This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I know there are many who think that China isn’t or hasn’t really been serious about invading Taiwan and trying to bring the country back in using military force. That is a debate in itself, and I don’t really want to get into that here. Let’s say, for the sake of the discussion, that China decides it does want to invade Taiwan as its only real way to bring Taiwan into the fold.
In light of what has been happening in Ukraine, what do you think the effects would be? Not just after they pull the trigger, but in the pre-invasion build-up? Similar to what happened in Ukraine (and pretty much every modern invasion of another country), China would have to build up its logistics and forces in the region, bring in ships, fly in planes, etc. There is no way they could do most of this without anyone seeing what they are doing, even if they were pretending to stage this as a 'military exercise. What would the international reaction be at this point? How do you think it would be similar or different to the build-up of this crisis in Ukraine?
After that, let’s say that, like Putin, Xi decides to pull the trigger anyway. Feel free to talk about what you think would happen militarily, but what I’m really after in this thread is what would be the international ramifications? Would the US, Japan, perhaps Australia, or others use direct military force against China? If not, what would the sanctions look like…and how bad would that affect not only China but the rest of the world? After all, the sanctions impacting Russia and even many Russian leaders and business people have had a very real impact on the world’s economy.
Finally, what countries would you expect to, as with the Ukrainian crisis, sit on the fence? Would it be the same countries (obviously China wouldn’t be on the fence, but maybe the roles reverse, and Russia either directly supports China or supports them while claiming to be neutral and not taking a side)? What about India? South Korea? What about North Korea? Other regional powers? What would Europe’s stance be? NATO’s?
I don’t think China would want to upset the economic apple cart by invading Taiwan. Unlike taking over Hong Kong, which doesn’t have a standing army and is in no position to fight back, China wants to maintain its economic dominance in the world, and Taiwan has substantial military capabilities to fight back and could do some serious damage.
Of course, in the end, Taiwan would be no match against China, but it would be a bloody fight that would ultimately end in guerilla warfare, much like we’re seeing in Ukraine.
I don’t think the US or NATO would be willing to fight for Taiwan, or anyone else really. I also don’t think it’s worth it for China to destroy Taiwan and risk being labeled a pariah nation, but I would have said the same thing about Russia and Ukraine 5 years ago.
Well, for one would find out if my personal conspiracy theory is correct and Taiwan has the bomb.
Second, don’t forget that most adult men in Taiwan have been trained to use firearms.
Third, the native Taiwanese are probably like the Ukrainians and don’t want to be invaded a second time by Mainland China.
Fourth, Taiwan has been preparing to repel an invasion for more than 70 years.
Fifth, as Russia is learning, if the global economy can turn around and bite you back hard. Sure it goes both ways, but China without exports and without food imports will reach famine levels pretty quickly.
Japan would rearm and get the bomb really quickly. Ditto for S Korea. Who knows, the Philippines might even invite the US bases back.
Unless the PLA intends to swim to Taiwan, I don’t see hiw an invasion is even possible. China just doesn’t have the kind of naval capacity to launch a Normandy-esque operation.
Okay, so looking it up just now, it appears that last October Biden publicly said that the US will defend Taiwan if China attacks. He didn’t specifically say how, just acknowledged that we would, but later a WH spokesman stated “there is no change in our policy.”
(“The US has no official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but sells arms to it as part of its Taiwan Relations Act, which states that the US must provide the island with the means to defend itself.” quoted from this BBC story.)
As I said in another thread, I think China was surprised by both the level of international opposition to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the amount of effective resistance Ukraine has made to the invasion. I think China will put any plans it had for a military invasion of Taiwan on hold until it has had enough time to digest this new information and incorporate it into its plans.
Now I’ll accept the premise and assume China has invaded Taiwan.
I think the level of international opposition would be similar. East Asians will feel threatened by this invasion just as Europeans felt threatened by the invasion of Ukraine. Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand will all rally together. And they will want the United States to join them.
I feel the American response will be higher than it was to Ukraine’s invasion. We have closer ties to Taiwan and a stronger commitment. I won’t say sending American troops to defend Taiwan is a given but it’s a strong possibility. China must know that a war with Taiwan has a high chance of turning into a war with the United States. I’m not saying China wouldn’t be willing to fight a war with America but I think they would want to pick the circumstances.
That just means China will not launch a Normandy-esque operation. Less intensive amphibious operations are possible and can succeed. It would be a serious mistake for American planners to assume China can’t invade Taiwan unless they do it the way America would do it.
First, China has made it very clear that they would regard any Taiwanese nuclear program - even one for developing a nuclear weapon - as grounds for a military invasion. And China has its eye on Taiwan. It would be a big risk for Taiwan to work on a nuclear weapons program and hope the MSS doesn’t find out.
Second, what’s the point in having a nuclear deterrent if you can’t tell anyone you have it?
Little_Nemo, my conspiracy theory is that CKS developed this. Taiwan certainly has the brainpower and the manufacturing capability. For decades Taiwan and South Africa were fellow pariah states. And of course Taiwan told China that you can wipe us out, but scratch Shanghai off the map as the trade off.
BTW , Taiwan has been preparing for the second invasion of Taiwan since the KMT invaded in the aftermath of WW2. And after China has showcased a zero tolerance in HK, they will likely do the Ukranians proud. Sheer numbers will win out but it’s likely to be a phyrric victory.
