It might be a one-two, China scheme with North Korea, which as been silent recently, to create a distraction. Then China will address Taiwan. I think there is several windows, key is before November, else before January. Lastly after January, depends on who wins in November.
No.
They won’t invade. They don’t need to.
All they need to do is impose a blockade.
Houthi terrorists have been blockading the Suez Canal for six months with zero navy vessels, and the US navy seems incapable of doing anything about it.
China has 10,000 times the resources of the Houthis, and can easily blockade Taiwan without a single navy ship.
US carriers are always outside the 1200 mile range of the Chinese coast, because of DF-21 hypersonics. Which means that US carrier based planes cannot even reach Taiwan.
I fail to understand why China has such a “Hard on” for Taiwan. Perhaps someone can explain it
to all of us?
It seems I heard that bad weather sets in around Taiwan about Sept/Oct so I’d guess before then... if it is to happen.
I’d guess that is about the same time frame for Ukraine to blow up in everyone’s face as well... unless someone does something really stupid and it happens sooner...
Pray...
How?
I know China is BIG, but so is Taiwan. The sealift power to move that many troops 135 miles across open sea would be enormous. And that is 135 miles of open sea under and umbrella of land to sea missiles the likes of which no other country as amassed.
In WWII, Okinawa was the last amphibious operation of the war; accordingly, it dwarfed all previous landings. The ground force included 183,000 combat troops drawn from the army and marines, with an additional 120,000 service troops and engineers. The transport and logistical fleet consisted of more than 1,200 ships.
Okinawa 463 sq miles. Taiwan is 13,974 sq miles.
No one is invading Taiwan without a significant build up of sea transport. That build up would be visible to anyone with a satellite. And it would take a long time to ramp up.
No…A Chinese invasion of Taiwan is not happening any time soon. It is a construct of American politicians to generate a sense of fear and urgency here.
Ukraine ping
It won’t happen for years yet, because China’s not ready. If Russia hadn’t gotten bogged down in Ukraine, Xi might already have moved. Ukraine’s equipment inventory is sparse compared to Taiwan’s. It is being resupplied with a trickle of weaponry, mostly outdated equipment retrieved before it was to be scrapped. The invasion and annexation of Ukraine should have been completed within weeks if not months. The Russians were crossing a land border into a country that was, in the areas attacked, flat as a pancake. And yet Russia remains stalemated 2+ years into the war.
Taiwan not only has more up to date weapons in quantity, it is also a traditional US ally. Up until 1979, when Carter abrogated the treaty, it was a treaty ally with an American air base on the island, a fact reflected on the big screen twice in both Top Gun and the reboot, through the ROC patch on Maverick’s flight jacket. Any invasion involving a water crossing - especially a 100 mile crossing - is a risky one. Add to that the fact that the US has four treaty and numerous non-treaty allies in the vicinity chockful of supplies and with reasons of their own to fear the end of American protection if they balk when called upon over Taiwan’s defense, and the Chinese gamble becomes way more risky than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Like all rulers, Xi is prestige-loving. Like Deng (of “Hide your strength, bide your time” fame), who stood pat on Taiwan, however, he has likely calculated, from Ukraine’s fierce resistance against Russia’s attempts to make further inroads, that any attempt against Taiwan could run into the same obstacles but worse, because of Taiwan’s advantages over Ukraine in equipment quality and quantity and geography (the 100 mile water barrier). And the wild card of direct US intervention would elevate the risk to a completely different level, since both in- and out-of-area allies would be compelled to assist the US, out of fear of the withdrawal of Pax Americana, win or lose.
A background factor is the obvious inferiority of Russian equipment, on which China’s inventory is based. In fact, much of China’s gear consists of inferior clones of Russia’s equipment. That’s a slender reed upon to base going toe-to-toe with the biggest economy and military power in the world, which is joined at the hip to allies that not only rely on its massive market and use many American products, but also rely on the US for military protection.
There is a reason why the biggest semiconductor manufacture setup its facility new facility in AZ.
If TSMC looses Apple, they loose everything.
I believe there will be no military invasion within the time frame you noted.
Am willing to wager to that effect with interested parties.
To answer your question there is absolutely nothing that can benefit China by attacking Taiwan. So it’s doubtful they would try.
Caveats are that Xi is actually crazy. And if the communist party is being overthrown by the Chinese people.
No.
They are already winning.
Slowly but surely, they are subverting the government bureaucracy, changing public perceptions and influencing the political parties in Taiwan.
Taiwan will eventually become theirs without a shot UNLESS we take immediate and large scale action to counter their operations.
Mainland China is doing in Taiwan what we did in Ukraine and in 2014 (Maiden) Ukraine became “ours.”
How these things really work: https://www.quora.com/Is-there-any-credible-evidence-that-Ukraines-2014-revolution-was-due-to-a-CIA-coup/answer/Kylee-Smith-83 (not everyone can do these kind of things, but PRC can)
They’re making it theirs through trade, NGO’s, the media, their big tech, their state department, military pressure...
https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/why-taiwans-main-opposition-party-cant-shake-its-pro-china-stance/
VOA is US government propaganda, flat out. This is how they spin it: https://www.voanews.com/a/china-friendly-opposition-politician-elected-legislative-speaker-in-taiwan/7466648.html
The PRC already has it’s hands deep inside Taiwan.
The PRC is very patient and able to sustain a long term agenda unlike us where every few years everything changes because of the government turn-over.