Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis

[xiabonan]

What use is there if the USS Reagan or other aircraft carriers will only come to Taiwan strait in the future? Likely after the current drills ended? What signal does that send to Taiwan, and to US allies and enemies around the world? Last time in 1996 the US sent two carrier battles groups and 40+ ships into Taiwan strait DURING the drills. Not AFTER.

 

[horse]

Let me just say that I came from a family that has served in the military since WWII against the Imperial Japan. On my paternal side my grandfather fought against the Imperial Japanese as a guerilla fighter then eventually married my grandmother to protect her dignity after being raped by the Japanese officer producing a child that became my uncle (half-Japanese) my father wanted to emulate his father's legacy of serving the (adopted) nation so he joined the military was sent to the southern (Southern Cotabato/Maguindanao) part of the country to help pacify the burgeoning Islamic, communist separatists/rebels.

I lost many God fathers from being ambushed, attended funerals what felt like every week or something (my memory maybe shaky since I was only a little kid) when my Dad was away on missions, my mom would sleep beside with an Armalite rifle (I was trained how to handle a rifle at a young age since I was the "man" of the house and only son of the family at that time) for protection just in case the rebels manage to penetrate the base camp. My father was trained in jungle warfare, served multiple tours, and we were on constant move that eventually caused enough strain to his marriage which eventually crumbled with my mother. My father's family all came from Guangdong region of China, settled in the Philippines only to once again faced the savagery of the Japanese brutality..so I think I have some ideas on what conflict is like on a smaller scale and they're not pretty or movie like.

One mishap from the interception attempt could have ignited a war that was not on the cards. That could have happened if the leaders in China was under democratic regime, and the need to show force would be extremely high because you want to avoid being accused of weak etc...what a stupid thing to say and assume about warfare.

So if I get heated it's partly genetics and experience accumulated from my past. That's all am going to say about my background.

Solid post man!

Respect.

Now if US sent 4+ CVs then things get very serious and chances of war become highly likely. China don't have enough ships to crowd them out, but they also ain't gonna tolerate that in the straits. So it's gonna be very tempting to pull the trigger with more than 4 fat ducks in the rifle sight.

It's a death trap.

Warfare is kind of like the same throughout the ages. Find the enemy, kill the enemy.

In this case, the Americans are telling the world, they are going to walk straight into the death trap, to demonstrate something or something.

If an American carrier is in the Taiwan straight, China cannot even use it carrier killer missiles. They could, but that boat already is in artillery range. Maybe they can find some old Silkworms if they still got some in inventory. Maybe they could use cruise missile or any other anti-ship missile.

How is going into a death trap, a military provocation?!

The Americans seem to have lost their shit somewhere along the way.

 

[Blitzo]

Now that we're somewhat after the actual event, I think it's a good time for a post-action reflection of the visit. I personally think the trajectory of events and escalation (and lack thereof), was all relatively predictable.

IMO there were a few fundamental premises that people disagree on which makes China's seeming relative "inaction" seem confusing and/or frustrating.

My belief (since the beginning of this episode, and IMO which has been subsequently borne out with events), is that the PRC and PLA were never willing to use lethal force to interdict or intercept Pelosi's plane.
To elaborate -- the use of lethal force would have entailed and required a willingness to escalate and respond to US counters, with the understanding that there is a likely highway to direct military confrontation and war.
In short, the Chinese government did not clear the PLA to use lethal force in anger, because the Chinese government did not want to go to war over this issue at this time.
Once this is established, all of the complaints and frustrations become easily explained, as follows.

- If the PLA were not cleared to use lethal force in anger against Pelosi's plane, then aiming to intercept it in close quarters would only end up being perceived as an honour guard and end up giving Pelosi's side more ammunition as having "defied" the PLA and the PRC.

- For those people who are suggesting that if the PRC did not plan on stopping Pelosi, then they shouldn't have used the language that they did, let's hypothetically pretend that China did not use strong language to warn against Pelosi's visit. The issue still arises that the PLA still would not have been cleared to use lethal force to interdict the plane. Putting it another way, regardless of how much the PRC vocalized its warnings, the plane would have landed anyway. The difference is that if China didn't express harsh warnings, it would have signaled publicly that the Chinese government was consenting to this sort of action, and would almost certainly result in emboldening of the US and other parties to continue these actions in the future. If China didn't express harsh warnings, it would also result in a lack of clear causative linking between China's warnings and the subsequent military signaling and displays that everyone has to accept that China had clearly stated as something that they would not tolerate without a response.

