Lessons for China to learn from Ukraine conflict for Taiwan scenario

Michaelsinodef said:

Current military spending for China is about 5% of government budget (1.4ish% of gdp i believe).

Sipri i think it was, estimated that an additional 33% is not counted within the military budget, but infl fact should, which brings it up to around ~7%.

US is about 10% of government budget, but I think there might be about another 20% not counted in budget, resulting in about 12% (from some various estimates, I think even sipri?)

Now then, does China get about twice the value in what it spends compared to the US? Yes, I think so.

As for upping military spending, US can very much be considered to be a heavy spending (~3.4% of gdp i think it was), and the more money China can not spend on the military, the bigger chances are they can use more money to grow their economy, which results in a bigger military budget!

I think China's military spending might really be ok/enough, its very much a very hard balancing act, not to mention I very much think that China spends more than their official budget (around 7ish % of government spending).

Also, with ships for the PLAN, the PLA can't train and recruit enough people, so it's actually more like the ships waiting for people, and not people waiting for ships.

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In real terms, no one is spending as much as China on military. Yes America's budget is higher on non-PPP terms, but it includes a lot of additional expenses that China doesn't need to pay for. They spend $50 billion a year just on healthcare for the military. Then there's the hundreds of bases around the world that cost $150 billion a year, right now its probably more with the 100,000+ soldiers currently deployed in Europe. In a war they may be useful but in peacetime they're costing billions that could be spent on new equipment.

America's MIC is also very bloated post 9/11 with contractors earning billions to do what was previously done on government salaries. It's common practice for officers to "retire" and then be reemployed as contractors.

All of this is in addition to the PPP differences, it costs less for a Chinese engineer than it does for an American.

So it's no surprise that while China is churning out modern day platforms on production lines while Americans are making do with their ancient cold war systems. Production of anything modern is severely backlogged (e.g. F-35).

W20 said:

The purpose of the "Ukrainian Gambit" was (A) to destabilize Russia, provoke a regime change in Moscow, return to the 'good old days' of the drunkard, control Russia's enormous resources, and as icing on the cake and jackpot corner China, and the consolation prize was (B) to consolidate the European Vassal Club, an objective that has been fully achieved.

I think the Ukrainian Gambit has clarified the Taiwanese Gambit.

I am not completely sure; but it is what I have seen with the Ukrainian Gambit: sacrifice a few tens of thousands of Ukrainians to hurt Russia but avoid a direct confrontation.

On the other hand, the general situation was "towards 1914": in 1870 the British Empire saw the emergence of a new power, Germany, and around say 1900 a hard core within the ruling class of the British Empire decided to wait for a propitious occasion to destroy Germany, a propitious occasion that arose when (1914) France and Russia agreed to attack Germany in unison.

But now the question is who will play the role of France and Russia ... Japan and Australia (!?)

By all this I mean that I am a little more optimistic now than I was a few years ago. I think that sooner or later we will leave this beautiful asteroid and painful world to its rightful heirs: bacteria. But honestly now I don't see on the near horizon that cataclysm. I don't know. "The future is in constant motion."

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I agree in principle, but the details differ. It isn't just about Russia. Russia is the 2nd test case for their global strategy. It goes India, Russia, then China.

The 1st test case was India - turning it fascist and decimating its economy via electoral manipulation to put Jai Hind Modi in place. It worked spectacularly well, with India having declined drastically since 2014 relative to China and stagnated relative to the US, confirming that if they get a 'democratic' regime change in any major country with large population, they can use hybrid war and fake news to keep them permanently destabilized. But India isn't that hard to crack - they are weaker in terms of hard power, they can be cowed by mere threat of sanctions, they have a 'free' media/political structure (free for paid agents to manipulate). This is just to confirm their regime change strategy actually works and is controllable. They failed their 0th attempt (Arab Spring which caused a huge mess) but the electoral fascism technique worked in India. 100% success for them.

The second test case is Russia. This is a huge escalation, as Russia is far too hard to crack with direct war and its people are extremely skeptical of fake news. Here it is using neighboring countries as provocation in a proxy hot war, trapping them in no win situations, and sanctions. So far, mixed bag for them. Russian reputation is being shouted down in much of the world. Russian phase 1 in Ukraine had mixed results, but phase 2 is succeeding. Sanctions are failing with huge blowback. Russia has totally abandoned European integration. Russian goverment is rock solid in terms of stability and support. I'd put this at 40% success for them currently, but the trend is dropping.

