this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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That's only true if China gets no further than attempting an amphibious landing on Taiwan. If China succeeds in creating a bridgehead on the island, then many of the same land-based weapons and systems that the US is currently supplying to Ukraine, or that Ukraine would like to have, come into play, including 155mm artillery, rocket artillery, tanks, air defence missiles, and land-based multirole aircraft like the F-16.
From a war planning point of view, unfortunately you can't assume that China's amphibious landing would fail. In fact, I think it's more likely that China would succeed in establishing some kind of foothold on the island in the early stages of a future Taiwan war than not. If the amphibious force is large enough, it would be very difficult to eliminate all the landing craft, especially if there is a successful misdirection.
This is without considering that North Korea could also simultaneously launch a land-based attack on South Korea to dilute any US response in either theatre.
Crossing 100 miles of open ocean and landing troops on one of the limited beach areas on the island of Taiwan, which are bordered by builds up urban areas and mountains is going to be one of, if not the most difficult military operation ever to be attempted.
I really don't see how China is going to conduct a faint in the open ocean when you have the United States Navy, the Japanese Maritime self-defense force, the Australian Navy, the Singaporean Navy, the Philippine and Thai navies, as well as Taiwan itself all monitoring every move China makes via satellite as well as using aerial reconnaissance assets. And the moment trying to decides to shoot down any surveillance planes will ratchet up tensions to the point where every single move they do will be challenged with carrier fleets and nuclear submarines operating in close proximity to their Chinese counterparts.
Just doesn't seem likely to work like that. You cannot hide surface ships from satellites. China also doesn't even have enough amphibious landing craft to land meaningful numbers of troops on shore. And even if they did, they would have to constantly resupply said troops while under fire. Good luck with that.
Considering the sheer amount of anti-aircraft missile systems that Taiwan fields, as well as artillery and heavy weapon systems it will be ridiculously difficult to land troops there. But if China wants to throw hundreds and thousands of ships to the bottom of the ocean and lose tens of thousands of their own trained soldiers, I guess that's their prerogative.
They would be much more likely to win if they simply embargo the island permanently, but that would induce the wrath of the United States Navy and risk direct confrontation between the PL n and one of our fleets operating probably in a similar manner to the grain fleets coming out of the Ukraine right now.
Which means politically speaking, this is all a big game of chicken with the potential to cause nuclear devastation in both China and the United States. And potentially Japan.