Two different pieces have come out recently, painting competing pictures of what a Chinese attempt to conquer Taiwan would look like. First up, this Samson Ellis piece for Bloomberg:
Beijing’s optimistic version of events goes something like this: Prior to an invasion, cyber and electronic warfare units would target Taiwan’s financial system and key infrastructure, as well as U.S. satellites to reduce notice of impending ballistic missiles. Chinese vessels could also harass ships around Taiwan, restricting vital supplies of fuel and food.
Airstrikes would quickly aim to kill Taiwan’s top political and military leaders, while also immobilizing local defenses. The Chinese military has described some drills as “decapitation” exercises, and satellite imagery shows its training grounds include full-scale replicas of targets such as the Presidential Office Building.
An invasion would follow, with PLA warships and submarines traversing some 130 kilometers (80 miles) across the Taiwan Strait. Outlying islands such as Kinmen and Pratas could be quickly subsumed before a fight for the Penghu archipelago, which sits just 50 kilometers from Taiwan and is home to bases for all three branches of its military. A PLA win here would provide it with a valuable staging point for a broader attack.
As Chinese ships speed across the strait, thousands of paratroopers would appear above Taiwan’s coastlines, looking to penetrate defenses, capture strategic buildings and establish beachheads through which the PLA could bring in tens of thousands of soldiers who would secure a decisive victory.
In reality, any invasion is likely to be much riskier. Taiwan has prepared for one for decades, even if lately it has struggled to match China’s growing military advantage.
Taiwan’s main island has natural defenses: Surrounded by rough seas with unpredictable weather, its rugged coastline offers few places with a wide beach suitable for a large ship that could bring in enough troops to subdue its 24 million people. The mountainous terrain is riddled with tunnels designed to keep key leaders alive, and could provide cover for insurgents if China established control.
Taiwan in 2018 unveiled a plan to boost asymmetric capabilities like mobile missile systems that could avoid detection, making it unlikely Beijing could quickly destroy all of its defensive weaponry. With thousands of surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft guns, Taiwan could inflict heavy losses on the Chinese invasion force before it reached the main island.
Taiwan’s military has fortified defenses around key landing points and regularly conducts drills to repel Chinese forces arriving by sea and from the air. In July outside of the western port of Taichung, Apache helicopters, F-16s and Taiwan’s own domestically developed fighter jets sent plumes of seawater into the sky as they fired offshore while M60 tanks, artillery guns and missile batteries pummeled targets on the beach.
Chinese troops who make it ashore would face roughly 175,000 full-time soldiers and more than 1 million reservists ready to resist an occupation. Taiwan this week announced it would set up a defense mobilization agency to ensure they were better prepared for combat, the Taipei Times reported.
Doesn’t sound like a cakewalk, does it?
This Tanner Greer piece in Foreign Policy like Beijing’s chances even less:
When Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke to the 19th Party Congress about the future of Taiwan last year, his message was ominous and unequivocal: “We have firm will, full confidence, and sufficient capability to defeat any form of Taiwan independence secession plot. We will never allow any person, any organization, or any political party to split any part of the Chinese territory from China at any time or in any form.”
This remark drew the longest applause of his entire three-hour speech—but it’s not a new message. The invincibility of Chinese arms in the face of Taiwanese “separatists” and the inevitability of reunification are constant Chinese Communist Party themes. At its base, the threat made by Xi is that the People’s Liberation Army has the power to defeat the Taiwanese military and destroy its democracy by force, if need be. Xi understands the consequences of failure here. “We have the determination, the ability and the preparedness to deal with Taiwanese independence,” he stated in 2016, “and if we do not deal with it, we will be overthrown.”
Snip.
Two recent studies, one by Michael Beckley, a political scientist at Tufts University, and the other by Ian Easton, a fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, in his book The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia, provide us with a clearer picture of what a war between Taiwan and the mainland might look like. Grounded in statistics, training manuals, and planning documents from the PLA itself, and informed by simulations and studies conducted by both the U.S. Defense Department and the Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense, this research presents a very different picture of a cross-strait conflict than that hawked by the party’s official announcements.