A seaborne invasion is actually a much harder proposition than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which should have been pretty straightforward. I also think the Chinese military is mainly a paper tiger…it looks pretty good, on paper, but it’s actually more poorly trained and lead than Russia’s, albeit better armed, at least in theory. China’s big advantage would be it’s missile and rocket forces. But the US has been steadily arming them (again) for several years now, and I think that if the Taiwanese are willing to fight hard (which I completely agree with you…they will) and pay the price, I think they would surprise China unless the CCP and PLA-whatever are really watching what is going on in Ukraine and taking a real look at their own military with an eye towards systemic change. I seriously doubt they are, however, and whatever lessons they are learning will be, at least IMHO, the wrong ones.
What Ukraine should be showing everyone is that invasions against people who are prepared to fight and have modern weapons and the will to use them are really, really difficult. The US-made such things look easy in Afghanistan and Iraq, at least the invasion parts…but they really aren’t, and that US military isn’t the one we have today. And the Iraqis and Afghanis didn’t have large stocks of today’s weapons either.
The biggest concern I see is that the Russia-Ukraine example has made it clear that the United States will not intervene directly in a war if 1) the nation under attack is not a formal US-defense-treaty ally, such as being a member of NATO and 2) the aggressor threatens the use of nuclear weapons. It’s not hard to see where this leads: Beijing is going to threaten to nuke America, or at least American forces, if U.S. forces intervenes in a Taiwan conflict.
Well, it’s true the US didn’t defend Ukraine and, also true we didn’t have any sort of alliance with them. But I don’t think that means we wouldn’t defend Taiwan. We actually do have a rather nebulous treaty with Taiwan, and we also have a lot of ties to them, both historical and economic. In Taiwan’s case, we have deliberately been vague about what we would or wouldn’t do wrt defend the country. I think this is a mistake, but I can see why we do it. But I think that China would be seriously making an almost Putin-level miscalculation if they think the US will stand back and watch them invade and conquer the island.
Threats of nukes only work if you let them. The other side of that threat is…the US and its allies also have the things, so any use of them is going to basically kill us all. I seriously doubt that Russia will pull the trigger on war. China, of course, has much more to lose, only has somewhere between 400 and 1000 nukes total (at least so far…they are building the things rapidly). They also have a much more concentrated population…and also a number of other problems and issues that mean even in a brief, limited nuclear exchange they will definitely come out worse.
My theory is that when China decides to invade Taiwan, they won’t be stupid about it. They won’t have the narrative being China vs Taiwan. They will create a situation where is widespread opposition in Taiwan to the government and violent protests. There will be demonstrations in the streets calling the government illegitimate and calling for unification with the mainland. Probably some protests by indigenous Taiwanese against Han occupation. Protests against the government’s focus on northern Taiwan from people in the rest of the country. Government crackdowns against demonstrations. Maybe some disputed elections. Whatever unrest Beijing can stir up.
Then they’ll get some local people on the internet with charismatic spokesmen, saying that the Taipei government is illegitimate and asking for outside assistance to help restore order and set up a new representative government.
That way China can present the narrative that it’s not invading Taiwan; it’s intervening in Taiwan. China can claim it’s being reluctantly forced to send troops into Taiwan at the request of local groups which represent the real Taiwanese people and are being oppressed by the illegitimate minority that are claiming to be the government.
This approach might have worked 15 years ago, when the DPP (pro-independence) party was quite corrupt and unpopular. But by this point, the pro-China faction is dying out day by day. By and large, young voters (defined loosely as anyone under 35) favor staying as far from China as possible while only the elderly voters want unification. Every few years, a million pro-unification voters die out while another million anti-China youth reach voting age.
If Beijing wants to stir up a pro-unification faction in Taiwan to cause unrest and widespread opposition, that window already passed. That faction is too small to cause sufficient trouble for Taiwan to be “Crimea’d.”
I mean, certainly, there are a lot of mainland Chinese in Taiwan, but…well, how will they get this to happen? The current government and president are pretty popular, after all, and the native Taiwanese (the non-Han natives that is) aren’t all the numerous…or all that pissed off about the government, at least not that I’ve heard (granted, the people I know on Taiwan are all Han Chinese, so maybe I missed this aspect). I don’t see how any of this happens wrt the Taiwanese government cracking down to the point it would do much good for the CCP to exploit in order to make an invasion palatable. Especially if we are talking about them doing this fairly soon, not a decade or two down the road.
They kind of have this already, but it doesn’t get much traction. Certainly, I don’t see even in the most chaotic protests anyone turning to the mainland to come in and help restore order.
I think this was something they were thinking of say, 5-10 years ago. It’s clear the plan was to undercut the government and also to bring in a lot of economic incentives and pressure to basically allow for Taiwan to be brought under CCP control. But this hasn’t happened, and, in fact, the population has moved the other way. I don’t see any indications that would or could change at this stage, especially after Hong Kong.
No…I think they are going to do exactly what they said they will do. They will bring Taiwan into the fold by any means necessary, including military invasion. As they have pretty much exhausted other means than military, they are (or were) gearing up to do it the hard way, and I think they thought they had laid the groundwork to do this without the US or anyone else getting involved. Even before Ukraine, however, it seemed clear that they were miscalculation the response. That said, they have a real-time crunch on this, if they want to get Taiwan integrated and the rest of the world calmed back down and put back to sleep before their big party in 2049. Clock is ticking…
Sure, I get that…I just don’t think they could generate that amount of traction to ‘astroturf’ it so that it appears there is such a movement. I guess we shall see, but I think if they could do something like this they would have already. They did support, to an extent, the KMT and some of the other parties that are, at least nominally, wanting closer relations with the mainland. Even there, however, not many of them are actually advocating reunification, it’s more maintain the status quo (which the current government is also doing) and bring in more mainland Chinese businesses and those sweet, sweet RMBs.