5 ms·

I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early.

I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early. I think they're counting on the ruling class / landowners / capitalists to pressure the government to capitulate at fear of property destruction, which I also expect to be in line with reality. Doing capitalism in a country like taiwan is better than in the PRC, but doing it in the PRC is better than not being able to do it at all because all your assets were obliterated. What I think none of these people are counting on is that there are rabidly anti CPC people here in Taiwan, leftist or otherwise, and some of these people engage in post-military service training and drilling. I suspect that if the above comes to pass and the CPC is successful in forcing an ROC surrender, the factories are burning one way or the other, due to "self-sabotage" by workers or guerillas. Then the PLA gets to have fun for a decade chasing guerillas around the choking thick jungle and mountains that make up the majority of the landmass in Taiwan. Many of these will be indigenous who have lived in the mountains for generations and per capita by demographic make up more of the (non conscripted) military than any other demographic. I don't think any of this will come to pass though because I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim.

QuarterReptile 4y ago
> I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early. Goes along with the mock presidential palace. https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/satellite-imagery-from-china-suggests-mock-invasion-of-taiwan/ https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/satellite-imagery-from-china...
csomar 4y ago
> I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early. Taiwan is not Somalia. It's a fairly advanced country with a fairly good military (comparing to its size). > I think they're counting on the ruling class / landowners / capitalists to pressure the government to capitulate at fear of property destruction, which I also expect to be in line with reality. Doing capitalism in a country like taiwan is better than in the PRC, but doing it in the PRC is better than not being able to do it at all because all your assets were obliterated. China will do worse than Russia. People in Ukraine had reasons to join Russia, ie: their country is very corrupt and poor. I highly doubt the rich and educated Taiwanese will want to join the CPC. > I don't think any of this will come to pass though because I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim. The possibility is very slim at the moment. Of course, timing matter. In the future, it could go both ways. That will depend on the status of the US, China and Taiwan itself.
- komali2 4y ago
  > Taiwan is not Somalia. It's a fairly advanced country with a fairly good military (comparing to its size). Yes, I live here, all of my friends have served in the military. They believe a likely strategy is gun boats coming up the river for the presidential palace. BTW, the military is quite effective, but numbers about size usually include the conscripted, who are basically useless as soldiers as they get to shoot a gun maybe once during conscription and spend most of their time sweeping rocks because boomer officers stuck at conscript boot camp have outdated and ageist ideas about discipline and take out their resentment on the conscripts. From my time in the PRC the same is true for pla conscripts.
mrtksn 4y ago
> instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei Will that work if the politicians work from home? On the recent Brazilian uprising, when the election losers stormed the capital they found out that it is a holiday and there’s no some special object in the government buildings which makes you the new leader once you physically obtain it. All they ended up doing was vandalism.
jhou2 4y ago
China is Taiwan's largest trading partner. 42% of Taiwan exports go to China and Hong Kong. 22% of Taiwan imports are from China. Around 200,000 to 400,000 Taiwanese work in China. China doesn't need to militarily invade Taiwan. Like Hong Kong, it can just wait until the economic reality is that Taiwan is already a vassal state dependent on China. At that point, it can move military troops into Taiwan if needed. There won't be a fight, because at that point, the USA will already be far more darkly insular.
- kmonsen 4y ago
  Sure the US is turning insular, the only thing all politicians are on is that bribery is good and China is the main enemy. Which still means that Taiwan will be defended.
- qwezxcrty 4y ago
  China is the largest trade partner of many other countries, why only Taiwan worry about being turned into a vassal state? The majority of population in Taiwan is Han Chinese, using almost the same language as mainland China. It's not surprising that many of them will like to work on the other side of strait if there are good opportunities. People from mainland China too, especially for people in Fujian and Guangdong. And eventually, hypothetically, people in Taiwan prefer and choose to unite with mainland China, maybe after PRC evolved into something more ideologically acceptable, I see more good than issues.
  - komali2 4y ago
    This is an outdated viewpoint that doesn't take into account the newer generations of Taiwanese who are developing a distinctly anti Chinese identity and rejecting what older people call "Han" (華人）. The younger generations are leaning into and exploring the diverse heritage of the island itself, including by going out of their way to learn indigenous languages and incorporate aspects of indigenous culture. Taiwanese are also inventing their culture from whole cloth, forming cultural alliances named cute things like "the bubble tea alliance" in a direct oppositional effort against CPC cultural imperialism that centers around han supremacy. Every year that goes by the presumptive and han supremacist viewpoint that "Chinese is Chinese" evaporates further in Taiwan. Every day 台灣中文 diverges further from 普通話; they are now classified by linguists as separate forms of Mandarin entirely (not just because of the character set. Obviously the languages are mutually intelligible though). It's worth pointing out that "use the same language" is kinda silly to say in either case. Though of course most PRC speak Mandarin, and most Taiwanese speak Taiwanese Mandarin, both nations are filled with bi and trilingual people speaking all sorts of dialects.
cm2187 4y ago
On the other hand if China bombs the fabs, 1) it cripples the west's economy (and potentially its military supply chain also), 2) it ceases to make Taiwan a strategic asset to the West since there are no more fab to defend. To me it's a no brainer, particularly if they think Taiwan won't let them capture the fabs anyway (will destroy them before China controls the territory).