Chinese commanders fear they may be forced into armed contest with an enemy that is better trained, better motivated, and better prepared for the rigors of warfare than troops the PLA could throw against them. A cross-strait war looks far less like an inevitable victory for China than it does a staggeringly risky gamble.
Chinese army documents imagine that this gamble will begin with missiles. For months, the PLA’s Rocket Force will have been preparing this opening salvo; from the second war begins until the day the invasion commences, these missiles will scream toward the Taiwanese coast, with airfields, communication hubs, radar equipment, transportation nodes, and government offices in their sights. Concurrently, party sleeper agents or special forces discreetly ferried across the strait will begin an assassination campaign targeting the president and her Cabinet, other leaders of the Democratic Progressive Party, officials at key bureaucracies, prominent media personalities, important scientists or engineers, and their families.
The goal of all this is twofold. In the narrower tactical sense, the PLA hopes to destroy as much of the Taiwanese Air Force on the ground as it can and from that point forward keep things chaotic enough on the ground that the Taiwan’s Air Force cannot sortie fast enough to challenge China’s control of the air. The missile campaign’s second aim is simpler: paralysis. With the president dead, leadership mute, communications down, and transportation impossible, the Taiwanese forces will be left rudderless, demoralized, and disoriented. This “shock and awe” campaign will pave the way for the invasion proper.
This invasion will be the largest amphibious operation in human history. Tens of thousands of vessels will be assembled—mostly commandeered from the Chinese merchant marine—to ferry 1 million Chinese troops across the strait, who will arrive in two waves. Their landing will be preceded by a fury of missiles and rockets, launched from the Rocket Force units in Fujian, Chinese Air Force fighter bombers flying in the strait, and the escort fleet itself.
Confused, cut off, and overwhelmed, the Taiwanese forces who have survived thus far will soon run out of supplies and be forced to abandon the beaches. Once the beachhead is secured, the process will begin again: With full air superiority, the PLA will have the pick of their targets, Taiwanese command and control will be destroyed, and isolated Taiwanese units will be swept aside by the Chinese army’s advance. Within a week, they will have marched into Taipei; within two weeks they will have implemented a draconian martial law intended to convert the island into the pliant forward operating base the PLA will need to defend against the anticipated Japanese and American counter-campaigns.
This is the best-case scenario for the PLA. But an island docile and defeated two weeks after D-Day is not a guaranteed outcome. One of the central hurdles facing the offensive is surprise. The PLA simply will not have it. The invasion will happen in April or October. Because of the challenges posed by the strait’s weather, a transport fleet can only make it across the strait in one of these two four-week windows. The scale of the invasion will be so large that strategic surprise will not be possible, especially given the extensive mutual penetration of each side by the other’s intelligence agencies.
Easton estimates that Taiwanese, American, and Japanese leaders will know that the PLA is preparing for a cross-strait war more than 60 days before hostilities begin. They will know for certain that an invasion will happen more than 30 days before the first missiles are fired. This will give the Taiwanese ample time to move much of their command and control infrastructure into hardened mountain tunnels, move their fleet out of vulnerable ports, detain suspected agents and intelligence operatives, litter the ocean with sea mines, disperse and camouflage army units across the country, put the economy on war footing, and distribute weapons to Taiwan’s 2.5 million reservists.
There are only 13 beaches on Taiwan’s western coast that the PLA could possibly land at. Each of these has already been prepared for a potential conflict. Long underground tunnels—complete with hardened, subterranean supply depots—crisscross the landing sites. The berm of each beach has been covered with razor-leaf plants. Chemical treatment plants are common in many beach towns—meaning that invaders must prepare for the clouds of toxic gas any indiscriminate saturation bombing on their part will release. This is how things stand in times of peace.
