Agreed.
So this is how I see Chinese grand strategy these days.
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It's not like China will go on the rampage and start invading the entire world like an evil Darth Vader as some suggest, or start fomenting revolutions. This is counterproductive to China's economic interests.
The Chinese military voluntarily withdrew from Northeast India (1962) when the road to Delhi was open and from North Korea (1955) when it would have been straightforward to annex the land because the North Korean government and military were shattered. More recently, China continued to occupy Vietnamese territory after the 1979 war, but only withdrew after a decade when a China-Vietnamese settlement was finally reached.
And the Communist Party founding myth for the past 70 years is that it created a strong unified China against nasty colonial powers like the British Empire or Japanese Empire who tried to carve up the country. It's a big stretch to go from this founding myth to celebrating conquest like those nasty colonial empires of the past. These days, the driving goal in China is domestic economic development.
Taiwan fits into this because it is the result of an unresolved Chinese Civil War from 1949. Taiwan is also seen as the spoils of war from the 1898 Sino-Japanese war when Imperial Japan fought the Qing Dynasty. Consider the question of whether the Confederate States of America should have been allowed to exist? Or should Cuba be allowed to host foreign military forces or weapons?
And on the military side of things, Taiwan is the lynchpin of any effort to keep the Chinese military contained in the 1st Island Chain. An independent Taiwan would inevitably host foreign military forces and cement this situation. So any attempt at Taiwanese independence or Taiwan hosting foreign military units will likely trigger China to pre-emptively attack.
But China can live with the Taiwan status quo, like it has for the past 70 years.
There's still at least another 15 years of domestic development and relatively fast growth in China.
In this time, the economic, technological and military balances will shift sharply towards China over this time.
At the same time, China will be a very different place as the generation shaped by the cultural revolution dies out. They will be replaced by a softer generation who grew up after the 1980s.
We can expect to see these trends continue in the following 15 years, with China growing stronger and a softer generation coming of age. But Taiwan will still remain an issue, as it was for the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Qing Imperial Dynasty before it.
So at some point in the future, I expect a political deal to be reached between Taiwan and China.
This is how I see a Chinese Grand Strategy playing out over the next 20 years.
In the next 15 years and beyond, Taiwan is a very useful instrument for China to constrain the United States. In the near term, they can use Taiwan to constrain American actions elsewhere. For example, if it looks like the U.S. is really going pick a fight in Ukraine, the Chinese can kick start a campaign to invade Taiwan. They can do military exercises and gather their troops off the coast. In the longer term, Taiwan can be used to keep the U.S. in a military race, bankrupting the U.S.
In ten years, the Chinese starts to pump out carriers two at a time in two shipyards. If Taiwan falls and the Japanese change their security alliance to either neutral or alliance with China, the U.S. might just decide to rein in our MIC and focus on more productive use of tax money like infrastructure or R & D. However, if China still had not taken Taiwan, to prevent the fall of Japan and South Korea to the Chinese camp, the U.S. must continue the arms race which we are destined to lose. the MIC will have a much easier job convincing the politicians to continue to fund the arms industry.
In addition, some Taiwan industries, being on the American camp, still has an unfettered access to the American market, which would not have been the case if China takes back Taiwan.
I think the value of Taiwan as a constraining force on America is way more valuable to China than as a military port for China. If they take Taiwan, It extends their reach by a few hundred Km, plus their subs can dive immediately below the thermal layer. I would trade that against the ability to constrain the U.S. any day.
