PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

[plawolf]

What you've described resembles an even fight to me. Let's put aside the very pertinent question of what happens after China achieves a local victory with the bulk of US fighting forces still intact. Why should China get into an even fight to begin with? I don't want China to get into a well balanced boxing match with the US, I want it to stomp the US.

If the Reagan launches fighters to engage PLAAF fighters to defend Pelosi’s flight and dies in the opening hours of the fight, the PLA would have taken all of Taiwan before the US can gather enough forces to risk throwing the next punch. But at that point the nature of the fight would have fundamentally changed from helping to defend the castle to storming the castle. That would be a fight that not even the US military can win. Not on China’s doorstep as that would be little different from trying to launch a land invasion of mainland China.

It’s a smaller scale victory than what might be achieved if they fight was later, but it would be enough for China to finally be able to remove the dagger America has pressed against China’s belly.

So long as the Taiwan situation remains unresolved, China is acutely vulnerable as it cannot set one foot wrong. One major mistake or natural calamity and you are at risk of America deciding to come in and kick you while you are down by making Taiwan declare independence.

 

[Biscuits]

China's red line is Taiwan declaring independence. So yes, China can threaten a lot here, but it's not going to start a war. By every metric I look at, they need at least 3 more years before they are ready to fight a major war. Could they get into a conflict today and win it? Based on what Patchwork said, they probably can. But if you are PLA, is this the right time to do it? Absolutely not. I'd be surprised if China initiates a fight before they have 1000 nukes.

And China can get their point across to Taiwan without getting close to war. And no, they don't have the ability to enforce a no fly zone out to second island chain. Since you are so passionate, why don't you explain to me how they can enforce a no fly zone all the way to Guam or even half way to Guam.

China easily has more than 1000 nukes, they can casually pull apart hundreds of warheads worth of missiles just for public events, although if all of them are able to hit the whole mainland US, that's difficult to know.

However, China probably does want to wait until they can mass produce VLO bombers and fighters, allowing them a near airtight control over west Pacific. But they don't necessarily need it.

China doesn't need to enforce a no fly zone all the way to Guam by shooting down the planes using fighters. They just need to warn that sortiering into a certain radius around where the PLA is actively destroying rebels will be taken as a hostile attack and the airbase which said planes came from will be bombed.

If there's a kinetic response I would say hugely depends on how Pelosi arrives. If there's an US military incursion into China, there will be a direct clash. If she comes in a civilian airliner, China would probably only levy sanctions, cordon off most of its territorial air and sea at Taiwan for awhile, fly planes and drones over rebel strongholds etc.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

But at that point the nature of the fight would have fundamentally changed from helping to defend the castle to storming the castle. That would be a fight that not even the US military can win. Not on China’s doorstep as that would be little different from trying to launch a land invasion of mainland China.

You seem convinced that the US goal in that situation is retaking Taiwan. What if they look at it, conclude it's impossible, and conduct a long-term attritional campaign against China instead?

Forget Taiwan exists because it's become nothing more than a red herring at this point. The war is between China and the US and the US homeland is outside China's reach. The reverse is very much not true. What is to be done about that? Any way it's sliced, a reasonable person must conclude that there is no way to have a limited conflict with the US. If the US can no longer keep Taiwan out of the PRC's hands, it will expand the scope of the conflict to places the PLA can't reach. Is China ready to deal with a stoppage of all oil from the Middle East? Is it ready for zero trade with Europe? Is it ready for zero shipping outside its immediate environs? Is it ready for a years-long bombing campaign against sensitive and critical industrial targets?

Until it's ready to deal with the US throughout the world, any war should be forestalled.

It’s a smaller scale victory than what might be achieved if they fight was later, but it would be enough for China to finally be able to remove the dagger America has pressed against China’s belly.

So long as the Taiwan situation remains unresolved, China is acutely vulnerable as it cannot set one foot wrong. One major mistake or natural calamity and you are at risk of America deciding to come in and kick you while you are down by making Taiwan declare independence.

It's not a smaller scale victory, it's a slow road to ruin. And the US doesn't have any dagger pressed against China's belly; the only dagger pressed against China's belly is the one it holds itself - it's called 1.4%. I needn't remind you that it's a position you vehemently support and I wonder if recent events have caused you to reassess it.

