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I saw a bit of discussion downthread about Taiwan, and as a resident doomer, that's like red meat to me. Plus, I recently saw this actually fairly good and accurate - but still incomplete - WSJ article about what an invasion might look like in terms of nuts and bolts. But talk about the actual mechanics of an invasion get all the attention, so let's talk about something different: what does the world look like after an invasion, assuming it happens?
Unfortunately to answer this question we do need to backtrack and still break down exactly the way in which this invasion happens. There are, essentially, 3 methods for invasion:
Option One: The First Strike. To oversimplify, because of the reality of the geographic and power arrangement, much like Pearl Harbor, a similar idea presents itself. If you can knock out enough American ships, bomb the island bases, bomb bases in Japan (possibly; also Korea, Philippines are possible), attack the GPS and satellite systems, accompany it with a massive cyberattack on both military and civilian targets, cutting undersea cables, and so on, you make a military response ultra-hard mode, giving China carte blanche to invade at their own pace with the wind at their backs. Lots of the details are untested, but there's good reason to think that China would be at least moderately successful at this, depending on how hard they want to commit (a big question). And unlike WW2, it's unclear that America has the industrial strength or the allies willing to pitch in to win a war if it drags on longer. It should be said that buildup to this is virtually guaranteed to be noticed in advance. On Taiwan proper, the ultimate goal, this manifests as an amphibious invasion similar to what's described in the article. It's an outright fight. (One I tend to think is overstated in difficulty, but that's beside the point)
Essentially, three outcomes. The US wins, China loses in the initial stages pretty significantly. China wins, takes Taiwan, does very well against the US (and possibly allies). Or, fighting drags on and WWIII kicks off. Whether or not Taiwan itself folds with a big or a small fight, or even wins, is within this WWIII-esque scenario, because a first strike virtually guarantees a war. It's conceivable China might try something smaller-scale, thinking America might take it on the chin, but we all know America usually punches back.
Option Two: The Slow Grinder. China, possibly taking advantage of local Taiwanese political developments and/or American weakness, blockades Taiwan. Sleeper agents, propaganda, and intimidation blanket Taiwan. America dithers whether or not to intervene, because that would basically mean that America was starting the war, over an island they never formally committed to defend with arms (it's complicated) very far from home.
Two outcomes. Taiwan and/or America capitulates is one possibility. Though I suppose it might matter who blinks first? Or, China's bluff is called and America breaks the blockade, China backs down. I think politically, actions short of a blockade but muscly moves have similar outcomes and so belong in the same general bucket. If the blockade turns into a fight, outcomes also collapse more or less to the first option, albeit with notably different starting assumptions in terms of a fight. I'm not going to call that out as a separate outcome for simplicity.
Option Three: The Sneak Attack. Yep, you heard that right. China has been doing more and more major military exercises. It happens sometimes that these turn into real invasions. Even with some intel, people often second guess this - Russia-Ukraine being an obvious example. It's plausible. Central to this case is the somewhat Chinese military competence, but mostly the degree of Taiwanese resistance. Personally, I think that any appreciable number of Chinese soldiers get into Taiwan, and the nation folds without much of a fight. Picture this: internet blackout. President killed in a sneak missile strike and/or assassination. Chinese troops both helicopter in by the hundreds from offshore helicopter carriers, land on beaches, use temporary piers to land even more. Civilians don't actually fight back much, due to bad equipment, poor training, and poor communication. China eventually overwhelms with numbers, and the US doesn't think it's realistic to land boots on the ground to retake. Most of the Taiwanese strategy hopes to deny beach landings, and if they happen anyways, it's a bit handwavy "urban warfare".
So. Two outcomes. Taiwan loses is clearly one, and one that I find likely in this case. It could also be that China embarrasses itself and fails abysmally in the landing, and then backs off, giving it up as lost. I'll count this as its own outcome, because a failed invasion could still collapse into a larger hot war outcome.
