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"Wow, we have some real fear of China on here."

Not fear so much as healthy respect. Avoiding war with China where reasonably possible should be a priority in dealing with things like the Taiwan question. Can we beat China in a military conflict? Sure. Will we have to abandon most of our commitments throughout the world and redeploy a massive chunk of our military to deal with them? Yes, and that's bad. Would we lose men and equipment hand-over-fist beating China, let alone actually landing on Chinese soil? Yes, and that's worse.

"I respect there abilities but what exactly would China do?"

They'd take Taiwan.

"They can't project force anywhere"

They can project force all the way to Japan if they so chose. China's been beefing up their military capabilities since the Soviet Union fell. Now they have strike capabilities that can overwhelm many countries' defensive capabilities.

"they would lose horribly there in a naval and air battle with US forces."

You really need to check out the Senate hearings on this issue. Generally speaking, it seems that the military is confident we can beat China, but at an extraordinary cost in terms of money, equipment, and lives. We've been cutting our military down while China's been beefing their's up. That, eventually, will catch up to anyone. With our forces as spread out as they are at the moment, we're especially vulnerable to large-scale conflicts.

Could we mobilize in time to save Taiwan? That depends on how long Taiwan holds off a Chinese attack and how fast China can do what it needs to do. If China's smart enough to have special forces already on the island nation sabotaging things like power and communications, Taiwan is screwed. China would have control of it before US military forces had a chance to do much of anything to stop them. I seriously doubt we would launch any sort of mission to free Taiwan once it's been captured. Such an action would commit us to a full-scale conventional war with China.

"They'd take Taiwan."

Sounds easy but it isn't. Taiwan has a capable air force and navy...China does not have a great amphib infrastructure and even less capable when you consider training. There are some easily defensive mountains in Taiwan IF they got on shore in any size force.

The US air power would be available on the initial assault in a standoff mode to help reduce the Chinese aircraft. We are not going to have 2 carriers in the Pacific fleet that will be there in short order. In reality, the Chinese ability to take Taiwan is in serious doubt.

"They can project force all the way to Japan if they so chose"

All the way...to Japan...that's not that far...and they couldn't sustain an attack on Japan,,,the Japanese airpower and navy is very technologically sound. You are totally overestimating the ability of Japan to project power. Striking at somebody is not real projection of power. They couldn't grap anything as important as Taiwan or Japan and would never be able to logistically maintain it even if they could. Those forces would be cut off very quickly with mulitiple carriers and deep long range strike aircraft pounding the Chinese and their sealanes for reinforcements and supply.