I’m not as well versed as I’d like to be on these two places, but it seems that China is putting all of the pieces of their war machine together, to invade Taiwan, saying…
Still, Taiwan has been independent, albeit informally, since the 50’s and NOW, with all of the commotion in the world, China wants to muscle up and either intimidate or even invade Taiwan.
A few things I question…
Is it because of all of the commotion (i.e. Iraq) that China sees fit to do this when the US is logistically committed to the middle east?
Would the US still stick our noses in, and on what side would we fall? China has trading status, but we like independence and hate communism, so it’s a catch-22, in a way. Or not?
We wouldn’t fare well in a ground war with China, is it feasible, in this day and age, to wage an air campaign (i.e. shock and awe) on downtown Bejing?
There have been myriad threads on this subject…including one just recently. The short version is its just sabre rattling, there won’t be any war…and China has zero chance of successfully invading Taiwan even if their was a war. They simply don’t have the sea lift assets or the air assets to successfully invade across the straights. The most they could do is throw a nasty sea/air battle in the straights to no purpose. Since you are a charter member I encourage you to search out the various threads on this subject in this forum as I doubt you’ll get many responses to this…as I said, its been done quite a bit. Every time there is any kind of rhetorical flare up between China and Taiwan in fact.
No, China has its own agenda. It has nothing to do with Iraq.
The US has treaties with Taiwan to defend it…it wouldn’t even be a question. If China attacks Taiwan directly the US will fight for Taiwan. That will mostly include support from our navy (we almost always have a carrier task group in that area for just this reason), and perhaps air force assets from S. Korea and/or Japan. Its not a catch-22 at all.
IF there was a war, it would be fought at sea and in the air over the straights. Taiwan has no intention of invading China…nor would the US. The most we MIGHT do is air strikes at Chinese infrastructure (and I doubt we’d even do much of that). I doubt the Chinese would be able to do TOO much to prevent the US from bombing their infrastructure militarily. I also doubt the US would do it, but because politically it might be a bad idea.
Basically the way the war would go (IMHO) is China would stage a major air battle hoping to overwhelm the Taiwanese with superior numbers (their planes are mostly crap) and pressure them into coming back into the fold, and perhaps sortee out some ships for a naval battle (their ships are not much better). Thats about all China CAN do. If the tried, a hell of a lot of Chinese would die gloriously, a lot of their planes would be shot down and most of their surface fleet would be sitting at the bottom of the straights. They’d probably manage to take quite a few Taiwanese with them, and American’s too…and in the end it would accomplish nada.
Thats why there will be no war, because China simply CAN’T invade Taiwan, so there simply is no point. And I doubt they really think that staging such a battle would make Taiwan conceed defeat and rejoin China…it would just piss them off to the point they declared full independence and became a soveriegn nation of their own. And it would piss off just about everyone else at China too…after all, that area is one of the major shipping routes in the world.
I agree with xtisme that China won’t (can’t) invade Taiwan, but because I like to nitpick:
If I were S. Korea, I’d try hard to stay neuteral in any fight between China and the U.S. China may not be able to take Taiwan, but if they really wanted to they could make life tough for the S. Koreans and even successfully invade if they didn’t mind sacrificing a few million troops.
This I think is the more interesting question, since we’ve all pretty much agreed that China can’t invade: what would they do if Taiwan declared independence. With all the threats they’ve made, I think they’ll have to do something to retain creditbility, but as you’ve stated, sending a halfharted naval/air force out would just loose them a lot of ships and planes. They could use missiles to level the island, but that seems rather sychopathic, and also would destroy much of the worth of an island they supposedly want to control. They could embargo, and then dare the U.S. to try and break through, which we cetainly could do, but the US public might not support us firing the first shot at another nuclear power if sinking Chinese ships became necessary to get through.
Finally, there was a report on NPR a few days ago about how Taiwan has been cutting militray spending while China will increase its spending by 12%. Between this and the possiblilty of the EU lifting its arms embargo against China, the balance of power in the strait is starting to shift. I think it’s possible that Taiwan could be goaded into declaring independence now, simply because they’ll start to feel that if they wait a few years, China will be able to assert its sovreignty more effectivly.