So, we have approximately seven outcomes across three scenarios: China attacks the US first, and either wins or loses quickly, or else the world experiences a longer war. A longer threat or blockade results in China backing down, or the US capitulating (or Taiwan itself). Possibly accompanied by a political settlement or backroom deal. And finally, China takes Taiwan or fails all by its own, quickly.
What does that mean for the world order?
What's striking to me is that nearly none of these outcomes are actually very good for the US, like at all. Even the "good" options! Being attacked and winning? We all know what 9/11 neurosis did on the US, this would be just as major a shift in the attitudes, if not more. I suppose a smaller, cowardly first strike (or a neutralized one) is plausible, resulting in a more 'meh' reaction, but I don't find it likely. China failing a sneak attack might be viewed as good, but I worry about that. China has, historically, not reacted very well to national humiliations. A loss just kicks the can down the road to some other issue, in my view.
The one truly "good" option is where China tries a blockade (or threatens one), and the US resolves the situation with diplomacy - without selling out Taiwan. It's just that... that seems wishful thinking. Have you listened to what China has been saying for literal decades? They are dead-set on taking Taiwan. Maybe they could be (fooled into?) thinking that Taiwan will eventually vote itself into becoming a protectorate or part of China, by its own internal political process. Accepting the status quo.
Of course, that's the whole pin in it, right? I'm taking for granted that a conflict happens, or that China at least makes some kind of move. But isn't that a reasonable base case? The "window" won't be open forever, and we all know how groupthink can take over organizations. On the other hand, it could be I'm excessively poo-pooing this option. Successfully solving the crisis with diplomacy, maybe an economic deal, could also be great for the world, with one less looming crisis over everyone's heads. Maybe it's an agreement to hold a vote in Taiwan once and for all to settle it. Dunno.
I should note that all of these assume a hostile Taiwan, but that's also not a solid, fully given assumption! It only takes a single friendly or weak President to sell out their own country and offer diplomatic cover for the takeover. The US would find it ranging from awkward to impossible to intervene 'against Taiwan's wishes' so to speak, even if it's only a cover and doesn't represent the people. Additionally, and very critically, we've seen a "little green men" approach work in Crimea, so never underestimate the value of plausible deniability and the wide variety of "grey zone" ops, paired with misinformation.
What do Europe and other Asian allies do? That's a wrinkle I didn't address. Might be meaningful. There IS, I suppose, one nice outcome where US allies help us out in the negotiations, or even in combat, and our ties deepen, creating an even stronger power bloc worldwide by virtue of shared goals and arms.
What about the scenarios that are bad for the US/Taiwan? Here's where things get interesting, and I'm curious to know your thoughts. China winning a first-strike, and abject US defeat is plainly fascinating. In a single stroke the world order is upended. Americans are now insecure at their place in the world, outraged that they were beaten, playing the blame game. Perhaps they re-unite and re-dedicate themselves to making a comeback in 10 years. But either way the hold is broken. De-dollarization probably accelerates, global trade is now China-dominated via increased sea and political and economic power. China now has a guaranteed seat at any world table it wants in any international incident.
China winning a lightning strike? Honestly I view this as somewhat status quo, believe it or not. The US might lose a little face, but we never like actually, fully guaranteed we'd defend Taiwan this whole time (strategic ambiguity). Think Hong Kong - protest, followed by quiet acceptance. I view this status quo-like state, to be clear, as mildly good for China. The biggest thing is that China would now have access to the crown jewels of tech: GPUs. That is a pretty big deal, even if you're an AI pessimist.
"WWIII" is... well, I have no idea. Worst case, nukes get exchanged (maybe half a dozen). Russia gets involved on China's side. Things spiral out of control as many countries get pulled into conflict (Japan, Korea, North Korea, etc all have opportunities). Abroad, the American distraction provides plenty of cover for other wars to start (Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan, various African countries, all can act with temporary impunity).
At any rate, I'm curious if one of these post-invasion scenarios captures the attention of anyone else. The US has been the head honcho for so long, it's hard to imaging a world where they've been beat solid and perhaps even retreat into a new generation of isolation.
