China’s Drills Around Taiwan Give Hint About Its Strategy

Wall Street Journal ^ | Aug. 4, 2022 1:31 pm ET | Charles Hutzler

[Zhang Fei]

A full naval blockade banning all ship traffic would be considered an act of war. China is much more likely to launch a selective quarantine—an option discussed in Chinese military journals, Dr. Martin said. That would give Chinese authorities the option to interdict some vessels while allowing supplies of food, for example, to go through.

That approach places the burden of escalation on the incoming ships, which need to decide whether to cooperate or resist, according to a research paper on the use of coercive quarantines that Dr. Martin co-wrote at Rand.

China has invested heavily in its navy, outnumbering the U.S. in ships, and has made advances in anti-submarine warfare. Faced with a Chinese cordon, the U.S. might have to decide whether to risk a shooting exchange or capitulate, the Rand paper said.

“Inaction is tantamount to accepting the PRC’s actions,” the paper said, using the initials for the People’s Republic of China.

A Taiwan quarantine is the kind of low-intensity challenge that the U.S. might find tricky to manage, analysts said. The U.S. is bound by law to ensure Taiwan can defend itself. Beyond that, the U.S. has maintained a policy called strategic ambiguity which raises the prospect of but doesn’t explicitly promise American intervention in hopes of keeping both Beijing and Taipei from resorting to force. President Biden has promised the U.S. would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked, though analysts said the ambiguity remains in other scenarios.

A blockade or a quarantine are scenarios that members of the national security establishment and some members of Congress say the U.S. military and Taiwan’s forces aren’t ready for. They have called on the U.S. to build a bigger Navy and invest in bases to disperse military assets around the Asia-Pacific region.

[Zhang Fei]

Biden has repeatedly said he will come to Taiwan's defense. While other officials have backed off this assertion, that's likely a fig leaf so no one can say the US got the ball rolling re a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Xi has likely received, in private, Biden's assurance that Uncle Sam will help fight off a Chinese invasion. Which makes the project a risky one for Xi, given that Chinese rulers who either rack up serious losses in victory, or outright lose wars can and have come to bad ends.

[devere]

Maybe just give Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea some nuclear weapons, and let the gangsters in Beijing sweat for a change.

[buwaya]

Re the blockade strategy - I predicted this for years. I am a prophet it seems.

[AndyJackson]

It’s still an act of war.

[lightman]

China: Allow supplies of food to get through

Taiwan: WTF...not so bad.

China: Tighten the noose.

[11th_VA]

It’s still an act of war

So is firing on our ships and planes … but not much will come of it these days … I’m just being a realist - our country is so divided, any country with the will, can wait us out …

[Zhang Fei]

[Maybe just give Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea some nuclear weapons, and let the gangsters in Beijing sweat for a change.]

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The Samson strategy, of pulling the temple down over your enemies, is worthless, because it’s a literal dead end. Most leaders will surrender rather than exterminate their own people by initiating a nuclear strike. As long as Uncle Sam provides a nuclear umbrella, they are safe from nuclear strikes. Giving them nukes only prevents a Chinese nuclear attack without also preventing a conventional invasion.

The specter of irrecoverable population losses and the dismemberment of their countries is why neither Putin nor Xi will initiate a nuclear attack. Because losing 90% of your population via nuclear exchange is a much bigger loss than any possible conventional military defeat. You can come back from the second. You can’t come back from the first.

[PGR88]

Maybe just give Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea some nuclear weapons, and let the gangsters in Beijing sweat for a change.

I've always wondered if Kim's nukes in North Korea aren't really a deterrent against / warning to China. In reality, who has the most influence and power in DPRK, and thus is more able to achieve regime change there? The USA? Japan? Or China?

[Zhang Fei]

[So is firing on our ships and planes … but not much will come of it these days … I’m just being a realist - our country is so divided, any country with the will, can wait us out … ]

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There’s an unrealistic expectation that every conflict is like WWII. The reality is that WWII was the outlier, the exception to the rule. It was expensive to fight in terms of casualties and cash outlays (2 years’ economic output, or $44T based on today’s economy) because the end objective was the occupation of the enemy’s capital. What’s more typical are the limited outcomes of the Spanish-American War and the Russo-Japanese War. Win or lose, that’s what the Japanese were counting on when they struck Pearl Harbor. While they were wrong, they were operating on solid historical grounds.

[Navy Patriot]

Not sure Mainland China can't come back from a Thermonuclear exchange.

They've come back from everything else the world could throw at 'em for 6000 years.