The question of "what happens the day after" applies to Taiwan itself. Does Taiwan gain some magical immunity if it even goes so far as declaring independence? Is that game, set, and match? Does China reach across the table and shake its hand? Of course not. China always defines the scope, aims, and objectives of any cross-Strait military operation. If Taiwan can't be invaded, it's blockaded. If it can't be blockaded, it's bombed to rubble. If it can't be bombed to rubble, it's struck with nuclear weapons. China is always in the driver's seat no matter what Taiwan does and it should never give that away.

The war happens on China's timetable, no one else's.

 

[9dashline]

Interesting to see how PLA react to Pelosi trip which will happen. I don't see US backing down now because it will bad on the PR spectrum for them if they do.
I made a series of response from PLA which will be in the form a snap drill for their forces. The higher the grade number, the more serious it is.

Grade 1: No response.

Grade 2: PLAAF flyby in south Taiwan ADIZ. Possible snap drill by PLAN in ECS or SCS.

Grade 3: PLAAF flyby in south Taiwan ADIZ with 200+ aircrafts all together in a span of days. Possible snap drill by PLAN in ECS and SCS

Grade 4: PLAAF crossing the median line coupled with unknown number of ADIZ intrusions from South or encirclement around Taiwan.

Grade 5: Snap drill in Taiwan strait itself for all PLA branches with PLARF launching ballistic missiles. If ballistic launches are directly over Taiwan, it might generate a 4th Taiwan strait crisis.

Grade 6: Extreme reaction which combines Grade 3-5 with possible ballistic flight over Taiwan.

Grade 7: PLAAF launches intercept drills around ECS and North of Taiwan ADIZ at the exact moment Pelosi flight is heading towards Taiwan. Her flight path will originate from Japan and head towards north of Taiwan. I think this one is the most dangerous and might actually spark an incident.

Grab your popcorn, it's going to be interesting for the next couple of weeks.

You seem convinced that the US goal in that situation is retaking Taiwan. What if they look at it, conclude it's impossible, and conduct a long-term attritional campaign against China instead?

Forget Taiwan exists because it's become nothing more than a red herring at this point. The war is between China and the US and the US homeland is outside China's reach. The reverse is very much not true. What is to be done about that? Any way it's sliced, a reasonable person must conclude that there is no way to have a limited conflict with the US. If the US can no longer keep Taiwan out of the PRC's hands, it will expand the scope of the conflict to places the PLA can't reach. Is China ready to deal with a stoppage of all oil from the Middle East? Is it ready for zero trade with Europe? Is it ready for zero shipping outside its immediate environs? Is it ready for a years-long bombing campaign against sensitive and critical industrial targets?

Until it's ready to deal with the US throughout the world, any war should be forestalled.

It's not a smaller scale victory, it's a slow road to ruin. And the US doesn't have any dagger pressed against China's belly; the only dagger pressed against China's belly is the one it holds itself - it's called 1.4%. I needn't remind you that it's a position you vehemently support and I wonder if recent events have caused you to reassess it.

The question of "what happens the day after" applies to Taiwan itself. Does Taiwan gain some magical immunity if it even goes so far as declaring independence? Is that game, set, and match? Does China reach across the table and shake its hand? Of course not. China always defines the scope, aims, and objectives of any cross-Strait military operation. If Taiwan can't be invaded, it's blockaded. If it can't be blockaded, it's bombed to rubble. If it can't be bombed to rubble, it's struck with nuclear weapons. China is always in the driver's seat no matter what Taiwan does and it should never give that away.

The war happens on China's timetable, no one else's.

Conclusion is wrong

As Ive said, America has decided to do full scale war against China in August 2022....

This is the timetable , August 2022

Even if China were to back down, total war is still coming.... Only Saddam was naive enough to destroy his own missiles and hoping Bush was going to withdraw instead of go ahead with the attack....

America is out of time, its going all in now... China will be forced to fight today, not a decade from today

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

America is out of time, its going all in now... China will be forced to fight today, not a decade from today

No. China's EROEI isn't bad enough yet.

China has all the time in the world and nothing America thinks, says, or does can change that.

 

[plawolf]

You seem convinced that the US goal in that situation is retaking Taiwan. What if they look at it, conclude it's impossible, and conduct a long-term attritional campaign against China instead?

