POLL - Likelihood of Taiwan Invasion by China before 2030

[Luca]

Looking forward to results!

[Gregmal]

Next thread, will the US meddle in Taiwan and provoke another war?

[John Hjorth]

@Luca,

 

In my opinion the option : "Unopinionated" is missing. Happy New Year to you.

[rkbabang]

I voted no, but that could be just wishful thinking.  I really don't know.  How can anyone in the west really know what China will do?

[CGJB]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

Next thread, will the US meddle in Taiwan and provoke another war?

 

Spot on. I think this is the bigger threat and has been for the last couple of years.

[Saluki]

They are building up their navy and building artificial islands so that they can claim their territory extends farther into the ocean.  I'm sure that based on their own statements, they plan on taking over Taiwan someday.  But that timeline has probably been pushed back a little when they saw what happened to Russia.  The sanctions and the poor performance of the Russian military equipment and tactics vs the western equipment and tactics probably made them rethink. China buys about 2/3 of it's foreign military equipment from Russia and they train their troops in the same top down manner vs the bottom up manner that relies more on non-commissioned officers being given an objective and using their judgment on how to achieve it.  Taiwan has US weapons and they have western advisors training their military.  I'm sure it's possible for China to go in tomorrow and brute force a takeover if they wanted to, but it would be really ugly and it's not a secret that companies like Taiwan Semiconductor may destroy their plants in a takeover to prevent China from taking it.  Then you wont' have the technologically advanced economy that you admired, but a rock with a lot of angry residents/insurgents.  

[james22]

US intelligence indicates that President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military purge came after it emerged that widespread corruption undermined his efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war, according to people familiar with the assessments.

 

The corruption inside China’s Rocket Force and throughout the nation’s defense industrial base is so extensive that US officials now believe Xi is less likely to contemplate major military action in the coming years than would otherwise have been the case, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing intelligence.

 

https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=56913

[Luca]

Taiwan elections tomorrow! 

[John Hjorth]

1 hour ago, John Hjorth said:

@Luca,

 

In my opinion the option : "Unopinionated" is missing. Happy New Year to you.

 

@Luca,

 

Are you able to add it?

[Luca]

10 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

 

@Luca,

 

Are you able to add it?

Will check after work

[Cevian]

Related to the discussion on BABA/TCEHY, and Chinese stocks in general, no matter how much fundamental analysis one does, the Taiwan question is the only one that matters.

 

I write as someone who is looking at his Russian sanctioned shares (Lukoil, Gazprom, Sberbank, etc.), purchased at incredible valuations but now sitting in frozen accounts with regular emails from brokers asking me to move the positions which no one wants to custody. The interesting part is that all of these positions have large unrealised gains when looking at Moscow exchange prices.

 

BTW, I'm a sucker for deals so I'm long BABA/TCEHY and they are a large part of the portfolio. I never learn I guess.

[ValueArb]

1 hour ago, Saluki said:

They are building up their navy and building artificial islands so that they can claim their territory extends farther into the ocean.  I'm sure that based on their own statements, they plan on taking over Taiwan someday.  But that timeline has probably been pushed back a little when they saw what happened to Russia.  The sanctions and the poor performance of the Russian military equipment and tactics vs the western equipment and tactics probably made them rethink. China buys about 2/3 of it's foreign military equipment from Russia and they train their troops in the same top down manner vs the bottom up manner that relies more on non-commissioned officers being given an objective and using their judgment on how to achieve it.  Taiwan has US weapons and they have western advisors training their military.  I'm sure it's possible for China to go in tomorrow and brute force a takeover if they wanted to, but it would be really ugly and it's not a secret that companies like Taiwan Semiconductor may destroy their plants in a takeover to prevent China from taking it.  Then you wont' have the technologically advanced economy that you admired, but a rock with a lot of angry residents/insurgents.  

 

1. They are building artifical islands so they can better control the south china sea, which is the gateway for 90% of their foreign trade and linchpin of their economy.

2. They've been blustering about Taiwan for 70 years and have never done anything.

3. China basically hasn't conducted offensive military campaigns for hundreds of years, they are huge but insular and have always valued holding their country together over expansionism.

