[LonePalm]

I would hope so but I don't know. The PLA, and, hence, the CCP don't know either. Uncertainty is a killer when planning a military operation.

It is NOT a forgone conclusion that the West Taiwan could actually take Taiwan even if the US and Japan didn't intervene. With intervention, I think they risk a calamitous defeat on the order of the 1274 & 1281 Mongol invasions of Japan that were destroyed by typhoons, kamikazes or "Divine Winds".

As a bare minimum, West Taiwan will experience a loss of roughly 75% of its oil supply and a third of its food even if sanctions aren't imposed. It will lose 90+% of its export customers indefinitely as few will be willing to do business with them.

SpyNavy

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

[Sobieski at Kahlenberg Mtn.]

There is an Achilles heel that the CCP has and taking it out would destroy them, the 3 Gorges Dam. Taking out the 3 Gorges Dam would release 38 billion cubic meters of water which would destroy Nanjing, Wuhan and Shanghai, the CCPs industrial base.

Also they are planning on building another dam in Tibet on the Yarlung Zangbo River (Brahmaputra in India and Jamuna River in Bangladesh), the Medong County dam. The dam is planned to have three times the hydro power as the 3 Gorges Dam and is located in a seismically active region of the Himalayas. The river flows into India and has created a water war so to speak between the two countries due to India’s concern that the damn will close off water during the dry season.

In mid-2025, India launched a US$77 billion hydropower initiative to construct more than 200 dams in its northeast, especially in Arunachal Pradesh — territory China claims as southern Tibet. With a planned capacity of 75 gigawatts (GW), it mirrors China’s 2025 Yarlung Tsangpo Lower Reaches Hydropower Project, signalling an escalating geopolitical rivalry where hydropower, territorial control and data sovereignty converge.

India aims to transmit more than 76 GW of hydropower from the Brahmaputra basin by 2047 through a vast new network that includes 208 dams and 11 GW of pumped storage. Its centrepiece, the Upper Siang Multipurpose Project — a 280–300 metre, 11 GW dam on the Siang River — would be India’s largest. Framed as green energy, its deeper purpose is to counter China’s upstream control in Tibet and reinforce India’s water and energy security.

Water wars in the future?

[Bob Ireland]

***As a bare minimum, West Taiwan will experience a loss of roughly 75% of its oil supply and a third of its food even if sanctions aren't imposed***

I agree that it is the uncertainty of third party intervention that has tied China's hands in planning a move against Taiwan - for decades!

Almost every day I thank the Lord 🙏 that He somehow fabricated this 'firmament' without supplying oil and many precious minerals to the Chinese realm of power. Let them come hat in hand, not weapons in their fists. 👈