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Notes -
What are the odds China moves on Taiwan in the next 12 months?
The Ukraine war seems to be ushering in a major political realignment in the West. Previously staunch pacifists are penning pieces about how they went from left to center-left, as yesterday's liberals become today's neoliberals and tomorrow's neocons. The circle of life turns, I suppose? It certainly seems like wokeness has traveled far enough down the barber pole that my age cohort is starting to lurch rightwards. Noah Smith is writing hawkish piece after hawkish piece claiming we've entered a new cold war, with a new Axis of Russia, China, Iran and North Korea opposing America and NATO & Friends. He linked to this article making the case for a new cold war, and specifically China moving on Taiwan:
Most of the time, the arguments I see putting China's invasion 5-10 years in the future focus on the second scenario and claim China is still lacking amphibious materiel/experience to pull off a D-day tier invasion. I've only rarely seen the third possibility discussed, but it seems much more likely. The recent military exercises to point in this direction.
This is all wildly outside of my lane. What do people think the odds are that China instigates some kind of blockade or customs control over Taiwan in the next 12 months? The bull case:
The bear case:
I'm interested in whether people think this is largely driven by Gell-Mann amnesia and I'm being irrationally swayed by an increasingly hawkish media environment/overly focused on domestic US politics, or whether the odds of China invading are much higher than people seem to think (although I could only find a betting market for a hot-invasion).
I think the risk of war is high (perhaps not within 12 months but within a few years). However, I think the chance of an immediate invasion like everyone is preparing for is much lower.
Amphibious invasions are very hard, especially against a prepared defender (they'll see it coming with modern satellites). The Chinese have specialized marine brigades that are tasked for this mission, they're definitely aiming for the capability to invade. They trained many more marines even as the army was downsized in manpower terms. But actually invading and landing are very challenging tasks.
China's great advantage is in industrial and attritional warfare. They have enormous industrial capacity, their manufacturing sector is roughly equal to the US, Germany and Japan combined. They want to wage war in such a way that leverages this capacity to the utmost. While China's been expanding its marine corps, they've also been putting a lot of effort into missiles. They tested more missiles in 2021 than the rest of the world IIRC. They don't want to fight the US in the skies and seas up close, they want to fling hundreds and thousands of missiles at US airbases, ports and ships before they can even reach the battlefield. They want to most efficiently turn their production advantage to a military advantage by turning this into a missile war. I think their strategy for Taiwan is to pound it with missiles, airstrikes and drones. They'll wait for months before landing, waiting for the defenders to get exhausted by the bombing.
At the same time, attrition will take its toll on Taiwan. Taiwan is about 30% food secure, China is 90-95% secure on grains with huge stockpiles. China takes food extremely seriously. Taiwan is innately crippled by geography, it's a tiny mountainous rock in the ocean that also has to import fertilizer by sea.
Taiwan has no energy production, in 2021 Taiwan relied on imports of fossil fuels for 97.7 percent of its total energy supply. China is about 80% energy sufficient (this is mostly coal) and they produce 25% of the oil they need. They can import another 10-15% from Russia. In addition, they have about 100 days worth of oil stockpiled. That's enough oil for military needs. I believe they have the state capacity to ration domestic civilian oil use and scramble up more supply from Russia. In WW2 the US quickly built pipelines to take oil from Texas to the industrial North, they used barges and trains and all kinds of tricks.
All the wargaming for Taiwan seems to focus on a period of a few weeks, a quick invasion. This is rosy, optimistic thinking for a great power war. This is WW3! It won't last for a few weeks, it will take years like all the other great power wars. Germany fought through famine in WW1, they fought through energy scarcity in WW2. Highly determined states will find a way, they'll synthesize oil and ration. I think we underestimate Chinese nationalism at our peril, there's a great deal of resentment of the West and hatred especially for Japan. It will be very hard for anyone to oppose the war given they'll be fighting Japan and the West in the world's most secured and propagandized police state.
The fait accompli quick-invasion strategy relies on a very high level of coordination and excellence from those forces in the field today. China probably doesn't have that confidence. Industrial warfare only requires that they have huge production capacity and the ability to learn. An industrial, attritional strategy doesn't require that Chinese marines seize enough ports without damaging them too much, that their airforce can defend the landing craft, that they can quickly resupply forces...
Attrition puts the onus on us. We have to resupply Taiwan with food and energy lest they capitulate. They will surely capitulate before China capitulates, even if you think my estimates for Chinese self-sufficiency are inaccurate, they can't be so far off that China is behind Taiwan. We have to penetrate the Chinese anti-access, area-denial grid, escorting supply ships and docking them in Taiwanese ports! We have to resupply South Korea and Japan too, who are in similar (but much better) positions to Taiwan. We have to endure a withering barrage of missiles before we even get to contest the airspace and sea. We will have to mobilize our economies and accept massive casualties to fight China over several years or accept defeat.
Is this in contradiction of reports/rumors of China bulking up a civilian fleet that can be repurposed for amphibious landings? Was that actually a "backyard furnace"-level boondoggle all along?
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