Maybe I'm wumaoing too close to the sun but my understanding is that younger Taiwanese people are increasingly open to reunification or some sort of a new deal. Taiwan's got large income inequality & economic issues + a few popular democratic movements have been smote on grounds of being too open to negotiating with the mainlanders plus the nice parts of China are now nice enough to make it feel more viable to join the Sinosphere.
You're more reversed the direction than not. If you want a mental model, think more status quo bias that is both anti-reunification and anti-independence.
In Taiwan, it's the older people who are more open to reunification in the sense of 'there might be a deal they'd accept without the threat of death and oppression as the alternative,' and the younger generation who have less familial/emotional attachment to the continent. This is why the KMT, the party descended from the nationalists opposed to the CCP, have increasingly become the 'pro-China' party- they still identify themselves as 'Chinese', whereas the rise of self-identification as 'Taiwanese' is coming from the youth cohort. This is also the cohort who have have had their formative exposure to China being things like the Hong Kong crackdown on what remained of the democracy there, and recognize that they would be on a similar receiving end if they joined the sinosphere. The two-system system was the potential compromise, and the CCP renenged on it.
The age dynamic, it's a similar dynamic to the Korean views of reunification. It's the older Koreans (and increasingly dead) who fought against the North who also had the memory of families on the other side of the partition. Younger Koreans have no such familial sentiment, and are more concerned with the bad effects a reunification could have on them, even if it was from the top.
The relevance of this back for Taiwan is that the youth aren't necessarily 'pro-independence.' Formal independence would credibly mean a war which would be bad for them. The status quo preference bias that works against reunification also works against formal independence. The status quo- which is neither independent or unified- is preferable, and they are open to politicians who maintain that.
I'm mostly basing this off meandering around Taiwan previously plus a few interactions with young people studying abroad and the sentiment I get is that identifying as broad Chinese diaspora is cool whilst Taiwan's no longer doing much for people who aren't already landed or otherwise exposed to the cabal of large established businesses actually holding the economy together. Maybe I'm indexing more for people of pro-China sympathies since I've met these people either in China or Malaysia.
My loose understanding is that Taiwanese youth unemployment is high, and generally economic prospects for those who are not fortunate enough to get into the absolute biggest businesses are slim.
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I think we actually know what the US win situation looks like, because we already saw it happen.
Picture this: the Chinese decide that their window is closing but they have a moment of opportunity (perhaps after a US or Taiwanese presidential election). Their plan is really simple: surround Taiwan with troops and ships doing increasingly provocative exercises to demonstrate Taiwanese weakness, give Taiwan an ultimatum of some sort (e.g. "stop buying US military hardware") and then when it is denied, a limited ballistic missile strike on Taiwanese C&C facilities, combined with a lightning heliborne assault to seize a port, coordinated with a large amphibious landing. The Chinese decide not to open with an attack on Japan and the US, reasoning that the thousands of ballistic missiles they have in reserve will send a clear deterrent signal and the Taiwanese will give in under the shock of the offensive, capitulating as soon as it is clear that a bridgehead is established, an estimation made based on accurate intelligence assessments of Taiwanese will to resist.
And this is basically correct: just like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US and its allies don't militarily intervene. Unfortunately for China, just like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Chinese government keeps their ultimate plans secret from their own leadership until the last minute for reasons of operational security. This means that the United States, with its sophisticated signals intelligence apparatus, actually has a clearer picture of the battlefield than the Chinese commanders on the ground. This allows the US to do the in-real-life equivalent of "streamsniping" the Chinese, directly transmitting targeting coordinates and other intelligence to Taiwan, while Chinese commanders are operating largely in their own lane, without broader situational awareness of the battlefield. The air assault troops are met by an armored brigade and cut to pieces; ballistic missiles are intercepted or hit empty buildings and airfields; Taiwanese antiship missiles (guided by US assets in orbit, allowing them to hit assets the Taiwanese are blind to) strike vulnerable Chinese naval flotillas that are traveling with their air search radars stowed to avoid broadcasting their position, and the Chinese amphibious assault/port seizure operation runs into a recently planted minefield and is ignominiously sunk by mines designed during the First World War and artillery shells designed during the Second in the last mile before the beach. The survivors are eliminated by tanks and helicopters without making a significant bridgehead.