This is leading up to China. China is by far the hardest to crack, even harder than Russia: can never win with direct war, people are not just resistant to fake news but the government can outright silence it, politics and media are far too closed, language barrier, ethnicity barrier, geographic barrier, economy too independent. But if Russia falls China is in trouble as several barriers are broken down. A good strategy is to stop them right here at Russia so they will be focused on Europe forever and never have the time to think about China.

supersnoop said:

This is ridiculous logic. On one hand you understand this is the settlement of the civil war, but then you throw out a strawman invasion of Japan and South Korea. Using this fallacy, if the US is willing to attack mainland China, what’s to stop them from trying to conquer the entire country like Iraq or Afghanistan?


No one thinks Chinese AD is impenetrable. However, you are saying that 16 LRASM from a single B2 can cause irreparable damage. Then you expanded this to continuous long range strikes from any missile in the US arsenal.

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Look through my posts, I didn't say that China would invade Japan/SK, some other poster keen on reviving the greater east asian co-prosperity sphere with China as the lead proposed that. In the case of a resumption of Civil war, If the US decides to get militarily involved what choices do Japan/SK have but to get involved? Especially since there as there are major US prescense in those countries they will go under long range fire regardless of whether Japan and South Korea decides to get involved.

In the case of Iraq, did the War on terror not cause Chinese high command to completely revamp the PLA? That's as much of a reaction as you could get in peace time and there was minimal threat to China from the US at the time. Can you imagine the amount of fear SEA countries will feel against the PLA when they are the biggest boy in the yard going on the aggressive? Getting involved is a natural reaction, to ignore it is to be unnatural, it doesn't matter how much money China pumps into your country, when it comes to territorial integrity there is no negotiation. (As China would say)

supersnoop said:

No one thinks Chinese AD is impenetrable. However, you are saying that 16 LRASM from a single B2 can cause irreparable damage. Then you expanded this to continuous long range strikes from any missile in the US arsenal. Ukraine has nothing in the kind of air defences China has, no AWACS, no navy, no CV with combat air patrols, no long range fighters, etc. etc. This line of argument is equally as bad as nuking Tokyo, which mind you, the OP only suggested as a result of a Japanese unilateral intervention. On top of this, slowing down the Chinese electronics industry is slowing down the Global electronics industry, so the economic damage would be mutual.

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Did I say a single B-2 will cripple China, quote me on it please. I said there was no way for China to stop harassing fire into critical/high end manufacturing WITHOUT dedicating a serious amount of its AD on the coastlines and they they could not retaliate the same way against the US in this scenario. If the aim was reunification, why would China have half its fleet away from Taiwan and the south China sea doing air defense? They will be fighting a pitched battle with multiple US carrier battle groups in such a instance.

AndrewS said:

Anyway, the biggest lesson from Ukraine is not to get into a war in the first place.

It's not like Xi Jinping is really keen to launch an invasion of Taiwan as his relatives living in Taiwan may end up dying.

So the key thing is to manage the adjustment to a Chinese-dominated order in the Western Pacific in the following decades.
(But the idea of conceding anything to China is such a toxic notion in the West, and attracts so much hate, especially if you do this publicly)

If I look at the strategic situation in the Western Pacific, the key is Japan. Without Japan, the US has no way to sustain a credible presence in the Western Pacific. It doesn't really matter which way South Korea or the Philippines goes.

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Thank you, I feel like it's very hard to have a level headed discussion when this topic may be very emotional, so thanks for stating statistics to back up your point, I think we agree in principle that war is bad and the status quo is the way to go.

I'm not quite sure why my statement that CURRENT China would draw in the war and come out behind economically long term is such a controversial statement. The West is not completely incapable without China, if the war gets hot enough they can manufacture everything they need since they already have the institutional knowledge, but they forgo that instead to pursue cheap labor elsewhere in the world, like the world ran just as smoothly before Chinese manufacturing become as massive as it was today, everything was just a bit more expensive.

