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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34988 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 3, 2023

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China to begin inspecting ships in the Taiwan Strait.

China's Fujian maritime safety administration launched a three-day special joint patrol and inspection operation in the central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait that includes moves to board ships...The fleet, a joint special operation with East China Sea Rescue Bureau and the East China Sea Navigation Support Center, will continue to carry out cruise inspections in the central and northern parts of the Taiwan Strait over the next two days.

This is one of the most provocative moves China's made in living memory and a potential precursor to war. On the old site, I wrote:

But what will happen is a comparably light touch approach: the PRC will begin a blockade (an act of war, to be clear) in the guise of enforcing customs and immigration controls on Taiwan and interdict ships and planes going to Taiwan. And, as a key point, it will allow those vessels that capitulate to continue on to Taiwan. And so you have the Chinese Coast Guard doing all the heavy lifting, with PLAN and the PLARF standing guard at a distance.

Private entities will quickly resign themselves to the state of affairs: they have no choice. Which leaves Taiwan and its allies in a quandary, as they have to respond (giving China authority over all imports and exports is as good as having the PLA marching down the streets of Taipei). And so Taiwan will escalate, and in doing so make its forces vulnerable to low level harassment from the Coast Guard and paramilitary vessels. Sooner rather than later shots will be fired and ships sunk, but with far from the full force of the PLA bearing down on the situation.

It remains to be seen how committed to this move China is. As for now, it's comparatively limited, to last only a couple days and not covering the southern and eastern approaches to Taiwan. It's even possible that some ambitious regional authority is doing this on his own (see: possible explanations for the weather balloon). But it's absolutely an escalation, and it is as representative of China nibbling like a silkworm as anything.

The easy thing would be for Taiwan to offer vigorous protests and do nothing, which is China's expectation. Doing that simply encourages China to do this more and more, though; soon it becomes a regular occurrence, then just the reality on the ground.

Is this the time for China to make its move? Its vassalization of Russia continues. But other less-covered stories are in progress: it's peeling away Saudi Arabia from American influence and recently achieved a diplomatic coup in getting Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore relations.

On the other hand, it still seems too early to me. American forces can more likely than not win in a (costly) fight. China's hope is probably for Taiwan to acquiesce; if challenged, I think it would back down. But this is exactly the type of situation that could spiral out of control.

China is never going to invade Taiwan, it defies sense to attack an island with 22 million people, the size of a county. Storming it D-Day style would be a high risk, costly endeavour that would anger the world. Their tactic will be to gain control of the sea and pressure Taiwan into making agreements, while offering a reunification bonanza of government handouts along the way. Responding by attacking the Chinese navy would be too aggressive by the US, and this approach avoids a costly war.

The worst possible tactic is a naval blockade against a country that is far from self-sufficient.

Their tactic will be to gain control of the sea and pressure Taiwan into making agreements, while offering a reunification bonanza of government handouts along the way.

The impression I've gotten is that this might have been practical before the "one country, two systems" deal for Hong Kong was revealed to be less-than-advertised. Since then, Taiwan has been drifting away from China's orbit, and it's unclear what Xi could do to rebuild sufficient credibility to make a believable offer that sounds better than what the West can offer.

It's unclear to me that "control of the sea" is as practical as advertised. Blockade is (debatably) an act of war, and China's reliance on imports of food and oil are vulnerable to a tit-for-tat retaliation from the West.

China's reliance on imports of food and oil are vulnerable to a tit-for-tat retaliation from the West.

True, but Taiwan is even more dependent on those things and vulnerable to economic coercion. And much of the world is dependent on Chinese trade: South Korea's and Japan's supply chains are deeply rooted in China, and a blockade of China would send them into spiraling into depression. (Making the blockade leakier helps them, but also defeats the purpose.) If it came to some kind of long-lived stalemate, there would be a lot of pressure to wrap things up, even on terms favorable to China.

True, but Taiwan is even more dependent on those things and vulnerable to economic coercion.

Absolutely, there's a world of difference between China's food security issues and Taiwan's. China is 95% secure on the three major cereals: wheat, rice and corn. That means zero starvation in real terms, especially if they economize and ration. They're around 80% on total calories. China mainly imports soy feed for meat, which is a luxury. Herds usually get culled early on in great power warfare, if food security is a problem. China also has land access to Central Asia and good relations with Russia, a major food exporter. They have zero problems with food in real terms. Energy is a much more serious issue.

Meanwhile Taiwan has about 35% food security in total calories. Taiwan is an island and cannot expect resupply by sea. They are completely and totally fucked in a long war.

Japan is almost as fucked, 37% total calories, possibly falling. They can maybe still get some cargo shipping in wartime but there will be serious problems.

Energy is a much more serious issue

Sea routes from the Middle East to China are pretty controlled by US Allies or de facto Allies, so this is probably a very big issue.

Indeed, China's been working land routes for energy, self-sufficiency and so on. It really depends how much energy they need. I imagine a lot of their industry would be shut down if they're at war with the US and allies, so there are savings there. 65% of their energy is used in industry. Whether many of those workers could switch to war work is another question, I doubt China could find ways to employ them all or resources to produce with them.

Between domestic production and Russia, they have enough oil for war use. It's an interesting question as to how much oil is needed for civilian uses in wartime though, or what level of mobilization they choose.

they have enough oil for war use

Citation needed.

Also, an energy blockade of China would be unlikely to just last for the duration of the war. The US proved with Cuba that it can impose sanctions for a long time if it doesn't get what it wants.

Finally, the Chinese government's legitimation heavily comes from its provision of prosperity in return for obedience. The younger generations in China have never known a recession or war. They rapidly forced the government's hand over comparatively undemanding covid policies. I doubt that Xi wants to test just how tough they are again.

Per day, China currently consumes 15M barrels of oil. It produces 4M domestically and can probably import 2M via relatively safe overland routes from Russia. It has at least 700M in state and private reserves. Under a blockade, most of its industry would be idle, and the government would institute rationing; call that a 40% cut in consumption. So it probably has around 350 days before it draws down the reserves. At that point, it would be forced to go from a 40% cut to a 60% cut, though probably it would dynamically adjust its rationing target up as the war dragged on. If China could end the war within a couple months (more pertinently, if it believed it could), it would believe it had secured enough oil to win.

Although China would undoubtedly be in really bad economic shape, so would the rest of the world, including the US and particularly its allies in the region. China is not Cuba, because a fifth of the economy was never reliant on Cuba. The question is which domestic political system would better be able to handle mass unemployment and economic depression. How many people in the US would be willing to sacrifice years of prosperity for Taiwan, especially if China was focused entirely on just controlling trade and not landing soldiers on the land or bombing cities?

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Citation needed.

China is the sixth biggest oil producer on the planet. Four million barrels per day. Plus they're friendly with Russia.

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People usually make the argument that the US managed to supply West Berlin through a blockade; why wouldn't it be able to do the same with Taiwan?

Population West Berlin, 1948:

2.5M

Population Taiwan, 2022:

24M

Taiwan would also be attempting to fight a war, and resupply planes would be being shot at by Chinese forces.

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