And that's it. Because the difference between the invasion of Ukraine (where substantially similar events took place but merely shifted the mode of the war) and the invasion of Taiwan is that Russia has a land border with Ukraine and no problem consolidating whatever gains they have, pulling more tanks out of their stockpiles and drafting more men if their first push fails. But an amphibious landing is a much more binary thing, and when the Chinese lose a third of their amphibious and air assault transport capacity? They can't call a time out and build more ships, or dig in and hold ground, as the Russians did. Ten years worth of procurement underwater or stranded on a beach in 72 hours. Sure, the Chinese still have a large fleet of second-tier ships, including many transports, but those will be, if anything, less survivable than the purpose-built amphibious fleet they've lost, and the Taiwanese still have a cool five digits of contact mines in their inventories.
Now, in this situation, the Chinese could attempt a blockade, or nuclear threats. But we're angling for an at least somewhat plausible hypothetical best case scenario for the US here (not necessarily the most likely scenario) so we'll say instead the government collapses in the face of thousands of casualties with nothing substantial to show for it and the military remove the Secretary General from power.
Most likely scenario? Eh, I wouldn't bet on this happening. Possible? Sure, I think so.
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China can’t win WWIII: it is too dependent on foreign trade, which the US navy is more than capable of cutting off. Without ocean trade China cant supply the oil, iron, coal, or copper it needs to run that massive industrial base of theirs, and can’t supply the food it needs to feed its people. Not does it have a blue water navy that can escort oil tankers from Iran: forget about escorting iron and coal freighters from Australia, there’s no way the Aussies will be trading with China if China attacks a NATO member. They’ll die on the vine without global trade, and don’t tell me they’ll bring it in by rail from Russia and India: they don’t have nearly enough throughout with Russia to supply even a quarter of their import needs, they have even less throughout with India, and India hates China and would love nothing more than to see them wither. They’ll probably jump in near the end and take Tibet while they’re at it.
In other words, the First Strike option is China committing suicide.
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Half a dozen nukes is not the worst case or a likely case. If the USA detects Chinese launches, it will go full counterforce in an attempt to destroy as much as possible of their arsenal before it's airborne. That in turn means the PRC is in a "use it or lose it" scenario and will likely launch as much as it can (excepting, possibly, the sea leg).
Of course, then there's the issue of the peace terms. If PLA nukes have hit cities, the West's peace demand would be along the lines of "denuclearise/demilitarise China, free Tibet/Xinjiang, formally cede Taiwan" with little room to budge (particularly given the need to prevent the PRC trying again later). The PRC is aware that, as you note, this means no more Mandate of Heaven, so it plausibly refuses. Plausibly, Trump/Vance then order countervalue in order to force a capitulation (or state failure), because Rule 2 of war and they aren't the sorts to just back down. End result is that China is a basket-case again, like the early 20th century. Russia, if it stays out, does well in some ways (with the West significantly weakened), but doesn't become outright hegemon. Probably no more culture war, as SJ would suffer base existence failure to a fair extent and would be blamed for weakening the West and thus causing WWIII.
No. The immediate problem is that the PLAN would have un-interdictable access to the Pacific proper via Taiwan's east coast, which means Japan and South Korea would have Beijing's hand around their throats via the threat of blockade (neither is even remotely close to being able to feed itself). They probably both withdraw from the NPT, Beijing in its overconfidence (and with popular support due to the long-standing cultural antipathy) plausibly attacks, and you're back to WWIII. There's a reason that Japanese PM Takaichi Sanae made those comments about a Taiwan invasion posing an existential threat to Japan and justifying the use of the Japanese military, and there's a reason (though not a good one) that one of China's diplomats to Japan publically threatened to cut off her head in response.
