An accurate analysis of the situation. China’s bluff is that they have so very many men they can afford to lose. Cannon fodder. That has some merit in a land assault.
An amphibious assault is a completely different thing altogether. Especially when it is known and expected. The CCP would be the victims of a shooting gallery in those waters.
Precision munitions raining down on their assault fleet would minimize if not eliminate that threat.
We and the Taiwanese would quickly establish Air Superiority. The CCP would try to attack our naval assets with hypersonic anti-ship missiles but, even were they to succeed in damaging or sinking a couple of naval assets they can’t sink DG or Guam. Or, CUBI Pt.
Their failure would be humiliating. And, in their culture that level of humiliation is completely unacceptable. Ritual suicide is common for failures far below this level of humiliation.
Of course, if they resort to insane levels of desperation they could nuke Taiwan. That would be the ultimate FU to Taiwan and the USA. Knowing full well the USA would never engage in a nuclear war for Taiwan.
Let’s pray the CCP is very far from that level of desperation.
You want to stop an amphibious invasion. Lay minefields... lots of them. The reason that the landings at Inchon (1950) were the last (major) amphibious operation wasn’t for lack of planning. There was supposed to be another landing on the Korean eastcoast. The Koreans laid minefields at the approaches to the most suitable beaches. The Iraqi’s did the same thing during Gulf War I. Gen. Schwarzkopf never seriously considered doing an amphibious landing. 2 major navy ships — a cruiser and a helicopter carrier — hit mines anyway.