However, AFAIK, developing a real blue water navy is one of their goals. And as a poster mentioned, it makes sense since they know have assets/people to protect in remote countries.
And another thing. Its not like a that we have ever had a senario when a newly emergent economic power with little history of global military might has become one on the back of its newly found Industrial might and also compelled the largest and more sophisticated military in the world to reduce because it held most of that countries debt.
No wait that was the US…a century ago.
The major difference is geography. The US, with huge swathes of coastline on two oceans, is perfectly positioned as a naval power. We can go where we want, and we are nearly impossible to blockade.
China has none of these advantages. Their only reasonable way to move troops out is through a single crowded coast.
Given that our navy can pretty much slaughter any Chinese invading amphibious force, the cost to us of defending Taiwan is relatively low(at least compared to what the Chinese would lose by trying to invade).
China could of course respond to our defense of Taiwan with escalations, but again, they would stand to lose much more than we would. They can’t destroy us with their nuclear deterrent, but we can destroy them. They can’t invade us, but we can invade them(although we’d need a draft and foreign help to actually win such a long land war).
China is very rational. I think they know the score and are patient enough to wait until the odds are more in their favor.
You do realise that the same can be tuned on its head (and indeed for most of history it was) that the US being so physically far away from the centers of commerce cannot expect to be a major maritime power? It was one of the major reasons for annexing the Philippines and the Marianas, to use as forward bases and coaling stations. Nor do I agree that the US is impossible to blockade, the British did it in 1812 and if war had come in 1861, they would have done it in both Oceans.
While I agree that the Chinese are going to adopt more of a continental strategy, that is due to the fact that they are doing well under the current situation. If the US acts stupidly and tries to antagonise China, then all bets are off.
Moreover, I do not think the US lead in naval power in something the US can take for granted and actually it might be in China’s favour. The US shipbuilding industry has being in terminal decline and many of the yards that make warships are subsidised (directly or indirectly). The Chinese have massive commercial shipbuilding capacity which the US does not.
nitpick:
Japan has a SELF-DEFENSE force. They are sometimes helping with peace-keeping activities, but they will not attack/help anyone fight.
nitpick.
I think the Chinese are very smart about the use of their military. They don’t get involved in wars that cannot be won (unlike us-with Iraq, Afghanistan, and people wanting to go in to Syria). Second, the Chinese have no need to directly challenge the USA-its much cheaper for them to bleed us by forcing us to maintain fleets in places where we have no business being.
In the end, they know that China is best served by making money-not by indulging in foolish foreign wars. take Afghanistan-we have spent north of $1 trillion-and yet, the Chinese are poised to take over the mineral mining in that country. We do the fighting and dying-while the Chinese reap the rewards. While we go ever deeper into debt, the Chinese will be turning a profit on Afghanistan. I wonder why we don’t adopt a similarly pragmatic foreign policy?
WaPo article today on Chinese espionage of many critical US systems, from leaked confidential report. Damage not reported.
An interesting overview of the U.S.-Chinese-Russian naval-power situation today: http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/26/politics/navy-uss-south-dakota-submarine-china-russia/index.html
I think CNN and the aide are missing the point with this comment:
They’re building up a force of experienced submariners as well as submarines. Those submariners will in due course transfer and take their experience to better submarines. They’re also gaining experience in building submarines.
No, only a small amount of troops, and even then that would be with extreme cooperation from numerous countries who would have to allow the PLA to land transports at their bases, refuel, and fly to the next stop.
If he meant moving two PLA divisions onto *Hong Kong *in 48 hours, that’s vastly different than moving two PLA divisions onto Taiwan in 48 hours.
Hong Kong is directly adjacent to mainland China and has no military for self-defense. Taiwan is 100 miles away and has a sizable military for self-defense.
Oh - sorry - didn’t realize I was replying to old posts.
I know this is a zombie, but would a takeover of Taiwan really require a D-Day style assault? That was only necessary because the Nazis were masters of logistics, strategy, combat, etc. To get to Hitler would’ve and did require an all-out, long-lasting, large-scale war.
Taiwan barely has a military, what little it does uses crap homebrewed stuff mixed in with a few not-as-crappy American weapons, and it is far too small and far too centralized. With a few missiles and cyberattacks, Taiwan would lose command and control overnight, and by dawn paratroopers could hold the executive and legislature hostage. If the Chinese is able to hold Taipei for even a week, the rest of Taiwan collapses, and from then it’s just a negotiated surrender followed by a puppet government. They’re not going to sit there and exchange bullets for long. Taiwan, the military, will be peacefully handed over to the Chinese long before it fights to the death in Taipei proper. Taiwan itself is far too divided about the Chinese, and there is not the militant culture that the US or Afghanistan have, and no ability to self-organize into effective guerilla forces absent the central government, and no logistics ability to fight a protracted battle against the PLA once they control the seas and air shipping. Taiwan is an island of farmers and taxi drivers propped up by a few square miles of economic activity in the bigger cities. They have no particular hatred for the Chinese, share the same cultural heritage, food, and language, and have almost no combat experience beyond mandatory training from the draft. None of these things suggest any desire or ability to hold off an invasion for any meaningful period of time.
Taiwan exists because of two things: 1) Right now, for China, the benefits of invasion do not outweigh the costs. 2) For the US, keeping up appearances of Taiwanese defense remains politically feasible, but it is only for show. Taiwan no longer matters; intended to be a regional buffer against China in the early days, China is now far too powerful, Taiwan too inconsequential, and America too concerned with Muslims and internal divisions for the faraway Oriental issue to be of much concern beyond trade agreements. Taiwan’s military is so laughable as to be ignorable. Should any of those other factors change, Taiwan the state is gone within a month, the people maybe given Hong Kong-like status while China just waits a couple of generations for fuller integration.