4. One exception to 3) was the invasion of Vietnam in the 70s. It wasn't expansionism per se, more an attempt to bring Vietnam to heel and China got their ass kicked.

5. Its extremely unlikely China can brute force an invasion of Taiwan. Russia could conduct a surprise invasion of Ukraine by just by driving tanks and trucks up anywhere on a thousand mile border, China has to sail troops for 10 hours over ocean while being easily monitored and subject to missile barrages for hours before they can even see shore and start taking direct fire from artillery, machine guns and Javelins.

6. Anyone who doesn't understand how many times harder amphibious operations are should just ask Hitler why he never authorized Operation Sea Lion to cross the relatively tiny English Channel and invade Britain. Or to look up the casualty counts we took in Okinawa despite total air and sea superiority and the months it took to clear out the resistance in an island a tenth the size of Taiwan.

7. As you described, even if China wins Xi is not going to gain economically. China will be subject to robust sanctions for years, maybe decades, and all the TSMC engineers will flee to the west so that even if the plants aren't demoed into rubble China won't have the skills to keep them operating. 

8. Xi knows all of these things. More importantly for him are #1 and #3, because even if he could easily overwhelm Taiwan the South China Sea won't be re-opening for trade for a very long time, plunging China into a depression with mass unemployment and young people marching in the streets and Tiananmen Square, and risking his control of the country.

Edited January 12 by ValueArb

[Luca]

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3248296/us-house-passes-finance-bills-bolstering-taiwan-and-squeezing-china-ahead-islands-presidential

 

 

[Gregmal]

Bottom line is you can’t have a realistic or rational conversation about China with 95% of the American or Canadian population. 

[Gregmal]

Just now, Luca said:

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3248296/us-house-passes-finance-bills-bolstering-taiwan-and-squeezing-china-ahead-islands-presidential

 

 

Yes it’s as old as time and bipartisan…when all else fails, pick a fight with (insert China, Russia, Middle East)….

[John Hjorth]

12 minutes ago, Cevian said:

I write as someone who is looking at his Russian sanctioned shares (Lukoil, Gazprom, Sberbank, etc.), purchased at incredible valuations but now sitting in frozen accounts with regular emails from brokers asking me to move the positions which no one wants to custody. The interesting part is that all of these positions have large unrealised gains when looking at Moscow exchange prices.

 

BTW, I'm a sucker for deals so I'm long BABA/TCEHY and they are a large part of the portfolio. I never learn I guess.

 

 @Cevian,

 

#metoo.

 

I have moved all that trash / breadcrumbs for a few family members to a taxable account of mine personally, containing such stuff, to avoid *noise* intrafamily.

 

Luckily all minors, not much above trackers. What still strikes me is, that these losses are caused by sanctions imposed by the West, not Putin & Co. in his ongoing doings related to warfare. *sigh*. No PTSD over the loss, though. Just move on, and something learned.

[zippy1]

On Youtube, there are several very good interviews with Oriana Skylar Mastro explaining the situation and the calculation involved.    I would encourage anyone interested in this question to watch these videos.   
 
Taiwanese stock market closed near its all time high on Friday, January 12th.  Both the TPP and th DPP candidates said that they would follow Ms. Tsai's foreign policy.  If KMT were to win the election, the tension probably will be lowered somwhat in the short term.    After the election, I doubt the new administraion will do anything.  Certainly, anything but starting a war.   China probably will rattle its sabre like it always do over the past 70 years. This, of course, can increase the probabilities of an accidental conflict due to increased military activities.  But probably not a planned invasion right now.   

Whether and when an invasion would occur in the next few years is not so related to the election today.
It depends more on who win the US election on Nov. 5th, in my opinion.   

Edited January 12 by zippy1

[shhughes1116]

There won’t be an invasion of Taiwan.  
 

Pulling off a seaborne landing is quite literally the hardest military endeavor to pull-off.  Look at the Western Theater in World War Two and the Allied experience at Dieppe, during Operation Torch, during Operation Husky, and the fighting at Salerno, at Anzio, at Normandy.  And look at the USMC experience in the Pacific.  Except for Dieppe, all of these landings were pulled off with complete air supremacy, complete naval supremacy, and overwhelming numbers of landing troops.  The U.S. and the British are the only countries in the world with extensive real-world experience at pulling off contested seaborne landings and subsequently supporting them logistically.  
 