If our cities get nuked then our peace demand will be “There is no PRC”. We won’t stop until we’re writing a new constitution for China in Beijing. We did that to Japan and Germany and they didn’t destroy even one of our cities.
You and what occupational army?
The Americans were worn out by a decade trying to occupy a country of 30 million when they had the ability to walk in from friendly buildup areas at the outset. Occupying a country of 1,300 million is just a wee bit beyond the capacity of the modern United States, even without the literal and figurative fallout of a nuclear war.
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Possible, I suppose (though occupying China to that degree wouldn't be trivial). Largely ends in the same place, though, of "PRC refuses, China burns in countervalue strike".
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But it's important to note that many of these "China loses" scenarios are incredibly bad for China. So it's sort of a mutually assured destruction so to speak.
I was actually thinking about this scenario earlier myself, and I think if China wins, it will be essentially bloodless. A modern army requires an immense amount of logistical support, and if left without supplies and air support, will find itself easily destroyed by far inferior and outdated opponents. Even more so an insertion of a bunch of paratroopers and helicopter infantry is just going to get blown to bits by militias with half century old m60 tanks, artillery, and airstrikes. As a result, the "sneak attack" option is essentially a nonstarter. But, on the other hand, the requirements to land a full scale invasion force are so challenging that if the Chinese are able to be in position to make a landing, the war is essentially won already and all resistance on land will be token.
If China can demonstrate an anti-ship missile strike capability credible enough to scare the carriers off, SAM capability to scare the F-35 off, and fighters powerful enough to control the skies, the ability for foreigners to intervene will be seriously blunted. And if the Americans know that getting involved would result in major losses, they'd likely back off without firing a single shot. Unlike Ukraine and Russia, Taiwan is not a near peer power. Their stuff is significantly worse then Ukrainian stuff, and Chinese stuff is significantly better than Russian stuff. Without foreign support, the Chinese would gain air superiority quickly and the land forces would just be sitting ducks.
We have no idea if Chines stuff is actually better than Russian stuff: they haven’t been tested in a war in decades. Russian stuff seemed like it was better than Ukrainian stuff until the war actually started, and Russia fell on its face and revealed it was a paper bear. China might do the same.
I don’t know about better, but they definitely have more. They are probably the only country other than America that could do 2000 PGM strikes a day for two weeks straight.
I dunno: how many of their missiles do you think are filled with sand instead of explosives? Corruption is a real problem in China, and you saw what that led to in Russia: huge amounts of military equipment that was not maintained properly and broke down almost immediately.
It seems to have led to Russia winning the war.
Yeah but it is/was a massive grindfest when a lot of people thought it was gonna be over in weeks or months.
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Would a full-blown attack on GPS satellites not cross the nuclear threshold for the US? Also, it seems like a lot of the elements of the "first strike" scenario you outlined are not ones that short-term countermeasures are readily available to; hence, from a Chinese perspective, signalling willingness, ability and poise to (attack GPS, destroy undersea cables...) and then proceeding to do a full-scale invasion as if the US could be assumed to not intervene (and then executing the "first strike" if it shows signs of doing so after all) seems strictly superior to the "first strike" which would test the initial proposition upfront.
As for the "little green men" scenario, it seems unrealistic for Taiwan for various reasons, because it probably only worked on Crimea due to an alignment of opportune circumstances (geographic proximity, a local low point in Ukrainian state capacity and coherence, overwhelming support for the invaders among the population and frequently even local military units since the UA military had no functioning political alignment machinery at that point) which are all unlikely to be met in Taiwan.
My own sense is that a more likely way a takeover of Taiwan would go would actually be something like blockade -> half-hearted attempt at a blockade run by the US, without a consensus in favour of it -> overwhelming Chinese military response to the blockade run -> no popular consensus behind any sort of "Pearl Harbor 2.0" narrative to rally popular support for a full US war entry -> US limits itself to an economic-political response -> blockade continues, eventually resolved by a Taiwanese surrender or a much more weakly opposed invasion as it has been demonstrated the cavalry won't come.
