[Magnum44]

Navies don't seize wooded mountainous terrain or charge onto beaches... As for the PRC Navy... they aren't that experienced with amphibious warfare, secondly they don't have American equipment like Taiwan does...

You don't need to take the mountains initially. Just get a beachheach, an airport, and threaten enough economic destruction with 500 cruise missiles to get the status quo fence riders to say "Why cant we just get along?". And I dont know where you assume they have no amphib capability. They exercise it every year during the summer and the exercise grows larger in number each year. As I said, they are not great at it, but they are getting better all the time.

It did not take any more than a few homemade bombs to change the government of spain.

[Arkinsaw]

You don't need to take the mountains initially. Just get a beachheach, an airport, and threaten enough economic destruction with 500 cruise missiles to get the status quo fence riders to say "Why cant we just get along?".

That is a lot different than seizing Taiwan militarily. The PRC can pound Taiwan with missiles certainly and can threaten destruction but that is NOT the same as conducting a successful amphibious invasion.

As for conducting exercises...so what....Syria conducted exercises also and yet couldn't shoot down a single F-16 while losing their air force. Lots of people conduct exercises but that is NO evidence that they are capable of carrying out those missions when opposed by a defending force.

It did not take any more than a few homemade bombs to change the government of spain.

That is far different than conducting one of the largest amphibious operations ever when opposed by a defender with military technology proven to be better than yours. We are talking about amphibious invasion to seize Taiwan, not potential cowardly governments in Taipei.

While I don't agree with you about the cowardice of the Taiwanese, it is much more plausible a scenario than China successfully conquering the island in a stand up fight.