Now look at Taiwan.  The island is bristling with air defense, ground-launched anti-ship missiles, and a coastline that makes seaborne landings challenging to execute and support. The PLA won’t achieve air supremacy or even superiority, and they won’t achieve naval supremacy.  It would be like Omaha Beach x 100 for the Chinese, and that assumes the PLA marines even get to the beach which I doubt.  
 

 once the initial attack is repulsed, you can expect Taiwan to start launching cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against the staging areas on the Chinese coastline.  
 

We haven’t even addressed the idea of drones, or the very likely military support from the U.S., Japan, the Philippines, and South Korea.  
 

Xi knows that the odds of military success are as close to the zero bound as possible.  Threats of invasion are just bluster. 

[james22]

Better to threaten and be thought weak than to invade and remove all doubt.

[shhughes1116]

3 hours ago, james22 said:

Better to threaten and be thought weak than to invade and remove all doubt.

I like that play on Lincoln’s quote - well-said. 

[WayWardCloud]

All great points above. Let me add one. Due to one child policy and the cost of living in big cities + education, a lot of households only have one male heir for four grand parents and they have invested absolutely all they have on him. Losing your only son/grandson means the end of the lineage and that's considered the ultimate failure in a Confucian society. The government can't afford to lose lives on the front, unlike with Russians who also have horrendous demographics but are culturally used to sending their sons to the meat grinder every few decades Chinese families wouldn't accept it for long.

 

All our arguments above assume rationality though, it all goes out of the window if the top dog in a corrupt regime is too far gone inside his yes men bubble. I'm guessing that's not the case here so I voted no.

[Luca]

7 hours ago, WayWardCloud said:

All great points above. Let me add one. Due to one child policy and the cost of living in big cities + education, a lot of households only have one male heir for four grand parents and they have invested absolutely all they have on him. Losing your only son/grandson means the end of the lineage and that's considered the ultimate failure in a Confucian society. The government can't afford to lose lives on the front, unlike with Russians who also have horrendous demographics but are culturally used to sending their sons to the meat grinder every few decades Chinese families wouldn't accept it for long.

 

All our arguments above assume rationality though, it all goes out of the window if the top dog in a corrupt regime is too far gone inside his yes men bubble. I'm guessing that's not the case here so I voted no.

This is a very good point in mentality difference, if their first born son gets absolutely destroyed by the defensive wall when entering taiwan and these pictures go on live telly, there will be absolutely massive unrest. 

 

China could just bombard taiwan from distance with rockets but what good does it do to them if they kill 15m and have an empty island without any important ressources, supply chain broken, forever ruined national reputation etc

[shhughes1116]

8 hours ago, Luca said:

This is a very good point in mentality difference, if their first born son gets absolutely destroyed by the defensive wall when entering taiwan and these pictures go on live telly, there will be absolutely massive unrest. 

 

China could just bombard taiwan from distance with rockets but what good does it do to them if they kill 15m and have an empty island without any important ressources, supply chain broken, forever ruined national reputation etc

Those pictures won’t need to go live on the television.  Dead Chinese marines and sailors would be washing up on the shores of China for all to see first-hand.  Hard to censor that. 
 

And remember that firing cruise missiles and ballistic missiles is not a one-way thing.  Taiwan has plenty of ordinance to launch into China.  

[Luca]

1 hour ago, shhughes1116 said:

Those pictures won’t need to go live on the television.  Dead Chinese marines and sailors would be washing up on the shores of China for all to see first-hand.  Hard to censor that. 
 

And remember that firing cruise missiles and ballistic missiles is not a one-way thing.  Taiwan has plenty of ordinance to launch into China. 

And this is 100% not what the CCP wants. I guess with mutually assured destruction we can easily see this conflict drag on through the generations and maybe even find a peaceful happy ending at some point.

[Luca]

If only taiwan could get nuclear weapons