That will be shortest war ever. If China does an embargo on Taiwan and encircles it, there's nothing that Taiwan could do in the long run. They will be forced to negotiate. And you can bet the US has no intention to intervene.
Taiwan is now building their own long range missiles to enable them to counter-attack strategic locations (marine bases etc) along the China mainland coast. A war would be devastating to China, both economically and to their military. Trying to actually invade Taiwan would incur huge loses considering how defensible Taiwan is. If Taiwan managed to weaken them, it's a real possibility that the US will step in to defend. And most likely China would have to back off if the US made anything resembling a serious threat. The US has stepped into global conflicts for far less. A war or embargo on Taiwan would be the biggest crisis in the international economy since the oil crisis of the 1970s.
I'm split on whether China would actually do this. I'm certain it'd be a huge mistake, but the CCP has no regard for what's reasonable outside of their own self-preservation. They are facing the biggest senior citizen boom in history, and they have really not built up their economy well enough to face it. They're getting stuck in an unfortunate situation where they want to move low-value manufacturing out of China to continue to grow. But they have not built up enough international trust to do high-value design and manufacturing for export. Not at a scale that'd support one billion people. It's possible that the CCP will make moves on Taiwan to drum up support and distract from a growing economic crisis. It might work, but the Chinese people are not stupid. They'd not be happy. I don't think a large peoples uprising is likely, but it could destabilize the party internally, shifting power from one faction to another. It'd be extremely destabilizing, and stability and economic prosperity is really the main thing that has built support for the CCP.
There's a small chance that it'd trigger some uprising in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Hong Kong too.
The US will make a lot of noise, but I’m going to say there’d be no hot war between the US and China.
Also, I suspect the PRC will do a fair bit of soft work before making that move. You’ll see pro PRC activism rise in Taiwan so that an invasion no longer seems so black and white.
Now, if China ever made a move on Japan, things would be different. But I don’t see that happening. Once China has Taiwan, they control the waters in that area, and there is no need to invade Japan. Japan would basically have to comply with China at that point.
From there, China just does their thing, expanding their sphere of influence, etc, taking over small targets that won’t raise too much ire from the rest of the world.
Anyway, if we’re making predictions, that’s my current one.
Pro-PRC activism is so dead that even anti-CCP activism in the form of the KMT is starting to look on life support.
Yeah, there's media organisations that have ties with the PRC and CCP. There's businesspeople that do. But the population at large is more and more that of the fiercely sovereign independent nation of Taiwan.
Saying Taiwan is an independent country would "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people" is more and more like saying Austria is an independent country would "hurt the feelings of the German people".
The 1938 Yellow River flood is taught as one of the great crimes of the KMT and is in the consciousness of most of the mainland Chinese as one of the unforgivable crimes of the KMT. It's in fact one of the big ways in which the CCP took control.
They also know it can happen again, with the Three Gorges Dam or some other infrastructure and the KMT has very little to lose, it's already taken the reputational hit for decades and independent Taiwan will do it as required for self-preservation - they're not internationally recognised so any prosecution for war crimes is likely to be irrelevant. Beyond being cancelled out by China's aggression in such a scenario in itself anyway.
Since China provides the rest of the world with everything + owns the debt of countries like the USA, It would be highly doubtful anyone takes even remotely significant sanctions against China.
Chinese economy is also completely dependent on imports. US does not need sail its carriers to Taiwan, it needs to park half a dozen attack subs on Chinese trade routes. Same applies to Taiwanese program to build indigenous electric subs with help of Japan, once even few those are complete the equation changes completely.
PRC has no chance in hell for an amphibious landing operation in Taiwan. So this is going to take quite a while.
Having said that US resolve switches around every 4 years so given a proper timing they might sit it out. However there are some interesting consequences. Japan will test a nuclear weapon and a delivery system and commence crash manufacturing program to assemble an arsenal in matter of weeks. US will get kicked out from Okinawa and mainland Japan and most likely a containment alliance between India, Japan and Australia will become not just paper but more like NATO with Joint command, staff, plans etc. I wonder what Vietnam will do, lets hope for their sake they have a secret nuclear program.
PRC would easily have air superiority in no time.
Landing a modern military force ashore then suplying it requires immense naval capacity that PRC just does not have. They could obtain it but such buildup would be impossible to hide and would take time. Not to mention you need to practice actually doing it.. before D-day allies landed in Diep, in NA, Sicily and Italy. From zero to landing on beaches in Taiwan would make Galipolee seem like height of military genius.
The most absolutely do. They might not want to, but they have no choice. Taiwan is a shackle in a long chain:
From South Korea, across the Korean strait, to Japan.
From Japan, along the Ryukyu islands to Taiwan.
From Taiwan, across the Luzon strait, to the Philippines.
From there to Malaysia (and Singapore) and Indonesia.
Almost nowhere along this 4000 mile chain is there a gap wider than 100 miles.
It is this chain which keeps China from freely accessing the Pacific Ocean.
If China could break through they would have unlimited access to the Pacific. And from there to the rest of the world. That is an existential threat to the USA.
That is why China wants Taiwan. That is why the US can not allow China to take Taiwan. Both sides know this.
So yes, China could most likely take Taiwan through war (albeit it at a high cost). But wars are not over when one side says it's over. The USA would absolutely carry on a multi-year war to regain Taiwan. They would much rather fight the PLAN five miles off Taipei than fight it five miles off Honolulu or San Francisco.
Isn't that the exact reasoning which led to the attack on Pearl Harbor? "One quick strike and they'll be out of the war..."
>The US will sanction and draw lots of red lines in the sand and then tug its tail between its legs.
And that's the kind of reasoning that led to Ukraine being invaded by Russia. The inevitable result of China being allowed to take Taiwan is China sailing their own carrier fleets along the West Coast a decade or two later. Absolutely unacceptable. Great Powers will always use force when faced with an existential threat.
The thing that usually leads to a war is thinking the other side lacks the willingness to go to war.
>And that's the kind of reasoning that led to Ukraine being invaded by Russia.
Yes, the US will draw lines and do nothing. Just like with Ukraine.
PRC sailing a carrier fleet just outside US waters is absolutely acceptable. The US made it so by doing the exact same thing to everyone else. It's only a matter of time before they have the capability. The big difference is that the US might go to war over such a thing unlike anybody else.
Another superpower is needed to stop the aggression by the US. US navel fleets belong in US waters. US bases belongs only on US land. If it takes PRC to do this then I'll happily cheer them along.
Where is the sign that USA is beefing up for such an obvious confrontation in the future? I don't see it.
This wasn't the one I read but there's plenty like it:
https://news.yahoo.com/were-going-to-lose-fast-us-air-force-...