Taiwan is so close to China I can’t see us heading over there and what ‘freeing’ Taiwan. All China has to do is take her again. Right there, no problem moving anyone into the area to protect their acquisition.
The Chinese have a massive 1.4 Billion people, and by far the biggest army in the world, plus a massive manufacturing base.
Don’t be so quick to bet against them.
First off, I don’t think you’d find anything near the level of primal violence you saw on Okinawa. There would not be Taiwanese Chinese mothers throwing their babies off cliffs rather than to surrender them to the Chinese communists. Your point is very well taken though. Why invade when you could starve them out. Invasion or blockade, it all comes down to what will the USN do at crunch time. The sinking of a US carrier is the point of no return.
China would invade, but it would not be a large cross-strait landing. It would be the insertion of special ops units for clandestine action, sabotage and mayhem. They may stay there as a headache for the Taiwanese, or be extricated once they’ve done what they had set out to do. Then, China would initiate a full air and sea blockade, and wait for nature to take its course.
The blockade could be followed up by a biological attack further “justifying” the blockade.