The only way the US will not respond militarily is if Taiwan chooses unification. By all accounts, Taiwan will not choose that. The US military has not been strategically shifting to the Indo-Pacific for more than 10 years now for no reason.
If China acted quickly in disabling American military assets in the region, it is conceivably possible that Taiwanese people could be demoralized and surrender to the PRC before America has a chance to muster more forces to the region. Even if this definitely wouldn't be possible, it's still possible that the PRC thinks otherwise and will try it, as Japan once did.
The counter to this is that it might make more sense for China to _not_ attack the United States with the anticipation that they sit it out. China attacking US forces/ naval bases makes it much harder for a president to sit back and say not our problem/ focus on economic sanctions.
Imagine if Russia started the invasion of Ukraine by bombing polish railways, so that the Ukrainians would not be able to get supplies/resources from the EU. I would think that the EU/Nato response to that would be much more severe than what happened in reality.
While Guam might be considered different, as most Americans cannot place it on a map and it is on the other side of the world, seeing caskets of all the US troops dying makes it pretty hard to politically shrug off as not our problem.
The game theoretic problem with this scenario (and thus why a Pacific escalation scenario is so dangerous) is that China has essentially all of its forces in the area around China, whereas the US and its treaty allies have their forces scattered around the world. Thus even if the US has a bigger military most of it won't be in theater on day 1 of a conflict, leading China to have every incentive to move as fast as possible and present a fait accompli to the West. If they choose to just do nothing to the US and hope America sits it out, it just gives the US time to redress this force imbalance in the region by moving in assets from around the world. That leads China to be strongly incentivized to strike US forces on day 1, in much the same way the IJN was incentivized to strike early and strike hard 85 years ago.
A naval invasion of Taiwan would be among the largest military operations in history, requiring immense preparation both to produce the necessary equipment and to move it into position, to say nothing of moving and training all the participating forces. In the era of satellite surveillance, the US would know months if not years in advance. They would almost certainly preposition forces in proximity both as a deterrent and as a potential response force. There's no comparing today's circumstances to a time when a carrier strike group could sneak up and launch a surprise attack on a US base.
Chinese naval assets, most particularly their large transports and landing craft, would be extremely vulnerable to antiship missiles. They're building those anyway, which suggests they have some sort of plan to use them after the antiship missile threat has been eliminated in the region. The most plausible way to accomplish that is to paralyze the American response by having Taiwan capitulate very fast, before the invasion actually takes place. Starting and finishing the war with the rapid destruction of key American military bases and surface assets (almost certainly using missiles, not a "sneaky carrier group") could shock Taiwan into a rapid capitulation, which in turn could neutralize (politically) the American fast attack subs that could otherwise decimate the vulnerable invasion fleet (which they are building, regardless of how little sense it makes to us.)
> Thus even if the US has a bigger military most of it won't be in theater on day 1 of a conflict, leading China to have every incentive to move as fast as possible and present a fait accompli to the West.
I disagree. I've think we've seen and will continue to see China acting slowly on this, because their primarily incentivized to not attack. This, on three fronts:
- China is not looking for a vassal state. It's looking for national reunification. War is a terrible way to incorporate people into your nation. Effective perhaps, but very much a last resort.
- Time isn't on Taiwan side— TSMC is losing is edge. The technological gap between TSMC and Chinese silicon companies is shortening with each year that passes by, and this is meaningful not only because TSMC is 25% of Taiwan's GDP [1], but also because it's the most strategic export they have geopolitically. World leaders care more about any disruption to the supply of cutting-edge chips than they care about the name of the island on a map. This is specially true for the USA, and the reason why they want TSMC to manufacture in Arizona.
- Time is very much on China's side. In the past couple of decades China has consistently become more competitive with the USA in most strategic aspects, and bettered it's strategic standing overall. If your chances of winning are increasing every year, you don't want to attack today; you want to wait until you think your chances of winning have peaked.
If anything, I'd argue the USA is in a tough spot. If a war is going to happen, it would be in the USA's interest that it happens soon, albeit after they can secure advanced-chip production outside of Taiwan.