- For those concerned that this will embolden other individuals and parties in future to carry out similar actions -- the answer is "yes, get used to it". In short, since 2016 the pattern of behaviour has been one where China's stance on Taiwan will be provoked more and more often and more frequently and salami sliced closer and closer to China's red line. The only true way of stopping this sort of salami slicing is the willingness to use lethal force in anger -- thus by extension, the only true way of stopping this sort of salami slicing is the willingness to go to war.

So, based on the above, there are really just two important questions that every PLA watcher needs to ask themselves:
1. Would China prefer to go to war at the present moment in time, or prefer to delay it in future?
-This specifically is a question one asks to ascertain how the evolving trajectory of balance of military and geopolitical power may change with time. Naturally, if one believes that a balance of power will be better in 5, 10 or 15 years into the future, then it would be desirable to delay conflict and avoid being provoked into suboptimal timing of military action. But, China of course still has a red line and does not have infinite patience, thus leading to the second question...
2. What exactly is China's red line that, if crossed, will cause China to be willing to go to war regardless of timing?
-This means, what is an action, change, or provocation occurs that would cause China to be willing to go to war even if it means giving up on a future period of time where it can go to war and achieve better outcomes and/or with lesser losses?

I believe if you have an answer to both of those two questions, then you are basically able to track and characterize the major decisions and planning that China and the PLA would be willing to do, to a certain level of generalizable detail.


A few days after the event, my view has not changed -- IMO, China and the PLA are willing to take all actions short of the use of lethal force (aka short of a willingness to go to war) to respond and react to this.
And the current exercises I think are a reasonable initial course of "all actions short of the use of lethal force" that is the least bad option at their disposal.

The US is likely to escalate signaling as well (for obvious reasons), and the PLA will do so in return. Whether it leads to a persistent state of long term elevated tensions with one side eventually getting bored and choosing not to escalate their signaling further, or whether it leads to continued escalating signaling resulting in armed conflict (likely due to miscalculation) -- who's to say.


Finally, speaking as a normal member (and not as a moderator), I have to observe that some of the reactions throughout this episode was somewhat disappointing and below the standards of PLA watching and geopolitical commentary on this forum.
I personally believe that striving to hold cold, clinical views with minimal emotion and temperament, is vital during tense moments of great potential danger and consequence, and I think that is a challenge every person interested in military matters and geopolitics, have to square with themselves.

 

[Sardaukar20]

The current development reminds me a lot about the Beiping Model and the Tianjin model during 解放战争 (I dislike the term Chinese Civil War for various reasons). Now I actually think armed reunification is actually not that necessary and we may actually see peaceful reunification in the next 5 - 10 years, in line with what Xi and many CPC higher-ups have been suggesting in the past many years. It seems like this has always been the plan, things have just become obvious to us lay-folks after the Pelosi event - I was a firm believer of AR prior to this, but now I think a peaceful reunification is a much more powerful game plan with profound impacts to the balance of power in West Pacific.

Now how would peaceful reunification be achieved? By combining both Beiping and Tianjin model: immense military, economic, and psychological pressure, Taiwan may actually cave in and give up in a few years when its people can no loner bear the suffering. If the type of exercise we are witnessing these couple of days from the PLA becomes routine, and happens like 2 - 3 times a year for the next couple of years, how would that impact Taiwan's economy? If Taiwan's infrastructures are constantly under cyber-attack (apparently Taiwan's police system has been attacked and it is not currently functional), normal people will feel that (I really felt it when Rogers went down for a full day a little bit ago in Canada). What if every couple of weeks a few PLA drones fly over Taiwan in the middle of the night over populated cities and make huge noises, do they shoot them down or not? What if every couple of months PLA started mass assembling and pretend to launch a AR which forces all Taiwanese people to have to go hide in shelters? There are literally so many military options to make everyone in Taiwan suffer more and more each day, and it can just get worse by each day.

And we are not even counting the economic front. Decades of 惠台 (benefit-Taiwan) policies from CPC is such a screwed-up and brilliant move, regardless of their original intensions, the fact of the matter is that these policies made so much of Taiwan's economy to be dependent on the mainland. If you simply take these policies away, Taiwan would suffer, and we are not even talking about actual sanctions. I'm not going to list all the possibilities but you can imagine (TSMC and the semi-conductor industry alone cannot feed all Taiwanese).

In an extreme scenario, maybe in 5 years, your normal Taiwanese can experience what it is like right to live in Russia in 1991. After all, no business and capital would want to stay on a tiny island that is at risk of suffering armed conflict and they would gradually pull out, all the rich Taiwanese as well - which is not the majority of the Taiwanese. What would be left?