- rocqua 4y ago
  The us has poored too much of it's legitimacy into defending Taiwan to just say 'fabs gone, you are on your own'. Deterrence requires a response if lines are crossed otherwise future deterrence is much less effective. When the fabs are still on the board, the US might be a bit more vigorous, but I doubt anyone assumes fab capacity survives a Taiwan invasion.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    Probably worth remembering the "red line" episode with Obama in Syria, or Biden's initial reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, which was to impose symbolic sanctions and see how it deterred Russia in a month. The US is perfectly capable of some symbolic protest if it doesn't want to be involved in a particular conflict.
    - topspin 4y ago
      > The US is perfectly capable of some symbolic protest if it doesn't want to be involved in a particular conflict. Indeed. A long history of declining open conflict with the Soviet Union in several theaters supports this.
- 082349872349872 4y ago
  If London is the capital of Airstrip One, then Taipei and Tokyo are the capitals of Airstrips Two and Three; it's not just the fabs.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > ceases to make Taiwan a strategic asset to the West since there are no more fab to defend PRC control of Taiwan enables blockading Japan. It’s better strategy to turn Taiwan into China’s Afghanistan than abandon it because the fabs were blown. (One can also Werner von Braun Taiwan’s technical knowledge to the American homeland, thereby turning the entire endeavour into a Pyrrhic victory for Beijing.)
simonh 4y ago
The old ‘capture the leadership and the country will surrender in a few days’ strategy. Works every time. The thing is I’m sure the PRC Intelligence service have done analyses of what would happen if Russia invaded Ukraine, and what would happen if China invaded Taiwan. I wonder what the first one said? If the credibility of the Taiwan scenario is tied in Xi’s mind to the credibility of the first, that would give us a rough idea of the likelihood he might go for it. The other problem is that China is way more dependent on outside trade than Russia. They rely on food and energy imports too much, while Russia is self sufficient in both. The same sanctions as on Russia would bring China to its knees in months. In case anyone say “but everyone was saying the sanctions on Russia would cripple them too”, no, not everyone was saying that. The same magazine, The Economist, was explaining why that wasn’t going to happen right from the start.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  Well, you can always try. You lose nothing by trying to force the opposing force to capitulate first. Of course it helps if you don’t seriously bungle the thing.
  - simonh 4y ago
    You lose a ton of credibility and weaken your position domestically. No leader relished the prospect of a humiliating defeat in a war of aggression. In an authoritarian system it can be severely career and life limiting.
- rjzzleep 4y ago
  Why do people still compare Taiwan with Ukraine, can people not read maps? This isn't 1996 anymore. Contrary to the US China has hypersonic missiles that the US military admitted they work. The area Russia has captured in Ukraine is 3 or 4 times the size of Taiwan. Ukraine borders a couple of NATO countries with huge borders, has pipelines going through its country that Russia didn't touch the entire conflict. Taiwan on the other hand is 150 miles away from China and thousands of miles away from its big backers. Most of eastern Ukraine was Soviet infrastructure heavily fortified over 8 years. Taiwan on the other hand is mostly uninhabitable mountains that barely have roads going through them with very densely populated cities on the west. Taiwan gets its oil and gas from Indonesia and most of its resources from China. Last time they did missile drills they had to stop them because the launchers failed. China just embargoed the island for a couple of days and nothing could move in an out. China doesn't really need to do anything to win. There isn't really any scenario where this plays out in Taiwans favour. The US can't even keep up with Russia's ammunition production[1], how would it match China's manufacturing? While the US moves their warship through the area every now and then as a show of power everyone agrees that there is no protection from hypersonic or even most supersonic missiles and that much of the US Navy are sitting ducks if there were ever a real conflict. Biden was born in 1942 and believes the world is stuck in the 90s. It's extremely dangerous to think and act like that. [1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/11/navy-might-have-choose-between-arming-service-and-aiding-ukraine-due-ammo-delays-officials-say.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/11/navy-might-ha...
nindalf 4y ago
> I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim. There’s a paradox here. The more everyone believes this, the worse the preparations are and the more likely invasion becomes. For instance, the RoC Army doesn’t have enough soldiers or the right equipment and pretty much everyone is ok with this because hey, possibility of invasion is slim. They prioritise buying vanity hardware like fighter planes instead of weapons that fit a porcupine strategy like Javelin missiles. (Porcupines don’t attack but defend really well). You correctly point out that guerrillas can fight the PLA thanks to terrain. But that would be more realistic if they had a large supply of Javelins.
qwezxcrty 4y ago
I, born on the another side of the strait, also believe the possiblity of attacking is very slim. PRC's economy is still pretty dependant on exports to western countries. If a war with ROC start, CPC will have to pay a great cost to compensate the loss in exports. However, for some reason I don't understand, a significant portion of people from PRC are expecting a war to happen, and ridiculously believing such a war can be good to them. Maybe CPC is playing the old game again, posturing the "pro-democracy" entities as hostile in the propaganda to gain support politically.
powerapple 4y ago
The only reasons could make PRC take over Taiwan is: 1) Taiwan declare official independence; 2) US blocks China from semiconductors so bad, it has to take over Taiwan to gain access to technologies. CPC knows taking over Taiwan is costly to them, and it is not a good deal. It is not like we are so much better at analyzing the situation better than professionals.