Because that would be the most stupid thing it can do.

America didn’t enter WWII with the strongest military but ended it with it because of its industrial might. Today it’s China who has that industrial might. America’s military power is inherited.

It’s already struggling to replenish weapons being sent into Ukraine, you think they can out produce China once China moves to war economic mode?

With Russian natural resources and Chinese manufacturing capabilities, it’s America that’s on the slow road to ruin if it tries such a silly strategy

Forget Taiwan exists because it's become nothing more than a red herring at this point. The war is between China and the US and the US homeland is outside China's reach. The reverse is very much not true. What is to be done about that? Any way it's sliced, a reasonable person must conclude that there is no way to have a limited conflict with the US. If the US can no longer keep Taiwan out of the PRC's hands, it will expand the scope of the conflict to places the PLA can't reach. Is China ready to deal with a stoppage of all oil from the Middle East? Is it ready for zero trade with Europe? Is it ready for zero shipping outside its immediate environs? Is it ready for a years-long bombing campaign against sensitive and critical industrial targets?

Is America and Europe ready for no more manufactured goods? America can conventional launch attacks against China, but the scope and scale of such attacks are going to be significantly limited. Far more so with Taiwan in Chinese hands acting as the shield to China’s industrial heartland instead of the dagger pointed to it before.

Together, Russia and China holds the world island and the bulk of the world’s natural resources. A long attritional campaign favours China far more than America.

Until it's ready to deal with the US throughout the world, any war should be forestalled.

Well in that case you better just forever live under America’s boot because China will never aim for such ridiculous global homogeny.

It's not a smaller scale victory, it's a slow road to ruin. And the US doesn't have any dagger pressed against China's belly; the only dagger pressed against China's belly is the one it holds itself - it's called 1.4%. I needn't remind you that it's a position you vehemently support and I wonder if recent events have caused you to reassess it.

Oh not that stupid nonsense again. If you believe that 1.4% figure I got a bridge in Africa to sell you.

If China could have achieved such military modernisation with just 1.4%, it doesn’t need to spend 2% to build a more powerful military than America.

The reality is China is going as fast as it can in pretty much all areas. It has been since Trump. While money is not an issue it’s not reason to be wasteful and stupid with your accounting disclosures.

The question of "what happens the day after" applies to Taiwan itself. Does Taiwan gain some magical immunity if it even goes so far as declaring independence? Is that game, set, and match? Does China reach across the table and shake its hand? Of course not. China always defines the scope, aims, and objectives of any cross-Strait military operation. If Taiwan can't be invaded, it's blockaded. If it can't be blockaded, it's bombed to rubble. If it can't be bombed to rubble, it's struck with nuclear weapons. China is always in the driver's seat no matter what Taiwan does and it should never give that away.

The war happens on China's timetable, no one else's.

So you want to nuke Taiwan later rather than take it easily when given an unexpected chance to do so?

 

[solarz]

Is China ready to deal with a stoppage of all oil from the Middle East? Is it ready for zero trade with Europe? Is it ready for zero shipping outside its immediate environs?

Yes, yes, and yes. The better question is, is the US and Europe ready for an immediate and complete collapse of their economy?

Is it ready for a years-long bombing campaign against sensitive and critical industrial targets?

What bombing campaign? The US may be able to keep naval superiority in locations farther away from China, but the moment they threaten Chinese sovereign territory, the nukes *will* come out, NFU or no NFU.

For precisely this reason, China and the US will not get into a direct conflict.

 

[Biscuits]

You seem convinced that the US goal in that situation is retaking Taiwan. What if they look at it, conclude it's impossible, and conduct a long-term attritional campaign against China instead?

Forget Taiwan exists because it's become nothing more than a red herring at this point. The war is between China and the US and the US homeland is outside China's reach. The reverse is very much not true. What is to be done about that? Any way it's sliced, a reasonable person must conclude that there is no way to have a limited conflict with the US. If the US can no longer keep Taiwan out of the PRC's hands, it will expand the scope of the conflict to places the PLA can't reach. Is China ready to deal with a stoppage of all oil from the Middle East? Is it ready for zero trade with Europe? Is it ready for zero shipping outside its immediate environs? Is it ready for a years-long bombing campaign against sensitive and critical industrial targets?

