They will take Taiwan without anyone firing a shot.
The people of Taiwan travel to China with regularity. Families are in both places. The rank and file, don’t care all that much.
Of course, the people running the country care.
China does not have the sea lift capacity to take Taiwan. Air superiority is not going to cut it. With the missiles on Taiwan, any sea invasion would be mostly at the bottom of the Straits before they got half way there. China would not risk their aircraft carriers or their ports—which would come under attack.
If the US got involved, we would lose carriers and likely the Long Beach, San Francisco, and Seattle Ports. The Panama Canal would be closed. Japan would be heavily attacked.
China would be shut off from middle eastern oil. The pipelines from Russia are so fragile it would take a couple of cruise missiles to destroy them. There are two of them.
China would lose its largest trading bloc. Their economy would go further into the tank. They would be left trading with Russia and India.
Does anyone think China is going to risk that?
All of this talk about China “taking” Taiwan by force is done to trigger people. Biden’s ineptness has made it more triggering. But the facts on the ground do not support China moving on a place like Taiwan for a long, long time.
Before you get too far down the rabbit hole, ask yourselves...”How would that happen and what would it look like?”
Does anyone think China is going to risk that?
Yes
What munitions would it take to destroy the Three Gorges Dam so that it would have to be completely rebuilt? How much downstream damage and power loss would that cause them?
I would think in a war it would be an immediate priority target.
Not to mention that IF China gets into any kind of actual shooting match with Taiwan they would destroy their own export market.
This would be akin to asking the average American to buy Japanese or German made products during WWII. I do my best to not buy anything MADE in CHINA currently. IF China invades Taiwan people will rally round the flag. Nike might as well close those factories in China and move them to Vietnam.