On the feasibility of an invasion: there was a very good episode of the Sinica podcast on wargaming this: https://thechinaproject.com/2023/08/17/wargaming-a-taiwan-in...
Very scary for everyone and especially the US. Think several lost carriers within the first 24-36 hrs
Edit: important to note that at the end of the episode they discuss that the wargaming exercise assumed < 100 dedicated amphibian landing boats, but Chinese officials have previously said that they'd use their merchant marine which would mean we are talking about thousand of ships! The whole thing is unfathomable and clearly unprecedented since WWII
I agree that Xi probably wants some legacy coined to him, but he is only 70 and looks pretty healthy (as far as I see) so I guess he can still wait it out.
I still don't believe there is going to be an invasion of Taiwan happening in the next few years, but if it does, I think it's going to be a lot bigger than just Taiwan. From this perspective, it is scary.
China's calculus changes if they have to strike Japanese and Philippine sovereign territory (even if it's hosting US forces) in order to accomplish their goals.
And it's unclear if even Xi is willing to send as many ships and bodies as it would take to the bottom of Taiwanese straits to get an invasion force across. (Which then faces a guerrilla insurgency in mountainous terrain)
If Xi sees Taiwan as a gateway to Pacific hegemony, maybe that math is worth it...
But asking a populace to support that in the face of economic weakness and high youth unemployment is a tall order. The COVID lockdown riots demonstrated that even China's social control is a fine line.
China doesn't have the natural resource base within its borders (they're digging up their iron ore reserves faster than any country, and they have to import oil) that Russia does.
Consequently, economic sanctions slow their economy down a lot faster than Russia's.
War may be an internal unifier... but unemployment, poverty, and scarcity is a rapid internal disintegrator.
Looking at "disintegrated" Cuba...
For reference, when Germany and Japan was expanding, they had great, young demographics, and thus very good tax base. Japan had very low debt in 1920 when they started the wars https://www.rieti.go.jp/en/columns/s15_0004.html. Germany had suspended the gold standard and financed the war by borrowing, something China cannot do today.
Another way to think about this is, instead of all the possible money China made that it could have spent on war, instead it decided to build half-finished tofu dreg buildings, then the CCP elites took those dirty money out of China and into western economies :). Even the elites knew China was no match for the combined wealth/forces of western countries.
Perun covers the topic of Chinese military readiness with excellent sourcing and great detail, as always:
For example, usually the party provincial secretary (most powerful man in that province) concurrently serves as the first secretary of the provincial military region party committee, but he doesn't have real power in the military. When war comes, it's the group of people who are more experienced with military (the generals) going to make the call, and everyone else is not going to be happy.
Think Politburo and the Central Military Commission. When war comes it's the CMC who is going to make the call. Some people take seats in both but some not. They all stand in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party -- but power distribution is going to shift when things move.
That's why I think the biggest resistance comes from the party itself, not depression. Depression, historically, usually leads to wars, not from them.
Which is why, historically, it didn’t. But Xi isn’t rational: he’s a dictator.
It wasn’t rational for him to force his way onto Hong Kong; the territory would automatically become China in a few decades. Same for his corruption/loyalty purges and decimation of China’s tech sector. Irrational, short-term sacrifices of China’s long-term potential for his short-term politics.
When that happened, Hong Kong was involved in ongoing riots and people were proclaiming (Hong Kong) independence on the streets for months. The legislature was stormed in an event that was not unlike Jan 6 Capitol Hill in the US (we sure did feel the awkward resemblance of the two events...)
Everyone can have their views on whether suppressing the riots was morally justified, but Xi had to do something to assert the CCP's sovereignty over Hong Kong. It was the only rational move unless they were prepared to give up Hong Kong.
> the territory would automatically become China in a few decades
Not sure which place you're talking about. Hong Kong is already part of China at least since the 1997 handover. And Taiwan will never become under CCP rule if status quo is preserved. Don't think there's any mechanism for "automatically" taking over Taiwan.
I don't know how familiar you are with the history, but long-term thinking and patience was essentially the reason China was able to gain back control Hong Kong from the Brits, pretty much on China's terms. They took advantage of the 99-year lease on the New Territories, waited until the Brits started developing on the leased (as opposed to ceded) land, and caught them with their pants down when they realized they had no feasible plan to partially hand back the territory when the lease expired.
Hong Kong has always been a template (in the CCP's mind at least) for taking back Taiwan, I don't know how you'd come to the conclusion that they would forego long term potential for short term gains. It's like you're talking as if they already invaded Taiwan and you're shaking your head over the stupidity of it. (No, it hasn't happened yet.)
The threat of course always seem real enough. It's all a game of chicken. The one who seems most crazy wins. Back then during the 1970s, China also threatened to invade Hong Kong if the Brits didn't hand it back to them. They want you to think the leadership is irrational. Makes them harder to predict.
Because Xi ham-fistedly forced through a badly-written security law [1] and intervened in its politics [2]. It’s like stupid Tiannamen Square.
> long-term thinking and patience was essentially the reason China was able to gain back control Hong Kong from the Brits
China was rational under the CCP. It’s myopic under Xi.
> don't know how you'd come to the conclusion that they would forego long term potential for short term gains
They already did.