A very quick war against American forces in the region followed by Taiwanese capitulation could leave the Taiwanese public largely untouched by the war, which would serve the CCP's goal of national reunification. This hinges on the US dropping out of the war and licking their wounds after Taiwan gives up on the first or second day, rather than continuing the war even though the Taiwanese government has now 'consented' to the invasion. China's perception of the social circumstance of America is therefore, arguably, the most important consideration for the timing of this war. The best time to do this is when Americans are demoralized and doubting their own righteousness in world affairs, doubting the competence and merit of their military leadership, with their own problems to worry about at home, with isolationist-inclined leaders.
I wouldn't be surprised if the response to an invasion of Taiwan looked very similar to the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The world did nothing for about a week and it seemed as though leaders were willing to sit on their hands for a week to see if it ended quickly. When it didn't they moved from vague, hand wavy statements to economic sanctions.
If China tries to invade we very well could see a weak, hollow political response from world leaders unless China falters and is stopped initially.
Ukraine was (and is) a very small economy literally right up against russia that had long been in Russia's sphere of influence if not under its direct control. Ukraine's fall would have had little meaningful impact on western powers other than losing some face in countering Russian aggression. Specifically to avoid losing that face, western leaders made it very clear from the get go that they would not step in to defend Ukraine, specifically so that they could conserve their strength in case they needed it against China. The universal assumption was that Russia, which was believed to have one of the most capable armies in the world would steamroll the Ukrainians and the country would fall in days if not hours. Only when the Russian advance stalled and it became clear that Ukraine with moderate support could hold out did the west start providing that support, and only after Ukraine made some impressive gains that demonstrated it could not only hold out but potentially drive the russians back did the west start sending serious aid.
Conversely, Taiwan is extremely integrated into the global economy and is a key part of America's pacific power. We have been backing Taiwan for decades. Taiwan is an island, and one with very few appropriate landing sites, making its invasion extremely technically challenging for any power, even one with a strong navy. China, despite its recent shipbuilding spree, still lacks naval and amphibious combat experience, and it does not have anywhere near the fleet size necessary to fully leverage its army's main strengths. We are all freshly aware of lessons learned from Ukraine's invasion: that the strength on paper of countries like Russia and China do not correspond to force projection capability, that providing substantial aid early on is critical, and that modern military equipment is not so powerful as to collapse an otherwise functional country in hours. The amount of aid Taiwan needs is less, and the willingness to give it is greater. Only a major shift in US behavior would cause it to not support Taiwan.
Trump is now in charge of the US and admires Xi and his dictatorship. He’ll find an excuse not to intervene or even better will pay peacemaker and trumpet how his intervention saved millions of lives and stopped a war by capitulating to China and refusing Taiwan aid. As he is doing in Ukraine.
Since Trump is in I’d expect invasion later this year or next. After invasion the people of Taiwan won’t be choosing anything.
I get that it is easy to say that Trump admires dictators, he is such great friends with them, they have compromising information on him and he will allow them to do whatever they want, however, he was president before and during that time China did not invade Taiwan. Also during that time; Russia did not invade Ukraine.
They did take Hong Kong during that time. It would've been pretty easy to point out that they were violating their agreements there, but he kept his mouth shut so they would sign his trade agreement. It's pretty clear who is wearing the pants in that relationship.
It is a fact that he admires dictators, not sure why you feel the need to reframe it as ‘easy to say’?
He has been useful to Putin already (‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful,” ) and will be again by pausing the disastrous invasion and refusing Ukraine aid. I can see him being similarly useful to Xi for similar reasons.
China was not ready last decade they have been clearly preparing the last few years and now is the time to do so.
That's if we had a democratic president. We most certainly won't respond in the next 4 years to anything China or Russia does. The only thing they have to do for that benefit is not attack us directly.
Why do you think the party allegiance will make a difference?
I generally consider the republicans to be more likely to reach for military action, though the democrats have seemed pretty war hungry in the last decade or two as well.
>Why do you think the party allegiance will make a difference?
I think I could replace "democratic president" with specifically Biden or Harris and would still believe the chance of military confrontation with them is "unlikely" unless directly attacked, but with Trump it is zero
1.) too much corruption within the military. also no real war experience for 40 years
2.) not enough oil to supply all the ships needed for invasion. look at how Russia's column of tanks failed in the early invasion of Ukraine.