QuarterReptile 4y ago

> I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early. Goes along with the mock presidential palace. https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/satellite-imagery-from-china-suggests-mock-invasion-of-taiwan/ https://thediplomat.com/2015/08/satellite-imagery-from-china...

csomar 4y ago

> I suspect the PRC won't outright bomb much of Taiwan but instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei and try to force an ROC capitulation early. Taiwan is not Somalia. It's a fairly advanced country with a fairly good military (comparing to its size). > I think they're counting on the ruling class / landowners / capitalists to pressure the government to capitulate at fear of property destruction, which I also expect to be in line with reality. Doing capitalism in a country like taiwan is better than in the PRC, but doing it in the PRC is better than not being able to do it at all because all your assets were obliterated. China will do worse than Russia. People in Ukraine had reasons to join Russia, ie: their country is very corrupt and poor. I highly doubt the rich and educated Taiwanese will want to join the CPC. > I don't think any of this will come to pass though because I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim. The possibility is very slim at the moment. Of course, timing matter. In the future, it could go both ways. That will depend on the status of the US, China and Taiwan itself.

komali2 4y ago
> Taiwan is not Somalia. It's a fairly advanced country with a fairly good military (comparing to its size). Yes, I live here, all of my friends have served in the military. They believe a likely strategy is gun boats coming up the river for the presidential palace. BTW, the military is quite effective, but numbers about size usually include the conscripted, who are basically useless as soldiers as they get to shoot a gun maybe once during conscription and spend most of their time sweeping rocks because boomer officers stuck at conscript boot camp have outdated and ageist ideas about discipline and take out their resentment on the conscripts. From my time in the PRC the same is true for pla conscripts.