As war approaches, each beach will be turned into a workshop of horrors. The path from these beaches to the capital has been painstakingly mapped; once a state of emergency has been declared, each step of the journey will be complicated or booby-trapped. PLA war manuals warn soldiers that skyscrapers and rock outcrops will have steel cords strung between them to entangle helicopters; tunnels, bridges, and overpasses will be rigged with munitions (to be destroyed only at the last possible moment); and building after building in Taiwan’s dense urban core will be transformed into small redoubts meant to drag Chinese units into drawn-out fights over each city street.
Interesting analysis of a PLA grunt’s disillusioning journey toward war snipped.
But by the time he reaches the staging area in Fuzhou, the myth of China’s invincibility has been shattered by more than rumors. The gray ruins of Fuzhou’s PLA offices are his first introduction to the terror of missile attack. Perhaps he takes comfort in the fact that the salvos coming from Taiwan do not seem to match the number of salvos streaking toward it—but abstractions like this can only do so much to shore up broken nerves, and he doesn’t have the time to acclimate himself to the shock. Blast by terrifying blast, his confidence that the Chinese army can keep him safe is chipped away.
The last, most terrible salvo comes as he embarks—he is one of the lucky few setting foot on a proper amphibious assault boat, not a civilian vessel converted to war use in the eleventh hour—but this is only the first of many horrors on the waters. Some transports are sunk by Taiwanese torpedoes, released by submarines held in reserve for this day. Airborne Harpoon missiles, fired by F-16s leaving the safety of cavernous, nuclear-proof mountain bunkers for the first time in the war, will destroy others. The greatest casualties, however, will be caused by sea mines. Minefield after minefield must be crossed by every ship in the flotilla, some a harrowing eight miles in width. Seasick thanks to the strait’s rough waves, our grunt can do nothing but pray his ship safely makes it across.
As he approaches land, the psychological pressure increases. The first craft to cross the shore will be met, as Easton’s research shows, with a sudden wall of flame springing up from the water from the miles of oil-filled pipeline sunk underneath. As his ship makes it through the fire (he is lucky; others around it are speared or entangled on sea traps) he faces what Easton describes as a mile’s worth of “razor wire nets, hook boards, skin-peeling planks, barbed wire fences, wire obstacles, spike strips, landmines, anti-tank barrier walls, anti-tank obstacles … bamboo spikes, felled trees, truck shipping containers, and junkyard cars.”
At this stage, his safety depends largely on whether the Chinese Air Force has been able to able to distinguish between real artillery pieces from the hundreds of decoy targets and dummy equipment PLA manuals believe the Taiwanese Army has created. The odds are against him: As Beckley notes in a study published last fall, in the 1990 to 1991 Gulf War, the 88,500 tons of ordnance dropped by the U.S.-led coalition did not destroy a single Iraqi road-mobile missile launcher. NATO’s 78-day campaign aimed at Serbian air defenses only managed to destroy three of Serbia’s 22 mobile-missile batteries. There is no reason to think that the Chinese Air Force will have a higher success rate when targeting Taiwan’s mobile artillery and missile defense.
But if our grunt survives the initial barrages on the beach, he still must fight his way through the main Taiwanese Army groups, 2.5 million armed reservists dispersed in the dense cities and jungles of Taiwan, and miles of mines, booby traps, and debris. This is an enormous thing to ask of a private who has no personal experience with war. It is an even great thing to ask it of a private who naively believed in his own army’s invincibility.
They know war would be a terrific gamble, even if they only admit it to each other. Yet it this also makes sense of the party’s violent reactions to even the smallest of arms sales to Taiwan. Their passion betrays their angst. They understand what Western gloom-and-doomsters do not. American analysts use terms like “mature precision-strike regime” and “anti-access and area denial warfare” to describe technological trends that make it extremely difficult to project naval and airpower near enemy shores. Costs favor the defense: It is much cheaper to build a ship-killing missile than it is to build a ship.
But if this means that the Chinese army can counter U.S. force projection at a fraction of America’s costs, it also means that the democracies straddling the East Asian rim can deter Chinese aggression at a fraction of the PLA’s costs. In an era that favors defense, small nations like Taiwan do not need a PLA-sized military budget to keep the Chinese at bay.