Until it's ready to deal with the US throughout the world, any war should be forestalled.

It's not a smaller scale victory, it's a slow road to ruin. And the US doesn't have any dagger pressed against China's belly; the only dagger pressed against China's belly is the one it holds itself - it's called 1.4%. I needn't remind you that it's a position you vehemently support and I wonder if recent events have caused you to reassess it.

The question of "what happens the day after" applies to Taiwan itself. Does Taiwan gain some magical immunity if it even goes so far as declaring independence? Is that game, set, and match? Does China reach across the table and shake its hand? Of course not. China always defines the scope, aims, and objectives of any cross-Strait military operation. If China can't be invaded, it's blockaded. If it can't be blockaded, it's bombed to rubble. If it can't be bombed to rubble, it's struck with nuclear weapons. China is always in the driver's seat no matter what Taiwan does and it should never give that away.

The war happens on China's timetable, no one else's.

There is no slow attrition strategy possible against a larger country with way bigger industry and economy. Its like thinking Imperial Japan could have just slowly attrited USA down in ww2. Even the Japanese admirals were not that insane.

US stopping all oil from the middle East? So in other words, US will open a new front in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan? Who combined have armies totaling more than a million men?

Zero trade with Europe? So America will also feed, give medicine and clothe the Europeans when winter comes? With goods from where?

Bombing campaign using what? The only thing that has a high chance of getting a few hits in without the pilot kamikazing is a B2 with Jassm. Where will the semiconductors and money to build that many Jassm come from? How many B2s are there in total and how fast can US industry replace them as they're getting hunted down?

If US doesn't win the decisive war and destroy the Navy quickly so they can land on Taiwan, China will switch to war time industry and rapidly build out new platforms. The US economy is far more crippled without access to China than vice versa, especially since any industry China lost because of reduced trade with Europe can be retooled to make bombers, bombs and missiles.

Then, its just a matter of island hopping using China's industrial might. If US makes the fight global, they paint a target on every base they have.

If they're using Korea to launch attacks, China can invade it and hand the keys over to Kim.

If after that they're using Japan to launch attacks, China can spend awhile printing out missiles, reduce all Japanese infrastructure to rubble, then jointly invade with Russia.

If after that they're using Pacific Islands to launch attacks, China will redirect every shipyard to the military, like America did in ww2, train another million troops and then wrest them island by island.

This will continue until the mainland US is reached, and a peace agreement signed to prevent all out nuclear war.

Edit: in fact, just consider the question of semiconductors needed for all forms of military tech alone. China controls the raw material supply almost completely, semiconductors themselves are split roughly evenly between Mainland China, Taiwan China and South Korea. When war breaks out, Taiwan will be ordered to cease all deliveries to America, and South Korea, if they join the war will get completely flattened. Even if Kim throws and China doesn't invade in force, SK will be bombed out and in no position to make semiconductors. That means effectively, as war starts China will be the only country in the world even capable of making semiconductors on a large scale, and therefore the only one that can replenish modern goods and advanced weapons in the long run.

 

[Rettam Stacf]

Chinese drone detected near Taiwan-held island close to China: Army​

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A Chinese drone was detected on two occasions flying close to an island held by the Republic of China (Taiwan's offical name) near the Chinese coast earlier Thursday, before being warned away by soldiers using flares, Taiwan's military said Thursday.

In a press statement, the nation's Army said it believed the drone was being used by the Chinese side to conduct surveillance of ROC troops stationed on Dongyin (東引) Island, and/or test the Taiwan military's response to such incursions.

Is PLA feigning the move, with the real target being Penghu Islands ?

Dongyin Island is part of the Matsu group of islands. They have low military value to China because of their proximity to China and distance from Taiwan Island. Hence they are easy to take but, when taken, post little threat to Taiwan.

 

[tphuang]

You are mistaken if you think formal Declaration of Independence is China’s one and only red line when it comes to Taiwan. That is the most fundamental of red lines that cannot be crossed without war, but there are many other red lines that can trigger a conflict if crossed.

China is not the one going out of its way looking for trouble. It has said it won’t just sit back and allow Pelosi’s visit and it seems you expect China to just back down rather than stand their ground when push comes to shove.

because China can make its point without getting into a war.

btw, if you are accusing me of not wanting there to be a war. Then I will gladly tell you I'm guilty as charged.

