PLA Strategy in a Taiwan Contingency

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Was Mathias Rust landing his Cessna in Red Square in 1987 just a bad PR look or did it foretell the collapse of the Soviet Union?

Irrelevant to the topic at hand, of entirely different scales.

My point is that anyone trying to use this instance to mock or dab on the ROC military/defense are being foolish and getting high over nothing.
A single kayak crossing the strait, landing on a random beach, and then leaving after filming themselves, during peacetime, is a relative non-event.

It is the equivalent of flying a small quadcopter drone and landing on a naval ship at port during peacetime -- a bad look but not a huge deal.


If one wants to have examples of incompetence of a force, use better examples.
 

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
I'm NGL but flying a Cessna all the way to the Red Square is a much larger issue compared to some dude kayaking to an outlying island close to the mainland
Soviets said that air defense tracked him but weren't allowed to shoot him down.

He also did not kayak to an outlying island. It wasn't even a random beach in Taiwan.

According to Singaporean media, he landed in Taoyuan, corroborated by geolocation. Taoyuan is a part of the Taipei metropolitan area.

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broadsword

Brigadier
Soviets said that air defense tracked him but weren't allowed to shoot him down.

He also did not kayak to an outlying island. It wasn't even a random beach in Taiwan.

According to Singaporean media, he landed in Taoyuan, corroborated by geolocation. Taoyuan is a part of the Taipei metropolitan area.

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I would have been impressed if he had made it flying a Cessna and landing on a highway in Taoyuan.

In Singapore, which is smaller and more congested, smugglers using bumboats operate in the still of the night. Some got caught, and some made it.
 

FairAndUnbiased

Brigadier
Registered Member
I would have been impressed if he had made it flying a Cessna and landing on a highway in Taoyuan.

In Singapore, which is smaller and more congested, smugglers using bumboats operate in the still of the night. Some got caught, and some made it.
The guy rowed across 150 km of sea lol. His arms must be the size of oil barrels.
 

Tomboy

Junior Member
Registered Member
The guy rowed across 150 km of sea lol. His arms must be the size of oil barrels.
I uh have my doubts on that ngl, 150km is a ridiculous distance. I recently walked 100km with my college hiking club and it took us over 28 hours of continuous walking with no sleep. Surely rowing in rough waters would be slower than walking, it's literally going to take the guy 2 days of nonstop rowing to achieve that. Somehow I don't actually believe he rowed all the way there...
 

oseaidjubzac

Junior Member
Registered Member
I uh have my doubts on that ngl, 150km is a ridiculous distance. I recently walked 100km with my college hiking club and it took us over 28 hours of continuous walking with no sleep. Surely rowing in rough waters would be slower than walking, it's literally going to take the guy 2 days of nonstop rowing to achieve that. Somehow I don't actually believe he rowed all the way there...
He couldn't have manually rowed such a long distance. According to his account, he used an engine that consumed four buckets of fuel (approximately 58 liters in total) for the round trip. This fuel consumption appears theoretically feasible for the journey described.
 

siegecrossbow

General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Apart from being a bad PR look I'm not sure how significant this is


The practical military significance of a single kayak equivalent landing on a beach is hardly a military threat during peacetime and it would be rather difficult to properly interdict or detect.
Normally I’d agree, but this came at the heel of a high profile illegal crossing just a few days before. You’d think that they at least up the security a little bit just for the sake of optics…
 

votran

New Member
Registered Member
when will china start some "program" aim to make taiwan poorer ?

i remember US invasion of iraq , they economy strike , embargo iraq for decade to make iraqi poorer , degrade iraqi military strength before finally invade .

the result ? a swift victory because iraqi people , military just break a part , no longer have the will to fight anymore
 

Moonscape

Junior Member
Registered Member
when will china start some "program" aim to make taiwan poorer ?

i remember US invasion of iraq , they economy strike , embargo iraq for decade to make iraqi poorer , degrade iraqi military strength before finally invade .

the result ? a swift victory because iraqi people , military just break a part , no longer have the will to fight anymore

Never, because China doesn't have to do any of that and it can still easily win.

China's real enemy in an armed reunification scenario is the United States, and to a lesser extent, Japan. Taiwan's military is a speed bump at best. So the question should be, when is China going to start making it harder for the US to wage war. And the answer is, April 2025, with the rare earth export restrictions.
 
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