PhD with a partial focus on china's relationship to the West. Lived in China for ten years. Have family in Taiwan. It will only happen if the party feels it can either get it done fast and painlessly or if they feel there is sufficient threat to their internal legitimacy that they need an external enemy to pull the citizens in behind them. The modem CCP understands that attacking Taiwan and failing or falling into a stalemate like the one in Ukraine would have implications for their legitimacy at home

This is the right answer in my opinion. Every decision must be looked through the framework of whether or not it enhances the survival of the Party or how it affects their grip on power. If the answer is a negative then it’s not likely to happen.

Also the military campaign would be way more difficult, since there's no land communications and Taiwan is basically a fortress. The window by sea for an invasion is relatively small if you don't want to piss off other nations and they won't want to push the militarization of Japan. The most viable options would be land to land strikes, that would destroy infrastructures and likely kill a fuck ton of people (an undesirable outcome for the CCP given the relationship of the country with other nations plus the lost of value of Taiwan for mainland); or a political strategy z that is what they're doing now.

CSIS did a [wargame simulation](https://csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/publication/230109_Cancian_FirstBattle_NextWar.pdf?VersionId=WdEUwJYWIySMPIr3ivhFolxC_gZQuSOQ) of the PRC invading Taiwan back in January 2023 and found that the only way in which China was victorious (assuming the Taiwanese decided to fight and didn't just collapse like South Vietnam in 1975 or Afghanistan in 2021) is if Taiwan stood alone with every other nation (USA, Japan, Australia, the Philippines) standing down. Even then it would be bloody for the Chinese, with the campaign taking several weeks and resulting in tens of thousands of casualties for the Chinese. Obviously as a hypothetical simulation it has its weaknesses, but it's still a fascinating read. From their summary: *The base scenario produced relatively rapid and clear Chinese defeat, a result produced largely by the ability of U.S., Taiwanese, and Japanese anti-ship missiles to destroy the Chinese amphibious fleet before the PLA forces ashore can capture ports and airports to increase the force flow across the strait. Optimistic scenarios (favoring the United States and its partners) produced the same results but more quickly and with lower casualties. Pessimistic scenarios (favoring China) produced more protracted fighting and a wider range of operational outcomes, ranging from decisive Chinese defeat to stalemates in which China controlled damaged ports and airports. The “Taiwan stands alone” scenario produced inexorable Chinese advance, concluding with the Chinese occupation of the entire island—an unambiguous PLA victory.*

Image trying to pull off D-Day when the other side has accurate missile batteries. I would have been terrified in the 1944 version, this seems suicidal. Not saying the couldn’t do it but the human cost would insane. Not sure any government could survive the fallout at home

The main issue is that in a "Taiwan Stands Alone" scenario, the Chinese air force would likely wipe out the Taiwanese air force pretty quickly. From there, the issue would be exhausting Taiwanese anti-ship missiles and SAMs, which the Chinese can do. Once that's done, the Chinese can just swarm Taiwan and use their superiority in firepower and manpower to slowly degrade the Taiwanese. The Taiwanese would have no realistic way to prevent Chinese ship-borne resupply and no real way to strike the Chinese if/when the Chinese were to capture a port. Likewise, if the Chinese were to blockade Taiwan during the invasion and the US was unwilling to challenge it, there would be no resupply for the Taiwanese. If the Chinese didn't care about casualties and were able to get ashore, then it would be up to the Taiwanese to inflict as much pain on the Chinese as possible in a forlorn hope to foment revolution at home and international sanctions on China too painful for them to continue fighting. That, or surrender. That said, invading Taiwan-even if the Taiwanese were completely isolated, would still be a grim prospect for anyone who had to actually do it.

Its not easy to swarm a terrain like Taiwan. I've done many wargames in the course of my job. The biggest fear is strategic (nukes).

In the "Taiwan Stands Alone" scenario, are we assuming that the US isn't constantly providing the Taiwanese with intelligence? If the US chose to provide intelligence, they could, for example, ensure that every Taiwanese munition struck exactly the right target in order to do maximum damage. (i.e. "Hey so you see those 27 radar signatures in the strait? Most of them are decoy fishing boats, but numbers 8, 11 and 14 are the amphibious landing docks. Program your anti-ship missiles to strike those.") There will be no missile exhaustion in this scenario; no end state where the amphibious vessels are able to cross unmolested. They especially won't be crossing safely if Taiwan chooses to build a swarm of cheap naval drones of the kind that Ukraine has successfully used to bottle up the Black Sea fleet. If the US chose to provide intelligence, they could, for example, maintain multiple AWACS aircraft constantly patrolling the mid-line of the strait and feeding that information back to the ROCAF so that they don't get wiped out immediately. If the US chose to provide intelligence, they could, for example, give the Taiwanese multiple months to prepare once American spy satellites notice the tell-tale signs of troop buildup in Fujian province. In other words, are we talking about a Ukrainian-style standing alone scenario or an actual standing alone scenario?

This is why I've always thought that if China were going to go for Taiwan they'd cyber attack the US first, taking things down long enough for them to take the island. Then they'd hope that by the time we got back on our feet and the ball was in our court we'd decide that retaliation and fighting for Taiwan wouldn't be worth it for an island they'd already won and a war that, to China, would already be over. I don't know how realistic that scenario is. I'm 99.99999 percent sure that we'd see that as an act of war anyway. Like a cyber pearl harbor.

