This sprouted out of a hijack in an Elections thread, but the point is to discuss: if China woke up tomorrow and wanted to conquer Taiwan, do they have the military capability to do so?
I assume we all understand that they could very likely nuke it into a burnt crisp any day next week, but I don’t really consider that “conquer” in the invade-and-subjugate sense.
Please discuss.
My initial position (which I’m definitely persuadable on) is that NO, China can’t conquer Taiwan. They lack much of a blue water navy and air force, and don’t have the force projection capabilities they’d need to invade and hold Taiwan.
Looks like wrong forum. IMHO is more appropriate.
In my opinion, with just the sheer numbers, the answer to your question would be yes.
Leaving aside that the US would intervene, and with the caveat that we are talking strictly conventional, I’d say there is no way China could conquer Taiwan in a forced entry invasion. China simply doesn’t have the ability to logistically support an invasion of Taiwan or the ability to project it’s military force across the straights in the face of what Taiwan already has conventionally to defend their territory. It would be ruinously expensive to China to even try, and would cost them the cream of their air force to even attempt to gain sufficient air superiority over Taiwan to even make the attempt possible. Even assuming they could do that (which I doubt), they would then need to try and move a sufficiently large ground force across the straights (in the face of missile, sub and surface ships that Taiwan has and they would also need to attempt to combat), then establish a beach head against Taiwan’s defenses and a modern and well trained local army. No way.
Certainly they could do it that way, but not much to conquer then. 
This would probably have worked better in GD than here though.
Well, to conquer a country you need boots on the ground, and China would need to send them over by ship or by plane. Once it became clear that China was invading, Taiwan could use missiles to attack any Chinese ships or planes within range – so China will have heavy losses of ships and aircraft. That’s without the US intervening, and the US has large bases in Okinawa and Korea nearby that could do a lot to help the Taiwanese. Even the US giving the Taiwanese intelligence on where Chinese ships and troops were would be very helpful, without the US taking direct military action.
Sorry if I got the forum wrong. I’m new here. Mods … feel free to fix my screw-up.
This is exactly the sort of discussion I was looking to foster though. Thanks for participating.
Also, I’m not sure China could conquer Taiwain even if they were willing to accept ruinous losses.
I’m pretty sure that it would be ruinously expensive AND they wouldn’t succeed. I’m also pretty sure they know it…they know their capabilities better than anyone else does. The US factor just puts it over the top. What China wants and has always wanted is a political solution which brings Taiwan back into the fold. They use their military to put pressure on Taiwan, while at the same time enticing them with other means (there is quite a bit of capital investment from Taiwan in mainland industry).
Assuming no other nations intervene: how long could Taiwan keep this up? Do Taiwanese missles run out before China’s ships/aircraft?
If it were an existential issue – IOW, only one of China or Taiwan could come out the survivor – surely China could throw 100 million able-bodied fighting-age men into the invasion? Or do they truly lack the vessels/aircraft, and could not hope to build enough in the run-up?
They could throw 500 million able-bodied fighting-age men or a billion and it wouldn’t matter. What they need are jet fighters, bombers, and ships capable of transporting and protecting troops. Those are what they appear lack, at least in sufficient numbers to survive the trip to a hostile Taiwain.
China has a really, REALLY big army. No doubt about that. But you seem to think they also have a lot of ships and planes to throw into the meat grinder as well. No doubt if China was connected to Taiwan by a land bridge, and if they were willing to throw away millions into the face of machine gun fire (and if they could get the same level of dedication to do silly shit like they did in the 50’s in Korea), they could eventually run the Taiwanese out of bullets. But they don’t have endless ships or modern (or even not so modern) air craft, and I’d guess that they would run out of ships and planes before Taiwan ran out of missiles and torpedoes.
That’s it exactly. Taiwan on the defensive has a pretty large and well trained navy and air force (as well as army). They have lots of missiles. China has a lot of PEOPLE, but they don’t have endless supplies of large ships (which you need for all that logistics and transport) or endless supplies of air craft. You need to bring those millions over the straights before you can get them to charge into the machine guns (and tanks, and artillery, etc etc)…and China has no way to get them over there in the face of what Taiwan could put in their way.
ETA: I doubt the Chinese people or Peoples Army/Navy would be willing to sustain the causalities. I think that if China tried this, especially out of the blue, there would be revolution…and China would have more to worry about than attacking Taiwan. Things are pretty precariously balanced as it is today, without what would be a very unpopular AND costly war to add to the mix.
Moved from General Questions to IMHO.
samclem, modertor
The Chinese have a substantial conventional first-strike capability with missiles. The first step of an invasion would be missile strikes on all of Taiwan’s bases, SAM sites, and ships. I do not believe Taiwan has the capability to stop the huge wave of missiles that could be launched within a short time span. This would very much slow down if not completely cripple Taiwan’s response to the second step: manned airstrikes against whatever survived the missile strikes.