I'm also not convinced that this current 'recession' faced by Europe is purely caused by the War in Ukraine, after all, it is a global event that even China is not escaping looking at recent GDP figures.

tankphobia said:

I'm not quite sure why my statement that CURRENT China would draw in the war and come out behind economically long term is such a controversial statement.

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It is a controversial statement simply because we simply cannot reliable state such a thing.

Everyone/most people thought Russia would steamroll Ukraine, it didn't happen.

Everyone thought the Russia's economy would get crushed by US/western sanctions, didn't happen either.

As it stands, we actually can't be so sure if China and US gets in a war (that doesn't end nuclear), that China might be the one that gets hurt more economically in the long run in comparison to the US/west.

tankphobia said:

The West is not completely incapable without China, if the war gets hot enough they can manufacture everything they need since they already have the institutional knowledge, but they forgo that instead to pursue cheap labor elsewhere in the world, like the world ran just as smoothly before Chinese manufacturing become as massive as it was today, everything was just a bit more expensive.

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You underestimate how much was abandoned and how much it would cost in money/resources/time to set up things to work without China.

Spoilers: Incredible massive costs that would make the 2020 covid hit or 2008 crisis look like a small stumble in comparison.

Not to mention a lot of actual knowledge has been lost/forgotten, and it's not like China has progressed/pushed things forward since then.

tankphobia said:

I'm also not convinced that this current 'recession' faced by Europe is purely caused by the War in Ukraine, after all, it is a global event that even China is not escaping looking at recent GDP figures.

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China has very much escaped from it, I think it was 4.6% real gdp growth in Q1 in comparison to the US -1.6% and EU 0.3% growth I think it was?

tankphobia said:

Look through my posts, I didn't say that China would invade Japan/SK, some other poster keen on reviving the greater east asian co-prosperity sphere with China as the lead proposed that. In the case of a resumption of Civil war, If the US decides to get militarily involved what choices do Japan/SK have but to get involved? Especially since there as there are major US prescense in those countries they will go under long range fire regardless of whether Japan and South Korea decides to get involved.

In the case of Iraq, did the War on terror not cause Chinese high command to completely revamp the PLA? That's as much of a reaction as you could get in peace time and there was minimal threat to China from the US at the time. Can you imagine the amount of fear SEA countries will feel against the PLA when they are the biggest boy in the yard going on the aggressive? Getting involved is a natural reaction, to ignore it is to be unnatural, it doesn't matter how much money China pumps into your country, when it comes to territorial integrity there is no negotiation. (As China would say)

Did I say a single B-2 will cripple China, quote me on it please. I said there was no way for China to stop harassing fire into critical/high end manufacturing WITHOUT dedicating a serious amount of its AD on the coastlines and they they could not retaliate the same way against the US in this scenario. If the aim was reunification, why would China have half its fleet away from Taiwan and the south China sea doing air defense? They will be fighting a pitched battle with multiple US carrier battle groups in such a instance.


Thank you, I feel like it's very hard to have a level headed discussion when this topic may be very emotional, so thanks for stating statistics to back up your point, I think we agree in principle that war is bad and the status quo is the way to go.

I'm not quite sure why my statement that CURRENT China would draw in the war and come out behind economically long term is such a controversial statement. The West is not completely incapable without China, if the war gets hot enough they can manufacture everything they need since they already have the institutional knowledge, but they forgo that instead to pursue cheap labor elsewhere in the world, like the world ran just as smoothly before Chinese manufacturing become as massive as it was today, everything was just a bit more expensive.

I'm also not convinced that this current 'recession' faced by Europe is purely caused by the War in Ukraine, after all, it is a global event that even China is not escaping looking at recent GDP figures.

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Japan and Korea can still dodge the fight by declaring neutrality and not allowing direct attacks from US bases in their core territories. This would save them from disaster if US started a war unilaterally. You know, act similar to how Belarus has acted in the Ukraine war.

If they make a move, they'll get hit. That's just logical, China cannot tolerate having dangerous neighbors that can attack in the future.

Principally, only the country with territorial ambitions (America) has an interest in starting war. If close members of the American Union State such as Japan and SK are forced to follow, China will be forced to deamericanize them. But if China could follow its ideal path, peace would be maintained because peace in Asia is conductive to everyone's life quality.