mrtksn 4y ago

> instead go straight for the presidential palace in Taipei Will that work if the politicians work from home? On the recent Brazilian uprising, when the election losers stormed the capital they found out that it is a holiday and there’s no some special object in the government buildings which makes you the new leader once you physically obtain it. All they ended up doing was vandalism.

jhou2 4y ago

China is Taiwan's largest trading partner. 42% of Taiwan exports go to China and Hong Kong. 22% of Taiwan imports are from China. Around 200,000 to 400,000 Taiwanese work in China. China doesn't need to militarily invade Taiwan. Like Hong Kong, it can just wait until the economic reality is that Taiwan is already a vassal state dependent on China. At that point, it can move military troops into Taiwan if needed. There won't be a fight, because at that point, the USA will already be far more darkly insular.

kmonsen 4y ago
Sure the US is turning insular, the only thing all politicians are on is that bribery is good and China is the main enemy. Which still means that Taiwan will be defended.
qwezxcrty 4y ago
China is the largest trade partner of many other countries, why only Taiwan worry about being turned into a vassal state? The majority of population in Taiwan is Han Chinese, using almost the same language as mainland China. It's not surprising that many of them will like to work on the other side of strait if there are good opportunities. People from mainland China too, especially for people in Fujian and Guangdong. And eventually, hypothetically, people in Taiwan prefer and choose to unite with mainland China, maybe after PRC evolved into something more ideologically acceptable, I see more good than issues.
- komali2 4y ago
  This is an outdated viewpoint that doesn't take into account the newer generations of Taiwanese who are developing a distinctly anti Chinese identity and rejecting what older people call "Han" (華人）. The younger generations are leaning into and exploring the diverse heritage of the island itself, including by going out of their way to learn indigenous languages and incorporate aspects of indigenous culture. Taiwanese are also inventing their culture from whole cloth, forming cultural alliances named cute things like "the bubble tea alliance" in a direct oppositional effort against CPC cultural imperialism that centers around han supremacy. Every year that goes by the presumptive and han supremacist viewpoint that "Chinese is Chinese" evaporates further in Taiwan. Every day 台灣中文 diverges further from 普通話; they are now classified by linguists as separate forms of Mandarin entirely (not just because of the character set. Obviously the languages are mutually intelligible though). It's worth pointing out that "use the same language" is kinda silly to say in either case. Though of course most PRC speak Mandarin, and most Taiwanese speak Taiwanese Mandarin, both nations are filled with bi and trilingual people speaking all sorts of dialects.

cm2187 4y ago

On the other hand if China bombs the fabs, 1) it cripples the west's economy (and potentially its military supply chain also), 2) it ceases to make Taiwan a strategic asset to the West since there are no more fab to defend. To me it's a no brainer, particularly if they think Taiwan won't let them capture the fabs anyway (will destroy them before China controls the territory).

rocqua 4y ago
The us has poored too much of it's legitimacy into defending Taiwan to just say 'fabs gone, you are on your own'. Deterrence requires a response if lines are crossed otherwise future deterrence is much less effective. When the fabs are still on the board, the US might be a bit more vigorous, but I doubt anyone assumes fab capacity survives a Taiwan invasion.
- cm2187 4y ago
  Probably worth remembering the "red line" episode with Obama in Syria, or Biden's initial reaction to the invasion of Ukraine, which was to impose symbolic sanctions and see how it deterred Russia in a month. The US is perfectly capable of some symbolic protest if it doesn't want to be involved in a particular conflict.
  - topspin 4y ago
    > The US is perfectly capable of some symbolic protest if it doesn't want to be involved in a particular conflict. Indeed. A long history of declining open conflict with the Soviet Union in several theaters supports this.
082349872349872 4y ago
If London is the capital of Airstrip One, then Taipei and Tokyo are the capitals of Airstrips Two and Three; it's not just the fabs.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> ceases to make Taiwan a strategic asset to the West since there are no more fab to defend PRC control of Taiwan enables blockading Japan. It’s better strategy to turn Taiwan into China’s Afghanistan than abandon it because the fabs were blown. (One can also Werner von Braun Taiwan’s technical knowledge to the American homeland, thereby turning the entire endeavour into a Pyrrhic victory for Beijing.)