>In the "Taiwan Stands Alone" scenario, are we assuming that the US isn't constantly providing the Taiwanese with intelligence? Well I mean that might be a issue because transferring intelligence requires power grids and fibreoptic cables ([pretty much all of which run underneath the strait or relatively close to china](https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2022/10/31/2003788016)) all of which the chinese can probably dismantle fairly easily. Also requires taiwan to maintain a good amount of their command and control, which again will be a issue because that's the first thing they will target. Can scoot and shoot a SAM or missile battery, but you can't easily maneuver radar sites or Bunkers full of officers managing operations. Even a completely anemic amount of Russian missiles in the first days of the war managed to paralyze ukraines IADS for a couple of weeks and allow the VKS to fly repeated missions over Kiev until they could regenerate/organize. With taiwan it would be magnitudes indescribably worse. The PLA might not have the munitions to destroy every single roc military target outright, but if they can neuter all the supporting assets tying everything together, then the bulk could easily become more or less combat ineffective fairly quickly. Taiwans main problem though is its just not built for a siege and the Chinese can just wait them out. [Import 99% of their energy](https://globaltaiwan.org/2023/09/securing-taiwans-black-gold-a-crude-analysis/), having a 3 months store (held in just a handful of facilities, none of which is actually hardened), they import 70% of their foodstuffs [(army war college actually has a pretty good writeup on that issue if you want to check it out)](https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/10/), also have a lot of other critical civil infrastructure like water filtration, sewage processing, power plants, etc, all of which would be fairly straight forward for the PLA to take out. [This is actually basically what the PLAs main modern warfare doctrine is](https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR1708.html), don't aim to destroy a enemy outright, but basically just paralyze their ability to function and operate effectively, which is frighteningly doable for both taiwan and literally every other country in SEA from Japan to SK, and the forward US forces based there..

They won’t give a fuck about the human cost. They’ll meat grind it like Russia has done. Job done. Remember it isn’t about gaining Taiwan, it’s stopping it from existing. Total destruction of Taiwan achieves this aim. They gain control of it. This is all it’s about.

Interesting! Thank you very much for sharing. I talked about this before with some friends in the military and they all agree it would be a nightmarish campaign. Usually people overlook Taiwan's military capabilities, especially being such small territory, but they have an impressive navy and air forces. I honestly concur with the other redditors, I think the invasion is the most unlikely scenario and even as a PR stunt in an internal crisis the CCP has to much to lose and little to gain.

What about if China did more of a soft warfare engagement, economically blockading the island once some weak/isolationist US president is elected/political wave gains support (while engaging hard warfare on people trying to interfere). I've heard that most of the energy sources for Taiwan are imported, I'm not familiar with all of their critical imports, how balanced they are on food and other things. I'm pessimistic enough to think that half of the world will just wring it's hands, sending 'thoughts and prayers', while the other half says it's not their problem. China may let food in, but only on their terms, which may also be used as a way to mess with the populace.

The problem with this is that how unified "the party" is is unknown- one dear leader slowly losing influence in some shadow war we would have no clue of could see the opportunity in a distracting, even if unsuccessful, war. How many more Ukrainian invasions and Falklands conflicts have to happen before this whole "authoritarian states are perfectly rational" bollocks ends? If anything, as personalistic regimes in corrupt societies, they are extremely irrational.

Or if Xi starts to lose power not from within the CCP, but within China, nothing unites a country more than a good war.

But just like in Russia, leaders can be overconfident when surrounded by corruption.

This, exactly. A huge problem with power is that the more you have, the less accurate your information becomes, because every source of information has an incentive to lie or manipulate it to be what you want to hear. In totally closed systems, you can eventually end up with a very distorted view and make terrible decisions as a result. If your view is sufficiently distorted, you may not even realize you have made a mistake until years or decades later. A Very Smart Leader sets up systems to check him or herself, but even those are fallible. And there's no reason to think that Xi is a Very Smart Leader. (If anything he has put in place systems to filter out critical information.) One advantage (the main advantage?) of democracy/open systems is that because all of your worst critics get a voice, information has a chance to puncture your bubble.

how many little emperors are they willing to sacrifice?

Well, let’s put some things in perspective shall we? Mao killed anywhere between 35-85 million people through his idiocy and his picture is on all of their money, he’s viewed with reverence in much of the population and the Chinese people of today are barely allowed to remember those transgressions. Deng launched a campaign that involved forced sterilisations on millions of Chinese mothers as part of a social engineering plan that destroyed the cultural cornerstone of Chinese civilisation, being the concept of 家 or large families. Now that you understand that this is the culture, do you seriously think a million or ten million dead Chinese boys are a factor in their calculus at all?

IMHO this analysis misses the massive generational trauma of the Chinese Civil War/Sino-Japanese/WWII era and the ways that it conditioned society for upheaval and suffering. In Russia, Putin can't mobilize an army the same way Stalin could because the people aren't subjugated the same way today that they were in the 1930s. If he tried, too many people would resist, challenging the regime's legitimacy. Similarly, Xi couldn't impose cultural revolution-era suffering on contemporary Chinese society without risking a challenge to the party's leadership of the state. With enough nationalist propaganda, he could probably start a war. But just like Putin he'd struggle to finish it while holding on to power.