Adding in that the rest of America's Ideas to make Communist China a Democrat Prog Socialist "Democratic" Paradise have failed in Reverse so badly it's laughable, it might be unwise to prod the Commies with Nuke threats.

[devere]

I believe that you are mistaken.

[glorgau]

The crews will be getting more pronoun training.

[montag813]

It’s really pathetic how few revolutionary war technologies have been developed over the past 40 years. No tactial EMPs, no effective laser weapons, no “force field” defenses of any kind. Just munitions, fighter jets and carriers. Yawn.

[Zhang Fei]

[Not sure Mainland China can’t come back from a Thermonuclear exchange.

They’ve come back from everything else the world could throw at ‘em for 6000 years.]

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That’s a misnomer. The China of today is not the China of thousands of years ago. The elites are different (being mostly from the barbarian tribes who conquered the Chinese of antiquity and the medieval era, much as the offspring of the conquering Normans became the elites of the British Isles) and the languages are different. China’s imperial propaganda and national myths are not the same as the reality, which is of dozens of ruling houses rising and falling, but always at each other’s throats, and of empires falling apart and coalescing at different times. In the past 2000 years, the longest-lived Chinese ruling house lasted ~400 years, only a century longer than the Plantagenets, whose last king was Richard III. And even that ruling house really only lasted 200 years, as it was interrupted by a blue blood who took the throne for himself, but was overthrown by a cadet branch (i.e. non-royal descendant) of the founder who had reverted to the peasantry whence the founder arose.

A China with 100m people suffering from radiation sickness would immediately be attacked and dismembered by every one of its neighbors, from Korea to Vietnam. I could see the Chinese garrisons and populations in Inner Mongolia, Tibet and East Turkistan being literally exterminated to the last, similar to what occurred during a prior dynastic collapse:

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_Revolution
[After the Xi’an Manchu quarter fell on 24 October, Xinhai forces killed all the Manchus in the city, about 20,000 Manchus were killed in the massacre.[81][82] Many of its Manchu defenders committed suicide, including Qing general Wenrui (文瑞), who threw himself down a well.[81] Only some wealthy Manchus who were ransomed and Manchu females survived. Wealthy Han Chinese seized Manchu girls to become their slaves[83] and poor Han Chinese troops seized young Manchu women to be their wives.[84] Young Manchu girls were also seized by Hui Muslims of Xi’an during the massacre and brought up as Muslims.[85]

On 2 December, Nanking City was captured by the revolutionaries after the Battle of Nanking, 1911.[76] On 3 December, revolutionary Su Liangbi led troops in a massacre of a large number of Manchus (the exact number is not known)]

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And every one of the Turkic/Mongolic stans would come calling to avenge every last of their centuries of humiliation/massacres at Chinese hands.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungar_genocide

[Zhang Fei]

They've come back from everything else the world could throw at 'em for 6000 years.

China did not exist as a unitary state 6000 years ago. Even 4500 years ago, the Northeast Asian mainland looked like this:

The first Chinese empire came into being 2200 years ago:

That was 1/2 the size of Alexander's empire and 1/4 of the land area of today's China.

[pepsi_junkie]

Just munitions, fighter jets and carriers. Yawn.

Hypersonic missiles are pretty revolutionary. Sadly it's the other side leading the way there, at least as far as public information shows.

[Navy Patriot]

Your list of outsiders winning conflicts with China is impressive, and I would point out, THAT is exactly what China has repeatedly recovered from to it's most powerful point in it's history.

(Thanks also to a more than generous boost from the United States.)

Additionally, following a Thermonuclear exchange, China won't be the only place with radiation sickness and the consequences of that exchange, but it just might be the place with the LEAST radiation sickness and consequences.

I'm sure Looters and Criminals Worldwide will descend on all the combatant Nations for their spoils and grudges, but I'm NOT sure that China will get the worst of it and fail to survive this last time, while I'm pretty sure more Liberal Elite Cultures are too far removed from basic human survival skills and will not survive.

It might be unwise to find out.

[McGruff]

“The U.S. is bound by law to ensure Taiwan can defend itself.”

What law is that?

[Navy Patriot]

China did not exist as a unitary state 6000 years ago. Even 4500 years ago ...

And now they do, larger and stronger than they have ever been in history.

Still think it's unwise to Fluff Pelosi for her performance before the cameras.

[Tallguy]

The Biden Administration is lawless. IOW’s there isn’t a law on the books that they won’t ignore if it is inconvenient of will not serve to perpetuate their wealth/power.