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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logistical support, and if left without supplies and air support, will find itself easily destroyed by far inferior and outdated opponents.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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