Once air superiority is gained, it would become a naval engagement of with Chinese aircraft and subs escorting troopships across the strait versus whatever remained of the Taiwanese navy and air force. The previous Taiwanese losses would prevent an effective defense and the Chinese would gain one or more beachheads.
On land, the Taiwanese would have an initial advantage in numbers and heavy materiel. But they would have no resupply. Once they’ve lost several major battles, they’d be reduced to hit-and-run tactics while the Chinese takeover defensible positions and strategic cities. How much the population at large rebels against the conquerors would determine whether the war ends quickly or becomes a decades-long guerrilla action.
Taiwan has three effective defenses against a Chinese invasion.
Where’d you get your information on China’s missile capabilities? I wasn’t aware they were all that sophisticated …
Taiwan has over 10 (IIRC) major air force bases alone that would have to be caught completely by surprised and wiped out. What sort of conventional missile strike are you envisioning China could pull off to do something like that completely by surprise? I’m not aware of large numbers of missiles that China has that it could get into position to pull off such a surprise attack…what sort were you thinking of?
Again, they would have to have complete tactical AND operational surprise to pull something like that off. Taiwan has an extensive air defense radar network, and pretty extensive SAM coverage, lots of distributed air bases with modern (well, F-15 and 16 variants) fighters, as well as a number of naval bases…all of which would have to be hit by surprise pretty much in the opening phase of the battle. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but doesn’t sound like something the Chinese could really pull off in the way you seem to be envisioning it.
So, not only does this first strike take out all of the air defenses and naval defenses, but somehow also allows the Chinese a beach head in the face of modern tanks, large amounts of local artillery and a modern and well trained and equipped army?? :dubious: Just not seeing all of this as plausible. I could see, maybe, the Chinese having some tenuous local air superiority over the straights (even that I’m dubious of…I’m thinking it would be a highly contested area with no one having clear air superiority there), but over Taiwan itself? That first strike would have to be phenomenally successful. I doubt the US could pull off a first strike that successfully against an opponent of Taiwan’s caliber, and China just ain’t there.
Not a chance IMHO. I don’t see any way that the Chinese could force a beach head to do any of this, even with total surprise on their side…which they would never, ever be able to get for something this large.
What are China’s amphibious assault capabilities? Do they have landing craft and fire support ships or would they be limited to pulling up at one or more of Taiwan’s ports and asking the crane operator to offload a few containers full of tanks and troops for them?
They have some larger amphibious assault ships, and some landing and assault craft as well. Not a lot of either though (maybe 2-4 of the big ones, maybe a couple hundred landing craft), not for an invasion that would be this large. My WAG is if they really wanted to do this, they would have to use a lot of civilian hulls for the logistics. From memory, they have a handful of really modern destroyers and frigates (and more older ones), a bunch of smaller missile and gun boats…and, of course, their fearsome retread Soviet carrier…and a pretty small handful of attack subs (they have some boomers as well but they wouldn’t be worth much in this fight, unless they have some sea launched missiles that would help).
ETA: Even leaving aside the fact that they don’t have a very large or capable navy, the biggest thing is they don’t have the trained people for something like this. I can’t see any way they could pull it off at this time. Maybe in 10 or 20 years, if they focused their resources on their navy (a lot of their money goes to the People Army, and a lot of it is focused on modernization of their old crap to newer, better crap…and some really good stuff, but not a lot of that. Modernizing something as large as their army is a massive undertaking, and not just from an equipment standpoint)…but today? No way.
Here’s an interesting discussion of that topic. They seem to conclude roughly what you already thought.
Yeah, that’s a bit more militarily geeky of a discussion, but the key points are the same. The Chinese don’t have the lift capability to move more than a couple of divisions to Taiwan (the consensus of the military geeks seemed to be they could do something between 2-4 heavy divisions…maybe). Those divisions would not only have to force a beach head, but hold on while the Chinese turned whatever transport they could scrape together, send it back (in the face of Taiwanese defenses which are substantial), load em back up and bring em back to re-enforce. And all of that assumes they could even get those initial forces there in the first place…something that would entail ‘total dominance’ of the Taiwan battlespace…something that is highly unlikely in the extreme. And, of course, assume the US would not lift a hand to intervene as well, and that China would ignore pretty much universal condemnation if they launched such an adventure (and further leaving aside the fact that we are talking about one of the large trade cross-roads in the world in that region as well).
Would the Chinese government be able to deal with the internal political fallout from failure?
China ain’t that stable.
A screw up that big, and KA-BOOM!
A civil war, where a unified China used to be.
No, I don’t think so…and I think you’ve hit on the biggest reason it wouldn’t happen right there. The folks in charge are struggling right now just to keep things from flying apart as it is, and that’s without what would be a highly unpopular and expensive (in both the short and long terms, considering the international political fallout, not to mention the huge impact on trade) war.
I certainly think we’d see a bunch of political commissars and officials posing for gun fire in the end, but a hell of a lot of folks would get killed. It would be a real mess, and the political and economic reverberations would echo throughout the world.