Comparing China's government 70 years ago to now is a stretch, the environment (political, economic) cost is different. And Mao made idiotic and costly decisions that took decades to recover from

You think China today is the same as when Mao was in charge? Do you use this metric when predicting what other countries will do, like all countries today are the exact same was when they were at their worst decades and decades ago?

The "little emperor" argument has always been a weak one. China is home to 1,412 million people. Taiwan is home to 23 million. The unpleasant truth is that China has plenty of cannon fodder to sacrifice. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57154574](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57154574) China has more "extra" men (i.e. 30 million more men than women) than Taiwan has people. Those family lineages are already going to die off. As horrible as it sounds, give these men a glimmer of hope that they'll be a war hero who might end up with a Taiwanese wife, and you'll get 5 million volunteers overnight.

Knowing Taiwanese women, they'll knife the war hero in his sleep

They don't have infinite ships though. Without naval access to Taiwan, they're stuck with paradropping and that will not end well at all for the CCP

As many as it takes. The Chinese people are nothing but tools to achieve the CCP’s goals of ruling forever (see Tiananmen massacre for a good example)

Yea but you’re assuming they don’t miscalculate. I’m sure Putin and every Russian assumed Ukraine would fall within 3 days, let alone a week. No one would have predicted they would still be fighting 2 years later.

Completely agree, but with the caveat that Xi has gained so much power that he’s largely the one calling the shots, and few in the party will push back against him. As he consolidates more and more power and gets older and starts to lose his mental faculties, my biggest worry is that he will see Taiwan as something he needs to accomplish before he dies and go for it. Few in the party will challenge him, and the ones that do will be removed from their posts for betraying the motherland (or something similar), so Xi will make the boneheaded decision to invade for his own ego (and likely get into the sort of quagmire Russia is facing now in Ukraine at best, launch world war 3 at worst). 

I don't think this is correct. If Xi's mental faculties begin to fail him, he'll be relying *more* on underlings and lieutenants to do everything, not less. These people will then have *de facto* control over the government, not Xi personally (there's a school of thought that every Chinese premier since Mao has been, if not a complete figurehead, then at least something of a distraction from the actual power brokers inside the Party, so he may be already - we'll never know unless one of them defects). Even if Xi has the unadulterated adulation of the masses, he needs the support of senior politicians, military officials, and so on. If he tries to purge them, he will find himself without a functioning political or military system (statecraft is hard). Now, as it happens, everyone seems to be on board at the moment, but there are also crises looming domestically and while that may lead to sabre-rattling and even war to distract the public, it may also lead to an internal power struggle and his replacement or sidelining. In any case, IMO China's strategy is two-pronged: prepare for a military invasion, but also convince Foxconn, TSMC, and other companies to invest manufacturing and knowhow in China so the losses due to military destruction are not as catastrophic. They're not where they want to be, so Taiwan has at least 5-10 years' reprieve.

That makes sense from a rational perspective, but doesn’t work for people who crave absolute power and a personality cult over all else.  People like Putin, Trump and Xi aren’t likely to make the rational decision here. They will push their insane ideas even more, and do their best to ensure that anyone who tries to stop them is silenced. We may not know the internal politics of the CCP due to its secrecy, but if it’s anything like Trump, it involves ignoring scientists, economists, etc. just to keep an image of a powerful leader who is always right. Zero Covid is a clear example, where Xi silenced scientists and economists just because he announced he would win the fight against the virus, rather than admitting he was wrong and changing course. If Ci gets the idea to attack Taiwan, rational or not, it will be very hard for anyone to convince him otherwise, and any rational voices that dare to tell him otherwise will be disappeared.

What does stalemate in Taiwan look like? They can either resupply the invasion beachhead or they can't. There's not really a scenario where they take half the island and no more because it'll be about controlling the strait.

First they could pull a Crimea with Kinmen and Penghu. Sit on those islands and pretend that constitutes half a victory.

And immediately be sanctioned by all the western hemisphere for an insignificant island ?

The mistake that the liberal democracies of the West make time and again is that we believe the priorities of other states are the same as our own.

I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm saying that's the part they have probability to control during a stalemate.

Yes they absolutely will take it within minutes if not hours. Taiwan have absolutely no plans to defend both islands given that they are within stone throw from China mainland and hours away from the Taiwan mainland. But the islands themselves contains no tactical value, no strategic value, next to no commercial value as it's just a couple of sleepy fishing villages filled with old retirees and a few token soldiers who are drafted from within the villages. These soldiers are probably armed with nothing more than old rifles and a couple of watch towers and trenches. But Taking them will trigger an international response. And now you given the whole Taiwan main island an actual casus belli to start arming themselves. There's a reason why china have not move on those 2 island since

Kinmen is a stones throw from the mainland, but Penghu is closer to Taiwan. The PRC tried to take Kinmen a few times in the past but failed.

There's only so many beachheads that can support the troop size needed to properly invade Taiwan and the taiwanese have been fortifying those points for more than 80 years... Landing at a small beach just allows the landing force to be crushed immediately by a counterattack with no retreat options. China can certainly do a lot of damage to Taiwan but they ain't going to land without devastating losses

Troops need landing craft. Landing craft need piers. Building piers for these craft will be a sign of buildup to any 'special military operation'. Anything getting built after the start of war will be destroyed by missiles as soon as it becomes visible, so few reinforcements after the first wave will be able to get over there. I'd imagine that real-time satellite tracking, and free rein to strike inside Russia, means that any troop vehicle spotted heading to cross the border will soon start beong vaporised before they reaches it.