simonh 4y ago

The old ‘capture the leadership and the country will surrender in a few days’ strategy. Works every time. The thing is I’m sure the PRC Intelligence service have done analyses of what would happen if Russia invaded Ukraine, and what would happen if China invaded Taiwan. I wonder what the first one said? If the credibility of the Taiwan scenario is tied in Xi’s mind to the credibility of the first, that would give us a rough idea of the likelihood he might go for it. The other problem is that China is way more dependent on outside trade than Russia. They rely on food and energy imports too much, while Russia is self sufficient in both. The same sanctions as on Russia would bring China to its knees in months. In case anyone say “but everyone was saying the sanctions on Russia would cripple them too”, no, not everyone was saying that. The same magazine, The Economist, was explaining why that wasn’t going to happen right from the start.

Aeolun 4y ago
Well, you can always try. You lose nothing by trying to force the opposing force to capitulate first. Of course it helps if you don’t seriously bungle the thing.
- simonh 4y ago
  You lose a ton of credibility and weaken your position domestically. No leader relished the prospect of a humiliating defeat in a war of aggression. In an authoritarian system it can be severely career and life limiting.
rjzzleep 4y ago
Why do people still compare Taiwan with Ukraine, can people not read maps? This isn't 1996 anymore. Contrary to the US China has hypersonic missiles that the US military admitted they work. The area Russia has captured in Ukraine is 3 or 4 times the size of Taiwan. Ukraine borders a couple of NATO countries with huge borders, has pipelines going through its country that Russia didn't touch the entire conflict. Taiwan on the other hand is 150 miles away from China and thousands of miles away from its big backers. Most of eastern Ukraine was Soviet infrastructure heavily fortified over 8 years. Taiwan on the other hand is mostly uninhabitable mountains that barely have roads going through them with very densely populated cities on the west. Taiwan gets its oil and gas from Indonesia and most of its resources from China. Last time they did missile drills they had to stop them because the launchers failed. China just embargoed the island for a couple of days and nothing could move in an out. China doesn't really need to do anything to win. There isn't really any scenario where this plays out in Taiwans favour. The US can't even keep up with Russia's ammunition production[1], how would it match China's manufacturing? While the US moves their warship through the area every now and then as a show of power everyone agrees that there is no protection from hypersonic or even most supersonic missiles and that much of the US Navy are sitting ducks if there were ever a real conflict. Biden was born in 1942 and believes the world is stuck in the 90s. It's extremely dangerous to think and act like that. [1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/11/navy-might-have-choose-between-arming-service-and-aiding-ukraine-due-ammo-delays-officials-say.html https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/01/11/navy-might-ha...

nindalf 4y ago

> I, like most people in Taiwan (including the usa consulate staff), believe the possibility of invasion is slim. There’s a paradox here. The more everyone believes this, the worse the preparations are and the more likely invasion becomes. For instance, the RoC Army doesn’t have enough soldiers or the right equipment and pretty much everyone is ok with this because hey, possibility of invasion is slim. They prioritise buying vanity hardware like fighter planes instead of weapons that fit a porcupine strategy like Javelin missiles. (Porcupines don’t attack but defend really well). You correctly point out that guerrillas can fight the PLA thanks to terrain. But that would be more realistic if they had a large supply of Javelins.

qwezxcrty 4y ago

I, born on the another side of the strait, also believe the possiblity of attacking is very slim. PRC's economy is still pretty dependant on exports to western countries. If a war with ROC start, CPC will have to pay a great cost to compensate the loss in exports. However, for some reason I don't understand, a significant portion of people from PRC are expecting a war to happen, and ridiculously believing such a war can be good to them. Maybe CPC is playing the old game again, posturing the "pro-democracy" entities as hostile in the propaganda to gain support politically.

powerapple 4y ago

The only reasons could make PRC take over Taiwan is: 1) Taiwan declare official independence; 2) US blocks China from semiconductors so bad, it has to take over Taiwan to gain access to technologies. CPC knows taking over Taiwan is costly to them, and it is not a good deal. It is not like we are so much better at analyzing the situation better than professionals.