Look at Sri Lanka, I'm pretty sure it was one of the richest nations in South Asia by per capital GDP a few years ago, but Covid and the war in Ukraine has completely changed the fate of this nation. We don't know how much suffering CPC can bring to Taiwan through military and economic pressure, but I don't think it can be taken lightly. By then, if Taiwan just agrees to reunify with China, then this could all disappear, do you think the Taiwanese people would want that? No one can be 100% sure, a lot of things can change really quickly in the span of a few years (e.g., think about PLAN in 2011 vs 2021, or US - China relationships 2017 vs 2022) but let's just say that even if by then Taiwan still does not want to peacefully reunify with the mainland, these kind of things can make AR so much more easier than today.

I think the US has really left itself in a very awkward position. With Pelosi's visit there is literally not much else they could do to about the Taiwan card other than declaring Taiwan's independence formally or station troops directly on Taiwan. I don't think they want to do those things. But Pelosi's visit enables CPC to do all of the things I mentioned above, and the US can't really do much about it unless they directly intervene militarily. The US military may intervene during a scenario of AR, but the likelihood of them intervening militarily when the CPC and PLA are doing the things I mentioned above is really slim. I don't think the US has any more cards to play after this, from now on, it is the CPC that will be making future moves and the US can only follow when it comes to Taiwan.

I kind of feel like this is CPC's plan for a while now, contingencies have been set up to initiate the a certain process on Taiwan, and they're just waiting for US to make its move - by crossing the "red line" for domestic political purposes, China will exploit this opportunity and kickstart the planned contingency. WJP's recent article suggested this as well.

So yeah, that's basically some of the things I thought about in the past 2 days. I guess that is my prediction lol - peaceful reunification is possible within the next 5 - 10 years, but by then yall probably would no longer care about Taiwan as it is no longer that relevant

Do you agree? Disagree? Any thoughts?

I would add that with the way things are going in the USA, peaceful reunification can happen sooner than later. It might not take all the way to 10 years.

I think China should now go after the real source of power for the DPP: the USA. After all, it is the USA who broke it's commitments to the One China policy. China will not go to war with the USA. But China now has the liberty to use any non-kinetic means to hurt the US. That means hurting the US where it truly hurts: the economy.

The US economy is in deep trouble. It is in a technical recession, plus it is facing soaring inflation. The US is in a very precarious position. It has exhausted all practical options to stimulate it's economy. It's economy is too leveraged to do anymore QE without worsening the inflation. It is running out of places to dump it's US bonds to. Hence it's getting more difficult to shore up the value of the USD. It's largest trading partner bloc, the EU is going down the drain. Japan is too over-leveraged to help out. India is useless. Practically no one else but China is rich enough to help the US in appreciable magnitude. But why should China help this time?

China, I hope should have finally decided to turn up the heat on the US economy. At this stage of the trade war, China should attack the USD itself. First, curb buying anymore USD-denominated bonds. Second, accelerate the dropping of USD in international settlements. Russia, and Iran would be more than happy to help.

China should also start to directly f*** with the US economy. No need to curb exports to the US. Continue making money from them, but fleece them more. I'm thinking about starting to force US importers to pay for Chinese exports in Yuan. Maybe China could charge a special tax on exports going to countries that don't respect the One China policy. For example, extra 30% tax for exports going to the USA settled in the USD. But if that export is settled in Yuan, then the tax can be waived. Let the US importers decide. Import in USD and pay more, thus driving up the inflation even more. Or import in Yuan and pay normal rates, but weaken the USD. Can the US counter this? Not really, they've been trying it since Trump was in power. Anything more drastic at this point, like banning China from SWIFT could bomb the US economy.

When the US economy is on its knees, then Taiwan is in deep trouble. The US will struggle to pay for it's overseas military operations. There will be real questions as to whether the US can truly commit to Taiwan's defense. The Taiwanese economy will get even more dependent on China as the US's loses even more buying power. The Taiwanese economy will get even more desperate the more the DPP tries to piss China off. Hence I believe that the Taiwanese would eventually fold. Many Taiwanese may still despise the Mainland, but they are not bloodthirsty fascists like the Ukrainian Nazis. There has been no mass killings between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese for more than 50 years. The Taiwanese populace has not been militarized and radicalized anywhere near to the levels of the Ukrainian Nazis. So they are more likely to choose surrender than starvation and bloodshed. Things can still mend after a peaceful reunification.