The west lost most of its industries not because of the cheap labor myth they use to cope, if it was cheap labor, why doesn't Ukraine, a (in their own words) relative European, relatively white country, with like 1/3 the gdp per capita of China, simply take over all industries? The west lost it because their tech and know how was less efficient and worse across the board, and they also lacked the natural resource wealth that China or Russia have.

Of course they still possess some degree of ability, but what do you think happens if you try to satisfy 2030s demands using 1980s industry? I don't think anyone here claimed that Chinese bloc sanctions would put the west into the stone age, just that their economies would be wrecked by shortages and lack ability to sustain long term war. In order for an embargo to be successful, it does not need to turn US into Mad Max, just a reduction of 30-40% in gdp will absolutely destroyed living standards and ruin chances to recruit and replenish forces.

And China will surely suffer economically, but if the west loses way more, then it is worth it in order to neutralize the US as a threat.

What does blowback in China have to do with the Ukraine war recession not being from Russia? Obviously if the west which is around 25% of the world's economy is hit hard, China would also take some damage. After all, China is currently on decent footing with nearly every Western country except USA and Australia, so trade is flowing freely.

Biscuits said:

China is not in a great hurry to depose the rebel government, since its not like they're actively attacking civilians or causing damage at the moment.

But China may have a more urgent need to use part of Taiwan soil as a bulwark against 3rd party military expansion in Asia.

DF26s, early warning radar, HQ-19s, airbases etc. stationed on the east coast of Taiwan can successfully deter Japanese and American military adventurism. It extends the highest lethality kill zone from the area around the 1st island chain to deep into the 2nd island chain, which would have otherwise been contested waters in the event of a war in Asia.

Together with basing in the SCS, Japan can be completely blockaded from its western side where almost all trade comes from.

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yes Taiwan's topography makes it a better fortress facing east than west actually, with all the mountains being on the east shielding the western basins and plains, and then covered by Fujian further west. the other important aspect is that it being an ideal submarine base out to the pacific.

tankphobia said:

Look through my posts, I didn't say that China would invade Japan/SK, some other poster keen on reviving the greater east asian co-prosperity sphere with China as the lead proposed that. In the case of a resumption of Civil war, If the US decides to get militarily involved what choices do Japan/SK have but to get involved? Especially since there as there are major US prescense in those countries they will go under long range fire regardless of whether Japan and South Korea decides to get involved.

In the case of Iraq, did the War on terror not cause Chinese high command to completely revamp the PLA? That's as much of a reaction as you could get in peace time and there was minimal threat to China from the US at the time. Can you imagine the amount of fear SEA countries will feel against the PLA when they are the biggest boy in the yard going on the aggressive? Getting involved is a natural reaction, to ignore it is to be unnatural, it doesn't matter how much money China pumps into your country, when it comes to territorial integrity there is no negotiation. (As China would say)

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I think you were the first to mention the combined naval forces of Japan/Korea/USA to enforce a blockade. Anyhow, the point is not to nitpick. It’s just that many of your assumptions just don’t seem to be well considered. SK has good reason to not get involved as I repeatedly mentioned, Seoul would become ash. It is in range of the conventional artillery forces of North Korea. You are assuming some kind of first strike by the PLA, but why? Unless the US strikes from those bases, then they could very well be safe. If there is some conflict on the horizon, SK could expel American strike assets to protect themselves.

With regards to the point on Iraq, that’s precisely my point. The USA is just as much as a bully as the PLA. The PLA has attacked one country in SEA, Vietnam. The USA has attacked Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, occupied the Philippines, and outside SEA, fought a war in Korea. This was all in the 20th century alone. Those countries are equally afraid of the USA. All of them would recognize that a Taiwan conflict has the potential to be localized, much in the way the non western world is willing to forgive Russia for the action in Ukraine.

With regards to the B2, actually this was a rehashing of a debate a few months ago, how many munitions does the US need to significantly impact the PLA’s logistics? Why would the PLA dedicate half the invasion fleet to defend against the US? Because any scheme to invade Taiwan that doesn’t count on full US intervention would be half-baked. Yes, mainland China is more in danger than mainland USA, but striking mainland China in that way (non direct military targets) is opening the door to WW3. The debate eventually died in an inevitable nuclear exchange.

I won’t pile onto the economics, but here is an example of what people are talking about those assumptions regarding “institutional knowledge”.