I'm not positive it would start with GPS satellites, but with the current setup of space weaponry and capabilities it could escalate to that pretty easily. Also, it's hard to justify "we nuked (potentially) millions of people and broke a three quarters of a century long precedent" with "they made our maps harder to read".
Are you suggesting that they can do lots of non- or less-lethal things in their first strike, then? It's possible, but seems unlikely beyond some of the easy fruit like a smaller-scale cyberattack and internet shenanigans. The point of a first strike is to prevent a counterattack, decreasing overall risk. And militarily it seems quite plausible (in their view, which is what matters for their decision making) that they'd be able to prevent US intervention if they took out enough air and sea bases (and carriers, potentially) to buy them the ~2 weeks to do an invasion (would Taiwanese resistance be less if they saw that China beat the US and no aid is coming? Probably yes).
Re: grey-zone tactics, it doesn't have to look exactly the same. What if Zelensky had just lost an election to a Russia-friendly President who rolled over? Would he really be forcibly removed, or would the situation create just enough confusion to allow the tanks to finish rolling into Kiev? I think you underestimate Taiwan's geographic proximity, potential low points in governmental trust, support for China among the population and even political leadership who might stand to gain promotions under a Chinese takeover. What if they hold a sham vote, either among the people or in the legislature? Or even hold a vote, lose it, allege fraud, and use that as an excuse? False flag something? Stage a partial civil war with sleeper agents? Have commandos take hostages? There are a lot of options, and to emphasize this point, they might only need to work for a week or two, and dilute local resistance.
I agree that your scenario seems somewhat likelier than some of the others (though part of me wonders if Chinese military leadership gets too high on their own supply, they could do something 'illogical') - what do you see the world looking like if that happens, US weak response included? Do you think it's a sea change, or just another part of a slow slide towards something else? Personally, I think any Taiwan resolution has the potential to be the biggest geopolitical world event since the end of the Cold War, but I'm open to other perspectives.
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The United States is going to sell-out Taiwan. The discussion we need to be having is what our price should be.
I propose 500 billion dollars, accomplished via the cancelation of China-held treasuries.
Sell-out in what sense? IMO the most likely longterm situation if China continues to be economically ascendant is that the most Hawkish Taiwanese literally die off and the culture reorients itself towards the Sinosphere.
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What incident are you thinking of, exactly? I can't recall of any incident where they've been in an actual position to react to said national humiliations, though that might be due to alot of my focus on China being more historical than present day.
The period from the first Opium War to the eventual reunification of the Chinese mainland at the end of the Civil War lasted about a hundred years, hence the Chinese Communist narrative regarding "the century of humiliation", the main consequence of said humiliation being that the regime that lost legitimacy cannot reunite the country and thus needs to be replaced by another.
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Broadly historically speaking? The Opium Wars left a century+ long impact on the national pysche. Even farther back, the Mongolian invasion was a huge deal. One they ended up (partially) whitewashing into a "Yuan Dynasty" as if it were just a normal thing. More recently? Online Chinese hypernationalist netizens have reacted very harshly to a wide range of perceived insults abroad. Sometimes encouraged by the government, but lately they have had to be restrained in some cases. There are a ton of media examples from the last 10 years.
Edit: and yes, as magicmushrooms said, humiliation implies national weakness which implies governmental weakness, and would indeed threaten the CCP's claim to legitimacy, crazy as it might sound to us here. That's partly why the "how" matters, because some resolutions can be "spun" better than others. Outright military defeat? Yikes. Collapse of the government is just as likely and scary as a vow of revenge, Versailles style.
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@EverythingIsFine may be referring to the idea of the Mandate of Heaven - that the Chinese tend to violently chuck out governments that are seen to have failed. If the CPC were forced to relinquish its claim to Taiwan as part of a peace deal, it would have a hard time holding on to power. This potentially means loose nukes.
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