 

[meldrion]

The US is likely to escalate signaling as well (for obvious reasons), and the PLA will do so in return. Whether it leads to a persistent state of long term elevated tensions with one side eventually getting bored and choosing not to escalate their signaling further, or whether it leads to continued escalating signaling resulting in armed conflict (likely due to miscalculation) -- who's to say.

Excellent analysis!
I agree with most of your post except the course of escalation here for the following reasons:
1. Escalation from the US has less internal support than that in China, at least based on my observation of the reaction to recent events in both countries.
2. The difference in determination in a chicken game is very important. While both country don’t want a war, China is obviously more invested in “the game” here. I still don’t think that the US would be willing to go to war with China over Taiwan.
3. There is a cap to how much the issue can be escalated from here. If the provocation persists, I don’t think the Taiwan economy could hold much longer due to the counter measures, military or economic, from China.

 

[efficient_kiwi]

In front of reality you can deny all you want, but my point stands
View attachment 94927

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That title is so bad.

The relevant quote from the article: "Not intercepting Pelosi's flight does not mean a failure of the PLA. On the contrary, the Chinese mainland chose to avoid an incident that could trigger a World War III but instead to take Pelosi's Taiwan visit as a chance to push forward the progress of reunification, starting with the island-blockading, combat-rehearsing drills that could become routine, analysts said. "(emphasis mine)

It's not even a direct quote, I have no idea why the title put that phrase in quotation marks.

Anyway, time will tell. I didn't even argue that they won't become routine! I was simply trying to make the point that the exercises currently happening are diplomatically damaging, unlike any Xinjiang exercises that may be happening. Sure, they're same in that the Taiwanese can't do anything about them. Diplomatically, they are not. Not in the eyes of Japan, Korea, and basically anyone who relies on Taiwanese exports and the Taiwan Strait for transit. I'm not really sure what else I can say because I think we're talking past each other.

 

[lcloo]

Factcheck:
There is already a commercial ferry service from Xiamen to Jinmen/Kinmen. So there is no need for a PLA man to go to Jinmen aka Kinmen with a lightly armed boat.

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Also, Mainland China has been supplying fresh water to Taiwan controlled island.

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Which means there are close contacts between Mainland China and Taiwan controlled islands just off the Mainland coasts. And a soft pursuasion is probably that is all needed to get them change side in time of war.

 

[Fedupwithlies]

I would add that with the way things are going in the USA, peaceful reunification can happen sooner than later. It might not take all the way to 10 years.

I think China should now go after the real source of power for the DPP: the USA. After all, it is the USA who broke it's commitments to the One China policy. China will not go to war with the USA. But China now has the liberty to use any non-kinetic means to hurt the US. That means hurting the US where it truly hurts: the economy.

The US economy is in deep trouble. It is in a technical recession, plus it is facing soaring inflation. The US is in a very precarious position. It has exhausted all practical options to stimulate it's economy. It's economy is too leveraged to do anymore QE without worsening the inflation. It is running out of places to dump it's US bonds to. Hence it's getting more difficult to shore up the value of the USD. It's largest trading partner bloc, the EU is going down the drain. Japan is too over-leveraged to help out. India is useless. Practically no one else but China is rich enough to help the US in appreciable magnitude. But why should China help this time?

China, I hope should have finally decided to turn up the heat on the US economy. At this stage of the trade war, China should attack the USD itself. First, curb buying anymore USD-denominated bonds. Second, accelerate the dropping of USD in international settlements. Russia, and Iran would be more than happy to help.

China should also start to directly f*** with the US economy. No need to curb exports to the US. Continue making money from them, but fleece them more. I'm thinking about starting to force US importers to pay for Chinese exports in Yuan. Maybe China could charge a special tax on exports going to countries that don't respect the One China policy. For example, extra 30% tax for exports going to the USA settled in the USD. But if that export is settled in Yuan, then the tax can be waived. Let the US importers decide. Import in USD and pay more, thus driving up the inflation even more. Or import in Yuan and pay normal rates, but weaken the USD. Can the US counter this? Not really, they've been trying it since Trump was in power. Anything more drastic at this point, like banning China from SWIFT could bomb the US economy.