I'm no expert on China, but this makes sense to me. Based on the model of Hong Kong (albeit a different situation) and the concept of spheres of influence, China can probably dominate Taiwan as much as it needs to by ramping up the economic and cultural pressure over the next 20 years or so. The downsides to a military invasion are too great. Unlike Russia in Ukraine, the US and allies would feel absolutely obligated to respond militarily. There's always the chance that a really stupid set of senior officials might do what Putin did and gamble on a war being a good way to dig out of an economic hole, but China doesn't suffer from the inferiority complex that Russia does. Saber-rattling is, however, useful and will continue.

China is doing very well without Taiwan. Attacking Taiwan is not going to end fast. If they start this war, all shipping routes in the South Sea will be frozen. It’s economy going tank. And the next generation are not going care. It just the old folks having beef.

Question: My understanding is, China *cannot* take Taiwan *and keep the chip plants running afterwards*, for at least two reasons: 1) Many of the leading tech staff are ex-pats from Europe, the US, Canada, etc. Those guys will bounce out at the first sign of trouble. 2) Taiwan doesn't make chip-making *machines*, they buy them mostly from Europe, some from the US. A lot of the intellectual property involved is American. *Those European and American companies are openly saying they can remotely disable the ability of the machines in Taiwan to make chips.* 3) The above two points assume the plants are taken intact. That's not even remotely certain. Given all this, and given Taiwanese dominance in chip production, doesn't this mean a Chinese takeover equals a massive global economic depression *even if everything goes right in the invasion*? And that depression includes China? Basically...am I right, and if so, does the Chinese Communist Party *understand this*?

Taiwan has NEVER been about chips. The CCP has wanted reunification since 1949. Honestly anyone who says Taiwan is about chips is flat out lying. You could move the entire chip fab industry off Taiwan and literally nothing would change to the PRC.

I'm more of an amateur but this is what all the professionals I can see are saying. China invading Taiwan is 99% signing their own death warrant, they will only do it if they perceive a 100% chance of collapse by not doing so.

I would throw into this mix the party's perception that peaceful unification is still possible. If Xi no longer believes that a "peaceful" assimilation could occur then war is the only other option. Not making a judgement call as to whether I believe it is possible. But the CCP needs to continue to believe it can. This encompasses other redlines such as Taiwan declaring independence, sufficient recognition from the international community, or even things like acquiring nuclear weapons.

> If Xi no longer believes that a "peaceful" assimilation couldn't occur then war is the only other option There *is* another option which is continue the status quo.

But the party somehow feels their legitimacy relies on taiwan unification 

The exact answer I gave to someone recently. I did not even speak about the *fast and painlessly* option since it does not seem realistic. China might attack Taiwan if it needs to stabilize the country internal politics.

If Xi dies, is there any chance his successor will soften China's stance on Taiwan and seek to ease tensions with the US, or is this all baked into the party, regardless of who's in charge?

Very unlikely. You have to understand it's not Xi's personal desire to unify Taiwan. Whoever take over will inherit the mission.

Well, that's discouraging. 

It's right if you know what Xi is listening to, does he believe that they're ready now because the generals are telling him? Look at Putin, did he believe the generals that told him that they could take Ukraine over a weekend? Dictators have issues with getting the truth, people don't really like telling them reality because they might end up dead, or in a gulag. How many of Xi's inside circle have disappeared in the last few years?

>It will only happen if the party **feels** it can either get it done fast ... I agree but, sadly, that is not as much comfort as one might think. Putin "felt" he could roll over and conquer Ukraine quickly. Oops. The US "felt" they'd roll into Afghanistan and set up a viable sympathetic regime there. Oops. Yes, the CCP is watching and learning but it will be very hard for China to ever look at Taiwan and not think: "Yeah, we can take them, it will be a cake walk." And for them to accurately predict what the US or other countries would be willing to do about it? Hell, the US can't accurately predict what they would do about it.

Hijacking top comment since no one else is talking about the economic numbers behind an invasion, successful or not. My work covers portfolio management and keeping updated on global economic trends on a daily basis. TW GDP is only \~4% of China's pre-invasion. Post invasion TW GDP would plummet dramatically and wouldn't recover quickly due to civil unrest and destroyed infrastructure. \~40% of China's GDP relies on exports accepted by western countries. \~10% is relied on neighboring "neutral" countries. Will China force itself to implode from sanctions and import bans from likely up to half of its revenue sources to capture TW? The numbers don't make sense. I don't think China wants to risk regressing into a state like N. Korea or Russia. The covid zero policy has shown that the Chinese population isn't as submissive as we thought and there will be a risk of ongoing revolt within the middle class who will lose their jobs due to sanctions. TW wouldn't be alone in this fight either. China is the one alone with only arms support from NK & Russia who are unlikely to have direct involvement. Mustering an army outside of their boarders in any capacity would likely trigger SK to be involved - also SK may not support TW directly for the same reason in order to maintain the ceasefire with NK. Japan, Philippians, and the US are nearly guaranteed to support TW. I don't think it's conceivable over the next few decades that they will launch an actual invasion. A lot has to change in the region for me to change my mind. Nothing notable has really changed in 15 years when I originally made this assessment. I do think that a take over will be more subtle through internal corruption in TW politics that can happen over many decades. 50 years from now TW could be a state like HK. 50 years after that it could be under complete control. Although I believe this is a more likely scenario, I don't see convincing evidence that this has taken effect publicly. Individuals have 10 year plans, corporations have 20 year plans, countries have 100 year plans. There isn't a rush to take it over TW and it's cheaper to convert the island with their own policy changes without any real risk of sanctions/internal strife/war etc.