Now I agree that no one should WANT a war. But as people have already pointed out, the danger is less about PRC which has already achieved military supremacy over ROC for the past decade-plus, but what geopolitical calculations America is concocting (a la Ukraine).

Patchwork has good info but his analysis are skewed. He discounts the fact that any issue that plagues the US also plagues China.

US trying to outplay the Chinese on logistics is a losing game, that's why it must play a game that it is better at. no matter how you cut it, there is simply no way to disrupt Chinese logistics short of actions that would prompt a nuclear war. Yes B2 and B21 can theoretically penetrate into Chinese airspace and hit whatever target, but that doesn't mean it'll achieve its desired effect.

What the US must do is manage its expectations, every time it has done that it was successful, every time it got too ambitious it failed. the focus should solely be taking out Chinese amphibious capabilities. who cares how many sorties the PLAAF can fly if they can't land a troop on Taiwan?

at the same time, I am happy this discussion on US-China confrontation comes up, because it also reinforces what I have always said about Penghu. It is a must take for PLA at the onset. If PLA take sit, then it can afford to play a waiting game with the Americans while building up artillery, air defense and air assault capabilities on the islets, to make an eventual invasion easier. Sure Taiwan can purchase HIMARS and hit back, but it would be far less effective because they would not be able to acquire targets as easily as Ukraine/NATO have against Russia.

drowingfish said:

Patchwork has good info but his analysis are skewed. He discounts the fact that any issue that plagues the US also plagues China.

US trying to outplay the Chinese on logistics is a losing game, that's why it must play a game that it is better at. no matter how you cut it, there is simply no way to disrupt Chinese logistics short of actions that would prompt a nuclear war. Yes B2 and B21 can theoretically penetrate into Chinese airspace and hit whatever target, but that doesn't mean it'll achieve its desired effect.

What the US must do is manage its expectations, every time it has done that it was successful, every time it got too ambitious it failed. the focus should solely be taking out Chinese amphibious capabilities. who cares how many sorties the PLAAF can fly if they can't land a troop on Taiwan?

at the same time, I am happy this discussion on US-China confrontation comes up, because it also reinforces what I have always said about Penghu. It is a must take for PLA at the onset. If PLA take sit, then it can afford to play a waiting game with the Americans while building up artillery, air defense and air assault capabilities on the islets, to make an eventual invasion easier. Sure Taiwan can purchase HIMARS and hit back, but it would be far less effective because they would not be able to acquire targets as easily as Ukraine/NATO have against Russia.

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Taiwan can't buy HIMARs. How to deliver it? Their ports are mined and airports cratered.

Penghu is critical, I agree. But it's not an initial or midstage target, it's an end stage target. Once you have artillery on Penghu you can interdict almost all north-south traffic in Taiwan and at that point it's over for Taiwan. They won't be able to stop attrition, they won't be able to concentrate troops to stop a landing.

If Penghu is taken at the onset then PLA has already won 80% of the battle.

tankphobia said:

In the case of Iraq, did the War on terror not cause Chinese high command to completely revamp the PLA? That's as much of a reaction as you could get in peace time and there was minimal threat to China from the US at the time. Can you imagine the amount of fear SEA countries will feel against the PLA when they are the biggest boy in the yard going on the aggressive? Getting involved is a natural reaction, to ignore it is to be unnatural, it doesn't matter how much money China pumps into your country, when it comes to territorial integrity there is no negotiation. (As China would say)

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China is also the largest trading partner of every SEA country IIRC. Plus China is the world's largest trading nation with most of this trade passing through the SCS. So China wants any and all trade to flow through the SCS with no interruptions.

In the event of a US-China conflict, it will be the US Navy trying to blockade China and cut off trade in the SCS. Note the littoral SEA nations really depend on this trade.

So further Chinese military capabilities means the Chinese military is better able to protect these trade flows from the US Navy.

Remember that countries representing about 1 billion people (out of 8 billion) have placed any sanctions on Russia because of Ukraine.
The other 7 billion people live in countries that haven't placed any sanctions.

And again, the Chinese Communist Party founding myth is against nasty colonial powers like Imperial Japan or the British Empire. Such an ideology is innately anti-expansionist in terms of warlike imperial conquests.