My feeling is that Greer’s analysis is probably more correct, though not to the extent that the United States or Taiwan can rely on it to guarantee victory over a Chinese invasion.
A few further thoughts:
Tags: China, Communism, Foreign Policy, Huawei, M1A2, Military, People's Liberation Army, Samson Ellis, Semiconductors, Taiwan, Tanner Greer, TSMC, Xi Jinping
China’s strategy on acquiring Taiwan doesn’t rely entirely on a D-Day style invasion plan. Their best chance of taking the island at an acceptable cost is to use the KMT, the remnant of the once-ruling party of China itself, as a Fifth Column.
While the KMT now is deeply unpopular in Taiwan, they are still a political force on the island. Additionally, the KMT has deep support within Taiwan’s armed forces and national police force, and most of these supporters have family ties back to the mainland. Not enough for an outright coup d’etat, but enough to cause a lot of trouble.
Keep in mind that Taiwan is not like the USA: there’s no local police agencies (the KMT nationalized the police as a branch of the military in their regime, and that has remained even now), there’s no Second Amendment, there’s no National Guard or any other locally-controlled response force that could act quickly to avert political violence within the republic. If the KMT took over the main institutions of a major city or even Taipei itself, it would be up to loyalists within the armed services to respond. Within that chaos the PLA could find the opportunity to invade.
China has an even better (and sadly, easier) strategy: infiltrate D.C.
They’ve just about succeeded there already, with some rare exceptions.
Point #1: there being only two separate full months out of the year to cross the strait I find hard to believe, since the Chinese fishing fleet ( itself acts as a undeclared Naval militia) operates nearly year round.
Point #2: Communist Military doctrine does believe in extensive force casualties in obtaining almost any objective.
Point#3: Inchon is the best example an amphibious landing can be made almost anywhere, given the will and proper preparation. I don’t believe in the (13 ONLY BEACHES) tripe.
Point #4: Given the HUGE size of the Chinese fishing fleet (itself acting as a Undeclared naval militia) the PLA could Dunkirk Taiwan in reverse easily from any direction within a comprehensive deception and Cover plan.
A PRC invasion attempt would easily result in the collapse of the PRC. No police state survives a massive defeat. The PRC lacks any realistic ability to project force. Its airforce depends on the Russians and theft. Its pilots are limited ib the number of hours they can fly and the duration of their flights. Its military must be politically loyal not militarily effective. It has suffered when fighting other nations forces, despite these engagements being at the PRC time and choosing.
On the other hand you have a professional military in Taiwan that is backed by ample reserves and stores. To believe they do not have nuclear arms is a bad joke. They formed a partnership with South Africa and Israel to develop these weapons and South Africa tested theirs and the Israelis built an estimated 600 warheads. I doubt the PRC will do much other than swagger.
Why not since their strongest allies are the Demorats who would probably cheer regime change. They cheered when Saigon fell.
Another factor is a result of China’s decades-long only-child program. The results included spoiled “Little Emperors” who poorly suited for military life along with parents and grandparents unwilling to see that only child die in a war that makes no sense to them.
Palau and Guam more likely first-strike targets, Palau first. Taiwan is a problem for China only when in the rear of her front.
A more likely scenario is not a roll the dice D-Day invasion, but instead China incrementally seizing the small islands around Taiwan and blockading it. The question is, what would the US do at that point?
“A Landmesser says:
October 11, 2020 at 9:15 PM”
Fission weapons being of simplistic design and requiring scientific and engineering skills that are well known; one can easily assume that Taiwan has fabricated some nuclear weapons from both their collaboration with Israel and South Africa, AND from their earlier attempts that were shut down by the US using ROC scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project with us. Knowledge does not disappear. I do not have a lot of confidence that they have not been able to acquire/refine/engineer weapons grade material.