China doesn’t want to go provoke a conflict now, but nor are they afraid of one. That’s the bit Americans never seem to get about China or even the rest of the world even when it has been so freshly reminded in Ukraine. These are not wars of choice for the likes of Russia and China. That means you don’t get to chose to only fight when the odds are overwhelmingly in your favour.

It’s also funny you seem to believe that silly CIA fact book nonsense about China only having 300 nukes, or worse yet, as if that would matter even if true. You think America is going to just hold back after seeing 2-300 of its top cities erased off the map and let Russia become the next superpower by default? It doesn’t matter if China has 100 or 100,000 nukes, any nuclear exchange between China and America will result in global MAD unless you got a time stone to find the one in millions of scenarios where that magically doesn’t happen once the first mushroom cloud goes up.

I don't pretend to know how many nukes they have, but I know from pictures I've seen on this forum that they are building a whole lot of new silos and they are not complete yet. I wouldn't be getting into any war until those silos are complete and all the 094s to be equipped with JL-2A.

China might be hard pressed to go toe to toe against USN carriers out in the deep pacific just now, but Taiwan isn’t in the deep pacific and nor is the Reagan.

Had the US played it smart and sent her deep into the pacific as an ace in the hole and started to redeploy other carriers to the region it might have given Beijing reason to moderate its response. But sticking the Reagan in China’s face like it’s 1996 again is just so moronic China will have to be equally blinkered to not seriously consider taking the Americans up on the giant strategic gift this foolish posturing presents China.

Well, I think USN is having pause about sending it too close to China. We will see, but over the next couple of years, I think USN would get more and more cautious about sending a carrier group too close to China in period of heightened tension.

I think US military knows the danger of sending a CSG that close to China a lot more than Pelosi does. As such, I think in the next few years, we will see US military push back really hard on politicians doing stupid things.

As for the no fly zone, well firstly whoever said anything about Guam?

you said extend NFZ to second island chain.

Secondly, you seem to be completely ignoring the core purpose of such a no fly zone and instead only think about meaningless salami slicing at the edges.

The point of the no fly zone is to give the PLA as much advantage as possible while depriving the US of options.

A no fly zone means no civilian air traffic, massively easing targeting. Basically anything that flies or sails which does not squawk PLA IFF is a valid target. No need to mess around.

The US can skirt the edges as much as they like to claim Twitter likes and Reddit gold, but push deeper in to have any actual impact on the Taiwan campaign and you are J20 and DF26 bait. No arms shipments or flying AWACS and drones at edge of international airspace providing passive sensor support.

With the drones they have, targeting US CSG with 2nd island chain is very easy.

Enforcing NFZ would require PLAAF to patrol the air with a lot of aircraft and put them in danger. That's why all the scenarios we've discussed involved them firing missiles ahead of time so that PLAAF would have much fewer opposing aircraft and air defense batteries to worry about.

China easily has more than 1000 nukes, they can casually pull apart hundreds of warheads worth of missiles just for public events, although if all of them are able to hit the whole mainland US, that's difficult to know.

silos and 094s with JL-2As.

However, China probably does want to wait until they can mass produce VLO bombers and fighters, allowing them a near airtight control over west Pacific. But they don't necessarily need it.

If you look at their build up, there is a clear 3 year period where they are going to be bringing into service 7 052Ds, many 054As, CV-18, probably 150 J-20s, Naval Z20s and Y20/Us. And more importantly, a whole lot of missiles. They need to replace all the DF-21s with DF-26s and all the DF-11/15s with DF-16/17s. And even on economy front, another 3 years allow them to be more self sustaining in chips and be even more critical in the global supply chain to other stuff.

3 years bring us to a possible second Trump presidency, when US might change its one-China policy.

If there's a kinetic response I would say hugely depends on how Pelosi arrives. If there's an US military incursion into China, there will be a direct clash. If she comes in a civilian airliner, China would probably only levy sanctions, cordon off most of its territorial air and sea at Taiwan for awhile, fly planes and drones over rebel strongholds etc.

I can tell you now China isn't going to levy sanctions on America. It will probably punish Taiwan, but it's not going to do things to hurt its economy.