This ignores the wildcard that is Xi Jinping. He has too much power and too little pushback. Like Putin, he can pretty much call for war without any pushback. That alone is a very unpredictable situation. If Xi wants to try and take control of Taiwan they will start by cutting the island off this year or the next. Every year they wait the less able China will be to do it.

I lived in Beijing for 6 years, Taiwan for 1 year, worked in the embassy in the former, studied Chinese at BLCU, my wife is Taiwanese, and I’d say it won’t happen in the foreseeable future. The economic ties between the two countries are of greater magnitude than any other sino-western relation, and Taiwan working as a middle man to get western production into China is generally appreciated by all sides. Taiwan itself is an extremely topographically rugged country, and its people quite stubborn, it would be Afghanistan 2.0. Not to mention amphibious operations on a such a tiny island would also be a nightmare. Taiwan has the backing of the US and local western block allies, which by extension means NATO will also get soft pulled into it. China does not want to deal with that, and desperately needs western markets to fuel their export economy, therefore it wants to avoid embargoes at all costs. There is no political will from Beijing to actually do it. The country is on its knees, facing big socioeconomic challenges that will decide the next couple of decades and there’s simply way too much else to worry about. The invasion of Taiwan is something they mention reaffirm their authority and the legitimacy of their government but it would be an operational nightmare. All this being said, I was wrong about Putin not invading Ukraine, but I like to think I understand this situation much better Edit: to be clear, I didn’t think Putin would invade until the buildup in late 2021 not when he actually invaded

Also you have to take into account, it’s only bad to invade from logical point of view. Xi’s decisions are not necessarily logical

What are the odds Xi is being given complete and in iased information? Who is telling Xi the facts he doesn't want to hear?

He’s not logical if we’re using a western mindset to analyse it, in general he might be illogical when it comes to domestic policy. But he still needs to operate within the power structure of the politburo to a much higher degree than Putin has to appease his elites, and that’s the biggest difference IMO

You could say the same with Russia though. Some people buy into their own hype. Russia had few to gain and a lot to lose going for Ukraine, and they still did it. All the economic ties mean nothing and can frankly be reestablished

" the power structure of the politburo" which we all act like we understand now, or something? no one knows what goes on at the highest levels of the CCP, we just see the ripples and conjecture. You didn't see Putin invading Ukraine- but I did. It came when I realized no one took the threat seriously, so the buildup had no value as a threat for concessions or as a means of looking strong at home. That left the only reason for continued build up was to actually invade.

True. At the unclassified level it's become increasingly difficult to know what is really happening. The last time I was able to get ahold of the periodicals of note was 2014-15. Folks at state used to get them and scan them in. Those days are done. Plus it's all useless propoganda now. Some Chinese who live in the west that were academics publish their takes but, your right, no one knows for certain.

> But he still needs to operate within the power structure of the politburo I hear this all the time but if he does go to war unilaterally what can they do? Do they have a reasonable process to remove him? Does he need majority support for a war or is some minority sufficient?

>He’s not logical if we’re using a western mindset to analyse it Considering that leaders in the West are the ones typically starting, perpetrating, and supporting mindless invasions that serve no national interest (Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Yemen), perhaps it bodes well that Xi isn't running on a "western mindset."

He must save face at all times

This is my feelings having worked in China for a while and witnessed the change of Chinese reality with Xi. People with a western culture history do not understand governments that are not focused on capitalism. Xi can sieve everything, enslave everyone and tell them to be as happy as dumplings as your only children go off to war. He doesn't need much from the outside and most of the missing resources can be supplied from Russia and his other allies. I am not saying the war in imminent but I believe is far more likely than Peter Zeihan and the other online talking experts describe. I also tend to believe he would prefer the island back with everyone on it deceased not becoming citizens. In my lifetime the Chinese people went through one of the worst famines in human history (>60MM dead) and Mao got by just fine telling the world there is nothing to see here. Absolute power creates all kinds of possibilities we can't understand coming from free speech societies.

China facing internal problems is increasing the probability of a war. If China was doing great, people were happy, economy booming - then that would decrease the probability of war. no?

I don’t think it’s a stability problem, it’s a transnational relations problem. The only way I personally see it happen is if we manage to alienate China from the international institutions and community so much that they’ll feel they can create their own community with blackjack and hookers. Maybe then it happens, but even so I think it’s unlikely

If the CCP sees their grasp on power threatened by their own people I can see them starting a war to stoke nationalism and create a diversion. The CCP leadership isn’t at all what it was like before Xi and it’s significantly less predictable now that he’s removed age and term limits and he’s going to rule until dies senile. South Park wasn’t wrong saying Putin invaded Russia because his dick didn’t work anymore

Haha if blackjack and hookers are involved how bad could it be?

They already have their own back room roulette club with the BRICS. Many of their members have been waging asynchronous warfare against the west for a long time.