There is another factor though. Japan and South Korea will not ignore a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Japan has been described as having a distance from a nuclear deterrent measured in screw turns. The ROK’s have a large nuclear industry. And both motive and opportunity to create a deterrent either alone or in concert with other states threatened by China or its attack dog North Korea.
A Chinese attack on Taiwan would trigger interesting times.
Subotai Bahadur
When I last looked, the People’s Liberation Army had multiple Airborne Divisions, but only sufficient lift for one at a time. The PLA Navy has two Amphibious Landing Ships, one launched in June 2020, so likely not ready for combat yet.
That comes to a total of five possible initial assault brigades.
Taiwan’s Army has 5 Armored Brigades, 3 Mech Infantry Brigades, and 25 Infantry Brigades (Reserves).
I think a million PLA soldiers on commercial ships is a target rich environment for the ROC AF, Navy and enterprising ROC Army artillerymen.
Was going to say what John Rohan said. That. Also…
Interesting that when small(er) nation conflict with an aggressive China comes up, little mention is made of that hugely vulnerable dam that was recently in the news. Granted, it would be like dropping a nuke on China but as a last gasp effort and depending on the reaction of the Chinese people to such a hostility taken in their name, I would not say it’s entirely out of the question. And thus something one could make Chinese leaders think about. If one chose to do so…delicately.
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Even assuming any initial invasion will fail (which is reasonable), we need to think about what happens next. It is unlikely China will just give up. At that point the war switches to attrition and blockade. China will launch missiles at Taiwan and attempt to use its navy to cut off all trade to compel the island to surrender. So what happens at that point in a long war?
Does Taiwan produce (or can produce) enough of its own food to feed its population? Does it have enough resources to meet its own military requirements for ammunition or replace armaments? Can its naval and air power prevent a blockade? Is it prepared to hold out, possibly alone, for a long time? Perhaps indefinitely?
The other question is even if Taiwan can hold out, what can it do to compel China to make peace and accept its independence? I think this is a critical issue. I don’t think Taiwan has enough of a deterrence power that it could force China to make peace. Perhaps only an Arab-Israeli situation where China agrees to an armistice, but refuses to acknowledge Taiwan’s existence like how the Arabs treated Israel after 1949 and hoping future wars and attrition compel Taiwan to surrender. But I think even that scenario would require Taiwan to significantly damage China by destroying its trade in the South China and East China Seas and launching missiles against the mainland (say against Three Gorges Dam or other important civilian or military infrastructure). I doubt whether Taiwan has that power right now – though it could develop such assets in peacetime and have them in place before a war begins if they have enough time.
I believe China is rapidly approaching a point where China and the US simply won’t go to war because nuclear superpowers don’t go to war directly with each other. They only fight through proxies. That requires red lines that each side knows not to cross. There is obviously dispute right now what those red lines are. Likely China will make some compromises and the US will make those compromises – but it’s highly likely at some point direct US military assistance to Taiwan will be one of those. The US elite may still be willing to go to war with a nuclear power for Taiwan, but I don’t think the mass of the American people will anymore. It might be possible for a non-nuclear naval power to intervene and not risk nuclear war – but only Japan could possibly do so. And another Sino-Japanese war would only enrage the Chinese populace. So Japanese intervention is doubtful.
So Taiwan needs not just to survive an initial assault, but have a plan on how to force China to stop the war afterwards which likely requires a long war of attrition. In a world of hypersonic missiles and drones, I think this will be hard for Taiwan. Not impossible, but difficult. I hope Taiwan has a secret plan to quickly establish its own nuclear deterrent either before or right after such a war starts. And it better be making the diplomatic effort now to secure commitments from the democracies to recognize a Taiwan declaration of independence in the aftermath of a Chinese attempted invasion.
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I think Chris above is wrong. If Taiwan can resist an initial invasion, there will plenty of international pressure to stop the conflict. Europe, the US, most world trading powers would condemn Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
If the Chinese can’t gain control quickly, they will never gain control…. what they would need to do in order to be victorious cannot be achieved without the world knowing.
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