Hong Kong’s mess was avoidable. Most Taiwanese identifying as Taiwanese and not Chinese was avoidable [3]. The trade wars, and China being reëclipsed in manufacturing by U.S. + Japan + Deutschland, were avoidable [4]. The bank losses on overseas loans were avoidable [5]. The corruption in the rocket forces, which guarantees no Taiwan action until China’s military strength is past its relative nadir, was avoidable [6].
All of these missteps would not have happened under proper CCP leadership. They are expressions of Xi’s personal hubris. China sacrificed the immortality of its state for the favour of its mortal dictator; it’s possibly the luckiest geopolitical stroke for America after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
> during the 1970s, China also threatened to invade Hong Kong if the Brits didn't hand it back to them. They want you to think the leadership is irrational
But they didn’t. That’s rational.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_extradition_b...
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-56264117
[3] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/01/16/most-peop...
[4] https://www.safeguardglobal.com/resources/top-10-manufacturi...
[5] https://www.ft.com/content/da01c562-ad29-4c34-ae5e-a0aafddd3...
[6] https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-military-rocket-f...
[1] has no mention of Xi. [2] is in 2021, way after the protests/riots.
I have reliable sources (not mass media, especially not western mass media) telling me that the security law was championed by the Hong Kong government (Carrie Lam in particular). The Chinese Central People's Government was not actively involved until the whole thing spiraled out of control.
I won't/can't tell you how involved I was in the events, but Trust Me Bro ™ I'm not just reading the news and coming to the conclusions that I wrote.
Sure. This was in the open. That doesn't preclude Beijing's feet on the scales, which from everything I saw, in the open and with Trust Me Bros, what clear as day.
There were better ways to handle Hong Kong. Xi handled in a way that made sense for him. It cost China dearly in the medium term, and may prove to have been a geostrategic blunder in the long term.
This is what I'm telling you didn't happen. My sources are not public, and you're free not to believe it.
There was a significant divide within LegCo (local parliment). So no, it was not "championed". For other readers: The head of state (CEO) is hand selected by CCP. (Yes, I know about the elitist voting system to select a CEO, but the choice needs to be pre-approved by CCP.) Saying the person who was pre-selected by CCP is "championing" a proposed law by CCP isn't saying much. That was her job.
What I was responding to was the claim that "Xi ham-fistedly forced through a badly-written security law". This really isn't the case, and if your argument is that "well, everything done by the government is attributed to Xi personally, I rest my case.", I guess you're right then. Whatever you please.
Don’t try and and make it sound like HK were just randomly protesting nothing.
Which proved there is no such thing. Because the CCP still has their foot in HK and making sure there is no 2 systems.
This is a non-sequitor. There's no reason, a priori, to believe a dictator is any less, or more rational than a popular idiot (and we've elected quite a few of those).
(You also don't stay a dictator for very long by being a madman or an idiot, whereas an elected official usually at least gets to finish their term.)
I think what people mean when they say a country “acts rationally” or doesn’t is that decisions are made that vaguely make sense in when analyzed by applying the rationalism framework to ”the country,” usually used as a shorthand for the populace. But of course, this would only make sense if the leaders decide that the best way to stay in power is to serve the interest of the populace. Which isn’t the case in a non-democratic country.
Rationalism is a framework in international relations, and it makes sense that some terms-of-art will sneak out into informal English. Unfortunately, in English, “irrational” is also, basically, a fancy way of saying somebody makes stupid decisions. And lots of countries that are, broadly, antagonistic toward the US are not representative democracies*. So it seems to have basically morphed into a way of saying that my country’s adversaries are stupid. An unfortunate end for an otherwise interesting term.
* not to say that we haven’t been willing to morally compromise ourselves and ally up with dictators or overthrow democracies.
Dictators are less constrained and longer serving. The latter is particularly damning, since it means the need to save face prevents course corrections.
Are they gonna try and fight a war while the average soldier has more then one aging parent back on the mainland?
Who would do the domestic production to support the effort?
If China ever wants to do it they need to do it in the next couple decades
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts...
Nowhere. The relevant alliances are AUKUS [1] and the Quad [2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrilateral_Security_Dialo...
Countries like South Korea, Japan, Philippians, and Australia are likely to get scared if China does too much and send some form of help.
This is changing quickly.
New investments in China by Taiwanese companies declined 10.4 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of the year (2023) to US$758 million...That follows an almost 14 percent decrease in such investment last year.https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2023/04/21/2...
Exodus of Taiwanese businesses from China: push and pull factors amidst trade and tech tensions https://english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3573
1) Being too close and too dependent on China mainland
2) Enjoying a huge amount of surplus with China (it overweights everything else combined, and almost doubled)
IMO, there is really no point for China to invade Taiwan, even if Taiwan declares independence. The best move of China, when and if that happens, is to simply grab Jinmen and Mazu (the two small islands close to Xiamen), and then start a economic debacle of some sort. They don't even have to put up a physical debacle -- the only thing they need to do is to remove that surplus by removing all economic preferential policies. The best move for Taiwan, is always to be on the brink of independence without actually getting into it. After all, it is independent in all other ways and it's fine as long as US is strong enough.
Now the real point is: Can China put military equipment in Taiwan to break through the so-called first island chain? I think it's a Yes given enough time. I guess that's why NATO has been busily working on the second chain.