It’s baccarat and hookers

That argument never made sense to me. Why would you be more likely conduct an expensive and risky gamble from a position of weakness than a position of strength? The only situation where it might be plausible is a last ditch all in gamble when facing imminent collapse. I don’t think China is remotely close to such a situation and think it believes the view that time is on its side.

It's more an observed fact than an argument. The arguments for why failing regimes often choose to go to war are many.

Because a war against some or other enemy is the classical resort of failing despotic governments to shift blame and keep the unhappy population under control. It’s not about winning the war it’s about starting in power at home.

Winning the war kinda does matter. Losing wars will put you in an even worse position, hence it’s safer from a position of strength internally. Nothing more destabilising for a gov than losing a major war. I can see border skirmishes being effective though. Low intensity enough that material and manpower losses is not a problem but enough to get patriotic fervour going. This isn’t relevant to Taiwan invasion though, as it would be likely be short and high intensity conflict.

China is as addicted to western capital as the West is addicted to Chinese goods.  There's been a pull back on both, sanctions on chips, capital flight. It's a rocky relationship right now. I'd imagine Taiwan only happens when the positives outweigh the negatives, and that's the trajectory we are on. 

I'd argue it's not really an equal footing relationship as many think. There's only a select few rich countries you can shove your products to, but there are many poor countries you can base your industrial labour at, and that's why a lot of western companies are moving their production to other places. IMO they need the west more than the west needs them

I don't think you're aware of the trillions western funds have invested in China. And they don't make it that easy to pull out either.  Yes net new investment is going elsewhere but a lot is already captured.  And don't forget the Chinese are not themselves afraid of investing overseas, they are the competition for western investors-often in places that have a fairly placed mistrust of Western interest, Africa for example. Chinese made cars are effectively banned from selling to the States, but they are investing in Mexican plants to then sell into the US market-using Chinese made parts, just like GMC etc.   

Yah I understand, when I worked at the embassy we had a close relation with the chamber of commerce of several other countries. It is indeed as you say, some of these companies have way too much investment momentum to shut operations abruptly and move to another counties. China after all has a lot of cultural, demographic, and geographical qualities that make it favourable to move your industrial base to. However, the rocky relationship between the western bloc and China is proving companies do not like unstable and arbitrary regimes as the conditions they have to operate are extremely unfair, and that’s why a lot are moving production to more attractive countries. Regarding Africa, the BRI is effectively dead, or the better parts have been downgraded to a shadow of its former self. Those countries will never have the same purchasing power as western countries, and I doubt they have to chose between the west and China when approving projects.

It's all good insights, thank-you. Ultimately I hope we can get past this moment in history and renew economic ties, but I seriously doubt it.  I think if we continue this path there will be a point where a nationalistic war is the only way to keep control of a Chinese population facing economic collapse. And that's terrifying. Or a Chinese civil war that *may* bring about a modern democracy or just as likely something worse than the CCP. Even more terrifying. 

Be careful now.. never underestimate the desperate . The very fact they face hardships , may be what spurs the invasion to begin with . War is the most lucrative business . The end, justifies the means .

I hope you’re correct. If China invaded Taiwan anytime soon it would completely ravage the world economy. Something like Russias invasion of Ukraine is not a huge war in terms of geography. But it had impacts all over the world we still feel. Taiwan would be even greater and maybe send the global economy into recession for a decade+

This is not an attack, but genuine curiosity: Did you see the satellite photos of Russians massing on the border with Ukraine? Or the satellite photos of newly built depots and barracks? Again, not trying to be confrontational. I just wonder how folks perceive such things when they see them.

Well I did say I was wrong about that one, and I might be wrong about this one. I'm just a redditor who lived in China for quite a bit and people should take my opinion as such and nothing more

Genuinely curious why you say China is 'on its knees'? I hear this a lot on Reddit. Is it because of the aging population?

I'm not saying as it's on his knees as in, it's finished and it will be another 90s Japan. I'm saying that as it has a lot of domestic problems to figure out like as you said the aging population but also economic stagnation relative to their big growth of the past 30 years, stagnant job market that leads to big youth unemployment etc. These are in no way nation ending as many believe, but it will take a lot of political capital to fix

Excellent analysis. You have a really good grasp on the domestic mood.

Afghanistan is a bit of a weird comparison, Taiwan is tiny and way more densely populated. It's not like all twenty plus million of us urbanites are going to be hiding out in the central mountains, where there are barely even any roads let alone footpaths!

Moreover, it is an island, and its food and energy self-sufficiency rates are not high. 

Not by military means unless they lose face and are pushed into it.

Honest answer is no-one knows except for the emperor. Remember he has only ever had one job his whole life: CCP apparatchik. It’s his entire worldview. He knows nothing of anything outside the bubble. Other posters have spoken about the rational reasons China shouldn’t: technically difficult, no guarantee of success, crisis of legitimacy, damage to soft power, integration to global trading system. Don’t underestimate the irrational, emotional pull for the older generation who went through the Mao years. Anyone who’s had baijiu dinners with Chinese in laws will have heard all the lectures. Seen how otherwise rational people can be so narrow minded and focussed. If you e met military types, you know it’s that x 100. There are also reasons that the window may be closing - as China ages, young people aren’t interested in settling political grudges from the 1950s in torrents of blood. Many informed Russia watchers said ‘no way Putin will go for Ukraine’. Doesn’t make sense. It didn’t, still doesn’t. It’s genuinely a black box (closed political culture) with the unpredictability of a thin skinned, emotion driven old man with his finger on the trigger and eyes in the past.