Not the case. 144 F-16s, 50+ Mirage 2000-5s, 124 IDFs, multiple frigates and destroyers and it would rely heavily on reserves in any invasion scenario. Also one of the few nations to field supersonic sea-skimmer AShMs. With Jinmen, Matsu and the Pescadores serving as tripwires it would be even more difficult for an invasion fleet to make it across intact, unless China wants to go the long route a’la Operation Allied Force’s airstrike-pattern and try the east coast of the island. With several million men having prior military service and also first-to-be-called-up reservists numbering over a million, any Chinese invasion beachhead would face the serious danger of being quickly outnumbered and outmassed at the point of attack. There are only 14 major beachheads suitable for a Chinese invasion landing (most of them much more difficult to invade than to defend) and the tides, typhoon seasons, etc. of the Taiwan Strait would make an invasion across the Strait very difficult (source) And even if going by active military personnel alone it’s on the order of 200,000 personnel, which amounts to around 1/7 the size of the active US military for purpose of comparison.
Have you been to Taiwan? I have lived in Taiwan for over 10 years and I am not sure where you get these ideas from.
Unless you are asserting that for some reason Taiwan is just going to surrender, yeah, it’s going to take a forced entry invasion. To be sure, if China actually manages to cross the straights with sufficient troops to establish and support a viable beachhead, the conquest from there would be an easier logistic and tactical/strategic problem than the allies faced conquering Nazi Germany.
As opposed to the crappy Chinese weapons that are going to have to be moved across the straights? 
I’m not sure why you think they ‘barely’ have a military, as it’s actually pretty good and in league with many smaller nations. It’s fairly modern and reasonably well equipped. Also, there is that whole US ally aspect you seem to be ignoring.
recognizing the zombie, but reacting to the later posts, with regard to the sealift capability of mainland china-they have been reasonably intelligent in this area.
See:
Now, the biases and slants shown in this website are clear-it looks like something the Israeli Defense Force itself would write, but the information it does choose to publish seems pretty accurate.
China is dealing with the huge sealift demands of a Taiwan invasion (the article discusses N. Korea but the ships weren’t built with invading N. K. in mind) in the same way any nation would-dual use shipping. And they have a lot of shipping.
Thanks for the book suggestion. I’ve ordered it.
That air force is about two generations old, and what, 1/10th the size of China’s? How’s their missile defense?
To be clear, I think Taiwan might stand a chance in rebuffing a direct amphibious assault for a while, but China doesn’t need to resort to that… much less lead with that.
Taiwan can’t maintain air superiority for long by attrition alone. 300 planes. How many airfields? How many pilots? How many fuel depots, power plants, radars, control stations? How long would it take China to destroy all of it in a preemptive strike?
Once that happens, THEN what effective resistance would remain? Would isolated units still patrol the strait hoping to sink a few ships here and there before 10x the number arrive in a few more days? With the Taiwanese government decapitated, the Taiwanese people in a panic and itself divided over the idea of protracted war after half of Taipei is burning, its leaders dead, and a third of the population previously fine with Chinese rule anyway?
And the reservists and civilians… minimally armed, dependent on a transportation and highway network that’s easily destroyed in the first few days… what are they to do against one of the world’s biggest forces? How could Taiwan do anything BUT surrender? What option do they have, if China really decided to attack and the USA didn’t help? They can’t ramp up production and logistics to match the PLA, not when the entire island is within bombardment range and the entire air force is destroyed in the first few days.
Yes, I grew up there and regularly visit. The idea of Taiwan existing without US defense is laughable, IMO a denialist nationalist fantasy that perhaps made sense twenty years ago… but now? I have no particular stake in the Taiwanese independence argument, but that rests upon economics and politics, not so much Taiwan’s ability to actually fend off a determined invasion without US support. It will slow down the Chinese, sure, but it cannot hold them off for long. No part of the island is safe to retreat to and resupply from, and it has no meaningful allies nearby.
China – and for that matter, Nazi Germany – have huge advantages in that their command structure cannot be undone overnight. All of Taiwan is vulnerable to aerial bombardment before any amphibious assault. It is doubtful much of that would survive continued attack.
Very few modern nations, no matter their military, have to contend with the PLA invading from 100 miles away. It’s not even the same ball game. The Taiwanese military is a diplomatic tool so that Taiwan can pretend to negotiate at the big boy’s tables. It is not big enough to even grant Taiwan the legitimacy of nationhood without China’s blessing, much less actually fend off China if it chose to invade.
No, I didn’t. The last part of my post was that Taiwan’s existence relies on two things: Chinese apathy and American support. Without either, and certainly without buff, it would fall.
As for the US coming to her aid… Taiwan couldn’t even convince us to recognize their statehood. When Taiwan is no longer politically expedient for us to use as a regional pawn, we will leave, the same way we always have with tiny faraway nations that we don’t really care about. All the more so if China keeps opening up and capitalizing, rendering the “bastion of democracy against the communists across the sea” aspect moot.
Invading a small island nation is not like invading a continent where the enemy is backed up half the way to Berlin. It would be more like the invasion of Sicily; ifwe are going by WW2 examples.
All of which means squat. Taiwan is an island nation, relying on imports for most of its food and almost all of its energy. There is no point in having shiny defense equipment if there is no fuel to run it and the operators are starving.
“And the reservists and civilians… minimally armed, dependent on a transportation and highway network that’s easily destroyed in the first few days… what are they to do against one of the world’s biggest forces?”
Different circumstances to be sure, but there is that recent case of the US losing a war in Iraq against substantially “inferior” forces.