US-China War over Taiwan: All Measures Short of a Cross Straits Invasion

Re:US-China War over Taiwan: All Measures Short of a Cross S... by dirtyid on Monday March 08, 2021 @03:00AM (#26383265)

China is not Japan. China is the 5th largest oil producer in the world, is banking the largest strategic oil reserve, has enough domestic resources and sufficient food security to operate on a self-sustaining war economy, forever. The imports are needed to maintain / grow, but in case of total war footing, there's more than enough production for the war machine even if civilians has to eat rice and ride bikes again. So the question is can PRC break USN blockade or sufficiently prosecute a war until US decide Taiwan is not worth it. If both navies are trading hulls in a shooting war how much loses before USN realizes any victory would be pyrrhic one in which they lose naval hegemony to pursue their global interests. The entirety of Chinese navy which is rapidly closing gap with USN has one goal - to deter / break a USN blockade and secure oil route to ME. All other purposes like Taiwan and SCS is automatically secured if it can do so. And even if China loses, it can still become a giant north korea that's sufficiently close to Taiwan to turn it into Yemen.

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Re:US-China War over Taiwan: All Measures Short of a Cross S... by the_dune_13 on Monday March 08, 2021 @03:47AM (#26383505)

"has enough domestic resources and sufficient food security to operate on a self-sustaining war economy, forever."

Any sources?

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Re:US-China War over Taiwan: All Measures Short of a Cross S... by dirtyid on Monday March 08, 2021 @07:09PM (#26393455)

Disparate sources +napkin math.

There's a lot of analysis out there on Chinese food security, the TLDR is grain production is ~95%, but a lot of it goes towards animal feed. It's around 1000lbs per capita. In terms of crude, China only produces ~4M barrels per day, imports 10M. But the entire US military consumes 300k barrels per day for much broader portfolio. Other resources, only ~30% domestic self sufficiency in iron ore for steel production, but that's still ~300Mt which is ~60x total USN displacement. More or less everything else it stockpiles or can produce enough domestically for military needs, because relative to Chinese production the military doesn't actually use that much resources. All this is to say China is not Japan, it can't be "starved" into impotency, a blockaded China can not only sustain current military, but expand it by multiple folds on her own.

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