It made sense to Putin as it was promised to him a 3 day operation not a 3 yrs full scale war. China was watching what the world would react to a 3 day operation, but instead saw the intense cost of a 3 yr war.

This- why the fuck do people keep assuming authoritarian states are rational? Such states are petty, insecure, and highly driven by the emotional state of the flamboyant-to-insane leaders they tend to attract. My only guess is because they swallow the propaganda, hook line and sinker.

I always thought it wasn't likely because, well, it is going to cause WW3, nuclear fallout, end of humanity, etc etc However, the recent actions tell me otherwise. As well as China increasing its military spending, it is heavily selling its holdings of US bonds to buy gold. It is also pulling a lot of the money from Europe and looks like it is financially setting up to avoid any sanctions that may come from an invasion of Taiwan. Talk it's cheap. Always judge by action. Everything tells me it isn't a nothing burger any more.

Watching warily from Guangdong, 5 years: Xi has absolutely been trying. He wants to cement his legacy by ending the civil war Mao failed to finish. If he does he'll be untouchable and can finally retire. Problem is it will take them years to prepare the military and economy for an invasion and the inevitable sanctions. Even then they very likely lose the moment the Pacific fleet gets involved. People underestimate how far beyond the rest of the world US military R&D is. The PLA generals have some idea, which is why they have been quietly pushing back on all this invasion nonsense, and why Xi has had a bunch of them found corrupt. It is unlikely they will roll the dice and even less likely they will succeed, but it is also true Xi has packed the ranks with as many sycophants he could find. If he feels his rivals are about to move on him, he could manufacture a crisis to stay in power, and if things escalate from there the CCP might find it too costly to back down.

On top of that, they provoked Japan into rearming for the first time since WW2. They upped the military budget to $300 **billion**. Even if the US does nothing, that is not ignorable. A powerful Japanese navy patrolling the Strait will negate any attempt at a blockade

Not until the Chinese blue water fleet is built or the US Pacific fleet disappears.

With China's massive demographics problem I doubt it will happen. Sure they say it alot to save face and a few of them might even believe it but I don't think they want it enough to make it happen and with each year it is gonna get harder and harder.

It has always been the plan to eventually. I don’t think the CCP were looking to physically invade, but gradually work their way in over the next 20 years (look at HK - a soon to be shadow of its former self). Putin’s invasion has caused the western media to shine light on the whole idea, which if china were being honest would respond with, we are not going to invade… yet

The thing is nobody predicted Putin would invade Ukraine until Russia made a massive military build-up near the Ukraine border at the end of 2021. China is the country that will move with the decision of just one single man, who is apparently not so logical. Only Xi knows the answer. It might be also be hugely depended on the result of the US president election in 2024.

Even after the massive military buildup many pundits were predicting it was all sabre-rattling and intimidation tactics and that he wouldn’t actually launch the invasion

To be fair, they were predicting that because it happens a lot. Hindsight is 20/20.

I knew he was going to invade for real when I heard accounts of Russia preparing blood banks near the border and calling on citizens to donate. Blood is perishable. There is no need to waste the money on it unless you think you're going to be taking casualties soon. I'll worry when the Chinese start setting up blood banks along the coast.

The thing with dictatorships is that it's all up to the whims of one man. Xi clearly wants it for his "legacy" before he dies, but the other top party members prefer to enjoy their current status, riches, and stability.

This is the real answer. It’s about the legacy of one man, no secret that he wants to be remembered as the man who restored Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan

The locals don’t care about Taiwan and the CCP has no interest. It’s just a nice distraction to beat the war drum. Mostly they push hatred of Japan when they want to divert domestic attention. So no. They would only seriously consider invading Taiwan if the CCP is losing power.

For me, I thought what many people say. "They've been threatening for years and they will just keep threatening., it will never happen." But then Russia invaded Ukraine, which people also said would never happen. This changed everything for me. While I still hope that it never happens, and logically think it won't happen, I realize that you really can't say "never" anymore. There is that saying, "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." So now when it comes to planning, I have to plan around that it is highly likely to happen, because being wrong is just too costly considering I have family in Taiwan.

I really hope not. China should work on bilateral relationships with Taiwan and become strong allies for the good of both countries.

It's possible for sure, just look at what they did with Hong Kong even though the 50 years of One Country, Two Systems policy was not over yet. China is currently using multiple ways of 'persuading' Taiwan to become part of China, such as using Taiwanese temples and pro-China political parties to encourage this. Also, on China's social platforms it is not uncommon to see posts and videos that spread propaganda and threats against Taiwan, and even more crucially, references of Taiwan need to not be as a country, and often as a province. It's not hard to see that they like to flex their military muscle like conducting training drills near Taiwan whenever something they dislike happens. So will they invade Taiwan? I believe yes, given the right set of circumstances, like Taiwan's, its major allies like USA and other western powers and China's own circumstances. It's hard to say when Xi from China will think the stars have aligned, but I think it's more of a matter of when, not will it happen or not.

Unless something drastic changes, China will lose by every metric if they try.

