If Taiwan is loaded with anti-ship missiles, cruise missiles, naval mines, loitering munitions, artillery, modern fighter jets, etc., any Chinese invasion is at the very least going to come at very steep cost in life/military hardware.
And then the economic costs (to everyone in the world) are going to be extreme.
1. As you said, and China is aware, a war between Taiwan and China will harm both countries and strengthen the US.
2. The world would react extremely negatively (more so than the Ukraine response) if half the world's semi-conductors supply disappeared.
3. Taiwan has cruise missiles that can reach Shanghai, Wuhan, Shenzhen, etc. Most of China's development is in the East. [1]
What I do believe might happen is China will reach the point that they can economically bully Taiwan until Taiwan decides it's best to play ball.
Better than nothing, but the Chinese mainland has literal highways and railroads to deliver more-and-more missiles.
When all else is equal, the winner is decided by logistics. Who can "deliver" more missiles to a location first? I'm willing to bet that Chinese highways and Chinese railroads have superior logistics / delivery than Ishigaki Island or the Batanes.
That is: the winner will be decided by "number of missile deliveries to the Strait of Taiwan". (A lot of people get caught up in thinking about the "last mile" of delivery: F35 jets or Destroyers or MLRS systems. But the "first mile" of railroads / highways is just as important, and leans severely to a Chinese advantage)
> If Taiwan is loaded with anti-ship missiles, loitering munitions, artillery, modern fighter jets, etc., any Chinese invasion is at the very least going to come at very steep cost in life/military hardware.
Putin just proved to the world that "Just because its a bad idea" doesn't mean it won't stop the autocratic dictator from doing something stupid.
China attacking the world-capital of semiconductor manufacturing would piss off the world for sure. But "pissing off the world" doesn't seem to enter into the calculus of these leaders. EDIT: I'm also willing to bet that Xi Jinping cares about Chinese soldier's life only a _little_ bit more than Putin cares about Russian soldier lives.
That's an interesting point.
One on hand, rail/highways are superior to anything ocean-going for transport, and cargo ships are easily taken out and would need extremely effective escorts.
On the other hand, rail/highways are much harder to protect because of their length.
If cargo ships could still reach Taiwan with escorts, I wonder if Taiwan could have enough supplies to deny China access to their rail/highway systems such that it negated their numerical advantages.
Which is why it’s almost public policy that the opening salvos of this war would involve raining down missile fire on those logistical chains.