I suppose it all depends on HOW this theoretical war kicked off. If Taiwan declared its full independence and declared itself soveriegn, then you may be right…S. Korea and others might bow out of support and stay neutral. If China attacked Taiwan though without Taiwan declaring anything, then that would be another kettle of fish. Reguardless, I have serious doubts that S. Korea or Japan would prevent the US from flying out of our bases there in support of Taiwan.
I doubt Taiwan would declare independence at this late date. If the DID though, I’m unsure what China would really do. Their current policy is to prevent Taiwan from making a formal declaration after all…thus all the sabre rattling and rhetoric.
I doubt they would use missiles (nuclear tipped or otherwise) to bomb Taiwan indiscriminately though. What they would do is anyones guess…and probably an interesting question, one I’m not sure I can answer without some thought.
China is definitely restructuring its military, trying to modernize it. But I don’t think many people realize how far they have to go to get even close to where Taiwan is today…let alone the US. In one of these threads I posted a cite for China’s current OOB…and its pretty grim. Old '50’s era tanks, older obsolete planes still used as front line fighters, a top heavy army, poor training, a joke of a surface fleet and home grown diesel subs (again, with poor training) with a few older soviet style nuke subs tossed in. And of course you have the extreme difficulty of being the attacker, the logistic problem of moving materials accross the straights (while the Taiwanese are there already of course)…all this adds up to the fact that China has a long way to go before they have parity with Taiwan and can seriously threaten them (short of nukes of course which defeats the purpose of the excersize). And of course, all this ignores the fact that the US will support Taiwan, and OUR budget for military is a lot bigger than China’s…not to mention the fact that we are literally light years ahead of them already militarily.
While we’re in synch on the politics of the situation, XT and I have had to agree to disagree on the military aspects. I think it is possible for China to land troops in Taiwan. Chinese military equipment is certainly not up to current American standards - but successful invasions have been made with worse technology. I also believe that while the Taiwanese military is better than the Chinese on a one-for-one basis, Taiwanese defeat would be inevitable given the overwhelming manpower advantage China holds. However (and now we’re back in agreement) I have no doubt that, even in the midst of our military commitments elsewhere, that the US would give full military support to Taiwan and that the American superiority in air and naval strength, military technology, and logistic base would eventually win the battle.
And as I think I pretty conclusively showed in the last thread (not sure if you ever read the links I gave for Chineses OOB though…the thread kind of died shortly after that), such speculation about China being able to invade Taiwan don’t really have any basis in reality (the main point being they have no logistics assets to GET their troops and supplies to Taiwan). As you didn’t really counter with anything except speculation (i.e. no facts on China’s real capability TO invade) I’ll just leave it at that. If you want to consider that agreeing to disagree, well, I’m game…I like you Nemo.
The Bush administration is not sitting still here. One of the little-discussed strategic moves the U.S. has been making in the past while is to strengthen its far-east alliances. Japan is not only taking a more belligerant line against China’s interest in Taiwan, but Japan and the U.S. are now including Taiwan in their defense talks. Japan has perhaps the second best Navy on the water, and while it’s putatively for self-defense purposes only, it can certainly project a good distance if necessary. For example, Japan has 18 submarines, none of which are more than ten years old.
China can not and will not invade Taiwan. However, it may become increasingly belligerent and threatening, and while it doesn’t have the capability to invade Taiwan today, who’s to say it won’t in ten years?
It is not so much the technology…it is the logistics.
Consider what it took for the Allies in WWII to put together to attack at Normandy. That was across what…15 miles of water? Taiwan is around 85 miles (give or take a few…I forget exactly) away at its closest to China.
To have a successful invasion China would need to put a LOT of troops on the island in a relatively short timespan. Taiwan has around 400,000 troops (cite ). Granted all 400,000 would not be on the beach waiting for the Chinese to wade ashore but they’d still have a helluva lot around and have the advantage of being defenders.
Start doing the math and the mind boggles. It’d be a HUGE undertaking. So big that with today’s modern surveillance such a troop buildup would almost certainly be spotted and the US and Taiwanese would be well prepared. Add in modern weaponry that don’t often miss and there’d be a massacre in the Taiwan Straits (lumbering landing craft/troop ships vs. subs, surface ships of all types and planes).
China would HAVE to own the straits uncontested to even begin thinking about success and that would mean destroying the Taiwanese airforce and surface fleet and somehow keep the US out of it (or fight off the US navy at sea…not likely in the near future). Once they achieved that they’d have to still put the troops on shore in the face of Taiwanese troops…no small feat by itself.