3.) China is broke and you need money for a war against US and Japan.
4.) China imports most of its food and oil
5.) Taiwan has very advanced anti-ship missile systems, homegrown and from US. and once a ship is sunk near the landing, that then prevents other ship from landing, basically piling up ship corpses.
US responds militarily: 70%
1.) Marco Rubio's first day on the job was to meet with AUKUS, which shows how important Asia and first island chain is
2.) Trump has said he would bomb China if China had occupied Taiwan under his presidency
Sorry, but most of this is uninformed gibberish. The PRC and its army (the PLA) have experienced nothing short of a breathtaking modernization for both the country and military.
Most of the points raise are simply wrong.
> 1.) too much corruption within the military. also no real war experience for 40 years
China has corruption, yet is able to modernize and build up the military at a pace exceeding the USA's, which spends at least 2x more.
> 2.) not enough oil to supply all the ships needed for invasion. look at how Russia's column of tanks failed in the early invasion of Ukraine.
China is one of the largest oil producers in its own right. It extracts around 4 million barrels a day. The rest is imported, but primarily used for cars -- China's industry and rail networks do not rely primarily on oil. Due to China's transition to electric vehicles, they may have hit peak imports of oil.
During the US Gulf War, even with the tyranny of distance, the DoD used about 400k barrels a day:
"Even during the peak of US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and “normal” training activities and force movements, the Defense Department’s daily average fuel use was nearly four hundred thousand barrels per day—an amount equal to slightly more than 10 percent of China’s domestic crude-oil output.38" [1]
China produces about 4 MILLION barrels a day, which is 10x 400k barrels. Also, China would be fighting on the front door step.
3.) China is broke and you need money for a war against US and Japan.
China has MULTIPLE TRILLION dollar funds. Did I say MULTIPLE? [2]
Plus, there's the annual TRILLION dollar trade surplus.
4.) China imports most of its food and oil
China imports a lot, but they are self-sufficiency on a caloric basis. The oil imports are primarily for cars. The country doesn't rely on oil for industry.
5.) Taiwan has very advanced anti-ship missile systems, homegrown and from US. and once a ship is sunk near the landing, that then prevents other ship from landing, basically piling up ship corpses.
Read the Japanese government's assessment: "China’s military has the capability to land ground forces on Taiwan within as little as one week after imposing a naval blockade on the island, according to a Japanese government analysis of Chinese military exercises conducted last year." [3]
> China has corruption, yet is able to modernize and build up the military at a pace exceeding the USA's, which spends at least 2x more.
There's no evidence that China can wage a real war against Taiwan, much less near peer, despite having the units on paper, due to the corruptions. Russia has shown that because of military corruption, it's a paper tiger, much like China. There's a reason Xi Jing Ping is trying desperately to purge military leaders right now, but the military complex is fighting back.
> China produces about 4 MILLION barrels a day
which is for its own economy to function. A large naval plus army force would need significantly more oil to supply all the diesel ships, which each diesel ship require several thousand gallons of fuel per day. Unless you're saying China is willing to let its economy collapse in order to attack Taiwan, which is hilarious.
> China has MULTIPLE TRILLION dollar funds
This shows exactly that you have no idea what you're talking about. Everyone knows right now that China is dead broke and its local government is dead broke. The economy is suffering from deflation because its people have no money to spend.
> China imports a lot, but they are self-sufficiency on a caloric basis
Also you have no idea what you're talking about. When a country imports 80% of its food, it is NOT self sufficient
china's "broke" because it owes money to itself, specifically to its own central bank. that's not as big a problem as privately owned debt because it means there are potential political solutions if the will is there. the problem is flexible.
also, china is not suffering from deflation. re-read the articles talking about it. they're talking about "deflationary risk", as in, there isn't deflation but there are concerns of potential deflation in the future. there is actually very small (positive) inflation in china
thirdly, china does not import 80% of its food. it imports 80% of its soybeans and some other specific items, but not food as a whole. there is a national policy to rely in domestically produces food for what are seen as the staples like rice and vegetables. imports are mostly in "luxury" food items such as soybeans for livestock feed and stuff like milk, with the idea being that in some sort of extreme situation people would have to cut back on meat and such, which would be survivable