won't go more into it and advise you to avoid it as well.
I also think you are missing the point of my previous post -- it was specifically to clarify why the statements of "China is willing to go to war over Taiwan today and can probably win, in event its red lines are crossed" is not incongruous with the idea of "China today does not want to go to war as its first option in solving the issue, and even if China had the option to go to war today, it probably wouldn't unless its red lines were crossed".
If you're talking about things over 2, 3, 4, decades down the line, who knows.
But my previous post was specifically addressing the current strategic rationale and what I believe the rationale will be for the immediate future (10-20 years ish). Whether there are any geopolitical developments that upend said strategic rationale is another issue -- never say never, after all.
I simply cannot imagine Xi will let the Taiwan issue remain unresolved while he is in power. 2027 is a great pretext to fully modernize the Army. The early 2030's sound like perfect time to clean up historical legacies. Judging by our recent history, ten years also means the onset of the next financial crisis which provides great excuse/incentive for the U.S. not to intervene in any physical way. Hong Kong today is a good test to see if China can get away with no more than verbal condemnations. I can certainly see China getting much more aggressive to convince other countries to stay out of this fight.
The standard U.S. playbook is to stir up something locally through NGO's, get some locals to do the invite, and then publicly show support or intervene for these poor local freedom fighters. If China follows the same script, that will at least confuse the U.S. public opinion.
Perhaps by 2030, China will unilaterally announce all people in Taiwan will be treated as full Chinese citizens with all differences/restrictions removed while internationally, make sure no country recognizes Taiwan, ensure China can withstand a full U.S. economic sanction (no access to SWIFT/CHIPS, seizure of all financial assets [gold & UST], etc), and minimize all other potential external leverages (e.g. Chengdu/Chonqing's Olympic bid). Frankly I don't think any of these matters much.
Then a few years later, The People's Congress passes a reunification decree and the CCP immediately use this as legal basis to issue an ultimatum to Taiwan with much more generous terms than HK/Macao (at least a permanent autonomous region). The wording can be as simple as by a certain date, the name "Republic of China" will cease to be used, the current leadership's titles will changed, and a guarantee that everything else will be exactly the same as before (e.g. passport, local codes, and currency). All just paperwork changes. This may be followed by the nearby islands agreeing/defecting to China while China's assets in Taiwan start very vocal support of the change. In the worst case, if Taiwan declares independence (DPP cannot be that stupid), it gives China a free-ride to act militarily. If Taiwan does not, it is de facto acceptance of China's sovereignty and although the legality of applying the Sedition Law is still tenuous but grayish enough for non-lawyers to round up hard-core DPP members (a la Hong Kong) and appoint pro-Beijing locals. Refusal to negotiate or declaration of martial law provide pretext for KMT (or agitators) to question the legitimacy of the DPP government (a la Venezuela) and name itself as the rightful government which China will recognize. I am sure China has placed enough people in Taiwan already to assist if things don't go well. I am also sure China would already have patriotic 'Taiwanese' representatives in China to speak for Taiwan as (a poor) backup. All scenarios would have been war-gamed many times to get the timings down. Perhaps the ultimatum will be issued on a Friday evening or Christmas Eve.
Given all the CCP talk about Taiwan being part of one happy family, there is no chance China will deploy the military first. I don't even see a travel blockade. Let the hardcores go to Japan. Ideally the takeover will be done without any casualties. However grudgingly, China must make Taiwan people accept the terms. If a war breaks out, China will obviously win militarily but politically, it would be a totally unacceptable outcome that not even people in China will support. Jailing traitors are fine but you just don't hurt your own family members.