When the US economy is on its knees, then Taiwan is in deep trouble. The US will struggle to pay for it's overseas military operations. There will be real questions as to whether the US can truly commit to Taiwan's defense. The Taiwanese economy will get even more dependent on China as the US's loses even more buying power. The Taiwanese economy will get even more desperate the more the DPP tries to piss China off. Hence I believe that the Taiwanese would eventually fold. Many Taiwanese may still despise the Mainland, but they are not bloodthirsty fascists like the Ukrainian Nazis. There has been no mass killings between Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese for more than 50 years. The Taiwanese populace has not been militarized and radicalized anywhere near to the levels of the Ukrainian Nazis. So they are more likely to choose surrender than starvation and bloodshed. Things can still mend after a peaceful reunification.

I agree. In fact, I thought they should've done this a while ago:

American Economics Thread

Scientists find a high correlation between wumao and high intelligence. I declare myself a wumao. Wumaos are all either muscular chad chick magnets and or/crazy rich CEOs or financial magnates. No wonder the haters are so salty.

www.sinodefenceforum.com

(My post from Feb 23)

and also from last Sept re: the US banking system:

Discussing Biden's Potential China Policy

"Question: What was the rationale of then Imperial Japan for invading China?" Simply speaking, China's economic size didn't defend China from Japanese invasion. The US was militarily blockading Japan. China has no such ability to blockade any country. Having the biggest economy or being no.1 in...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

I mean, we could all see this coming a mile away.

 

[efficient_kiwi]

1. Would China prefer to go to war at the present moment in time, or prefer to delay it in future?
-This specifically is a question one asks to ascertain how the evolving trajectory of balance of military and geopolitical power may change with time. Naturally, if one believes that a balance of power will be better in 5, 10 or 15 years into the future, then it would be desirable to delay conflict and avoid being provoked into suboptimal timing of military action. But, China of course still has a red line and does not have infinite patience, thus leading to the second question...
2. What exactly is China's red line that, if crossed, will cause China to be willing to go to war regardless of timing?
-This means, what is an action, change, or provocation occurs that would cause China to be willing to go to war even if it means giving up on a future period of time where it can go to war and achieve better outcomes and/or with lesser losses?

I believe if you have an answer to both of those two questions, then you are basically able to track and characterize the major decisions and planning that China and the PLA would be willing to do, to a certain level of generalizable detail.

Great analysis, fully agree on your points that the PRC doesn't think Pelosi is worth going to war over.

Re: first question, the biggest factor in my opinion is the trajectory the Chinese thinks the US will take. Currently the US is at one of its lowest points internally since Vietnam; whether it will continue to decline or rebound is, IMO, still too early to tell. A common enemy(China) could very well push both parties towards moderation, and temporary alleviate internal tension. Or, the Trumpists could prove to be the final straw that destroys the American empire. However, one thing I'd like to mention(and I've seen in many posts recently) are the recession and inflation issues. Inflation is slowing down(see gas prices) and many people I read feel that the recession won't be very bad at all. Not all recessions are 2009-level, and most are ultimately short-term downswings. The global implications, intuitively to me, means that there wouldn't be much of an relative advantage gained by China, though tbh I haven't looked into Chinese economy risk exposed to global conditions.

Militarily, USN procurement issues are well-known by now, and I'm sure many other people on this forum are more qualified to discuss this issue. However, simply by reading through this forum, I feel that the absolute apex of Chinese power vis-à-vis US & friends in a Taiwan contingency is coming up sooner rather than later. Perhaps sometime before 2035. I think I will read a bit more deeply into this subject.

Re: second question, the eradication of Chinese characteristics from Taiwan's goverment. Amending the constitution, for one. Anything short of that... no, I don't see it. Not even a Biden visit or troops on the island could do it, I think. If the Chinese already plan to fight the US over Taiwan, these actions are irrelevant.

 

[AndrewS]

- For those concerned that this will embolden other individuals and parties in future to carry out similar actions -- the answer is "yes, get used to it". In short, since 2016 the pattern of behaviour has been one where China's stance on Taiwan will be provoked more and more often and more frequently and salami sliced closer and closer to China's red line. The only true way of stopping this sort of salami slicing is the willingness to use lethal force in anger -- thus by extension, the only true way of stopping this sort of salami slicing is the willingness to go to war.

Alternatively, China can keep running the same playbook each time. Pelosi's visit didn't actually change the situation, but now the status quo is China conducting a soft blockade of Taiwan for 4 days, declaring Taiwan's internal waters and airspace off limits, etc etc

Next time, a blockade would last longer or more of Taiwan's territory declared off limits for example.

So more visits to Taiwan = greater and greater levels of pain for Taiwan to no practical benefit.

Taiwan would have to be stupid to welcome more visits like Pelosi.

The end result is that China has stopped external salami slicing, because China can retaliate with an even greater level of salami slicing in China's favour