My own hopeful optimism aside, I have this feeling that if Taiwan is really stupid enough to declare independance, then China will stop at nothing to reclaim Taiwan, because whoever controls Taiwan essentially control’s China’s shipping routes. (Unless they, say, invent the flying version of an aircraft carrier before that happens.)
Gut instincts say something big might go down when China hosts the Olympics in 2008…
Well, I doubt Taiwan will be declaring independence any time soon. For one thing, they are aware that the US wouldn’t be best pleased if they did…in fact, we’d be pretty pissed off at them for doing it for all our talk of freedom and democracy. For another, they have de facto independence already…they don’t NEED to push over the apple cart right now.
However, I’m unsure what China would actually do if Taiwan DID declare independence. War? Perhaps but I don’t think even the Chinese are prepared for what it would take to actually take Taiwan through force of arms. I seriously doubt China would resort to nukes…would kind of be a waste considering why they want Taiwan back in the fold after all. Conventionally I think we’d notice if China attempted to build up to the point they COULD take Taiwan…and you can bet Taiwan would notice too. Cold war perhaps.
I think this move by China is just one more attempt to pressure Taiwan to come back into the fold peacefully and by their own ‘free’ will. I doubt it will have any more effect than any of their other efforts in this reguard. Basically, if they want Taiwan back then they need to finally toss the baby AND the bathwater of their communist regime out and take a new direction. Continued economic success and freedom will be what lures Taiwan back into the fold IMO.
China’s problem is that they’ve spent fifty years proclaiming that Taiwan is a part of their country. Taiwanese independance would be a huge diplomatic defeat for China. And it would be an irreversible one; if Taiwan is recognized as a soveriegn nation by the world, China will be unable to reassert its claims in the future.
But while we disagree on the details, all of us agree that China is not able to prevent Taiwanese independance by military means. So China is reduced to a diplomatic bluff - threatening military action in the hope this will either deter internal Taiwanese pressure for independance or bring international pressure on Taiwan against independance.
The danger is that China’s posture is not all bluff. I think that if Taiwan did go ahead and declare independance, China would indeed attack the island - either in the false belief they could win or just because the Chinese government would consider a military defeat more acceptable than a failure to make the attempt.
And this is exactly where Taiwanese public opinion is … if they could wave a magic wand, I’d say well over 2/3 would opt for independance. But they also recognize the reality of the situation; and the reality is that pro-independance pols and parties (such as the current president) have to fight the “reckless hothead” label.
Why have a war when the economic integration is going to drive some sort of political settlement within a decade, and probably within 5 years. Direct air flights are probably going to happen soon.
As I always say in these threads, I don’t think China is stupid enough to attack Taiwan. “The communist party control is based upon a growing economy. We let you get rich or at least buy a car, and we stay in power.” Attacking Taiwan would destroy the Chinese economy.
The other thing I always say is that it is highly likely Taiwan was the bomb. MAD deterrent. I don’t think China wants to lose Shanghai and Beijing to recover a radioactive wasted island and sink the mainland Chinese economy at the same time. You may not understand the Chinese government, but that doesn’t mean they are stupid.
google it and can get all sorts of hits or picture this:
you are a paranoid dictator (Chiang kai-shek) with a very large and certifiably nutjob enemy 100 miles away with a gigantic army(cultural revolution). in addition you have one of the highest PhD’s per capita level in the world and IIRC 6 nuclear power plants established in the 70’s. if one weren’t able to get fissonable material there, cash is king.
does anyone seriously think taiwan did not put together at least a couple of nukes and a MAD strategy? I can’t prove it but only an idiot would failed to pursue this option.
Back in the early 1980’s, the South Africans exploded a nuclear bomb over the Indian Ocean. The flash was picked up by a US spy satellite. At the same time, taiwan and South Africa were close allies…I belive that taiwan purchased a submarine from South Africa, and also some Israeli Dagger jet fighters (which were built under license in S. Africa). So it would not surprise me that Taiwan has several nuclear bombs. Would they use them? Maybe, as part of a last ditch defense …but I don’t seeanything coming to that . My bet is, Taiwan will be peacefully absorbed into China…it willretain its own government, and basically pay lip service to Beijing…just like Hong Kong. The Chinse are not stupid…they are pragmatic and patient. Attempting an invasion would be very foolish.