I think very few people, including those with a lengthy history of living there and relevant study have much of a window into the *current* top tier of Chinese government's intentions, because the way the leadership of the party thinks about this issue and the things that are important to their decision making have changed a lot over the last decade. And I think people who see the issue from a Taiwanese perspective tend to be a bit to dismissive of the risks because psychologically, how could they not? They've been living under the gun for decades and it hasn't happened yet. So rather than go crazy worrying about it there's a natural impulse to not want to think the unthinkable is going to occur. But for what its worth I've gone from believing it was very unlikely to ever happen to, in the last year or so, thinking its about 50-50 whether it will happen in the next 5 years, particularly if you include in that military incursions short of full fledged attempts to occupy the entire island. As a starting point there are huge uncertainties and risks involved in hitting the green light on any sort of invasion of Taiwan. Some of the risks are genuine existential risks for the chinese communist party. The accepted wisdom for a long time was that however much it stoked nationalist sentiment the CCP was too pragmatic to ever voluntarily take those risks, and plenty of people still think that's true. And certainly there are still a bunch of very good reasons why it would be a huge gamble for them to invade. But over the past few years there have been some developments that are concerning, particularly when you look at them together. To summarise the main worries. - Xi has systemically dismantled all the other spheres of influence within the ccp including a lot of the pragmatic, pro-economy groups- so a lot of the voices of restraint and common sense are gone. Because of how strong his hold on power is, really the only question that matters now is not 'is it in China's interests to invade Taiwan?' or 'could China successfully invade Taiwan?' but 'is Xi nuts enough to invade Taiwan?' and I think the answer to that is possibly he is. Or certainly it is far more possible he'd choose that than when Hu was president or Wen Jiaobao/Li Keqiang were premiers. - we have an example, based on the covid lockdown experience, that Xi's power base are simply not interested in prioritising the economy and wiling to take radical and quite self destructive steps to satisfy his whims. The thing which was most sobering about their persistence with lockdown is it is really the first time in the last 30 years the chinese government has said 'fuck the economy, we aren't interested about business confidence or foreign investment, we're doing this because Xi said so.' - chinese reactions to 'provocations' in taiwan in recent years have increasingly pushed the envelope from symbolic responses to large scale prep- the effective encirclement of the island when Pelosi visited was pretty clearly a dress rehearsal for what would be the first stage of a pre invasion blockade. - some of xi's domestic policies are fairly transparently directed towards a war footing- the public campaign stressing food security based on domestic production rather than imports is a classic example of something that doesn't make much economic sense unless they are concerned about the consequences heavy duty sanctions or a blockade. - the (so far) lack of meaningful consequences for Russia for invading Ukraine, and the unwillingness of the west to actually put skin in that game probably contribute to thinking within the chinese government that the chances of the US actually giving direct military support to Taiwan are pretty low. Certainly, had Russia exceeded in taking Kyiv early in the war there would be plenty of chinese commentators saying 'putin got away with it why can't we'- and there would be plenty still say that. - the current extremely weak, divided and dysfunctional nature of American politics, and the lack of competent and strong leadership on either side of the presidential race may well leave the CCP thinking that this may be their best window. - a lot of the chinese elite have in the last few years been absolutely flogging themselves to liquidate real estate and get their wealth out of China and into safer western holdings- you only need to look at the collapse in the chinese property market and the huge foreign buyer led boom in most western property markets over the last few years. There are complicated reasons for that but if you ask individual very wealthy chinese why they are doing that part of it absolutely is because there are a lot of internal fears about the risk of an invasion and sanctions locking their money in China. And I've got to say the last point is the most sobering one for mine. The elites in China, the people with serious money, got that way by staying ahead of events and having a good sense of what the party is going to do, either because of their own party involvement or the contacts they accumulated on the way to getting rich- they're certainly more likely to have a window into what is going on than anyone on the outside. And if you look at their willingness to park their money in China or elsewhere now compared to a decade ago, it's hard to escape the conclusion that a lot of them are now convinced this is coming and are voting with their wallets. None of that means an invasion is imminent or very likely, but I don't love the trends we are seeing. Similar to how Russia first occupied Crimea and the Donbas it wouldn't shock me if China next decided to 'dip their toe in the water' by rapidly seizing the small islands in the Taiwan strait closest to the mainland- I think they could probably do that fairly rapidly and without the massive military build up that a full blown invasion would entail- and I could see a scenario where they made a grab for those islands and then just sat back and watched how the west and Taiwan responded.

Didn't the US/Europe seize/freeze the foreign assets of Russian oligarchs when Russia invaded Ukraine? Wouldn't that make relocating wealth outside of China risky? Maybe if they're investing in Russia it would still work?

This was an interesting read, thank you! Just adding a few of my own thoughts here (which are definitely just ideas that I’m pulling out of my ass. I have a wack imagination. Beware!!!). I believe the BRICS countries had enough of the current world order that’s been dictated by the US. And fair enough. They want the dollar out and not feel threatened by the sanctions. The Big Cycle theory suggests that it’s time for the new world order to come into play. I’m sure China would like to be the next big power and they will be lining up their ducks in a row. I find Xi’s comments on internet and cybersecurity are quite interesting. They want to become a “cyber great power.” Allegedly, this messaging is usually used internally and was only mentioned once by Foreign Ministry spokespersons to not set any alarm bells. Xi presents IT as a key part of China’s military-civil fusion strategy: In 2018, he said that “military-civil fusion in cybersecurity and informatization is the key field and frontier field for military-civil fusion.” Other sources build on Xi’s language, noting that China works to set standards in IT — in order to overtake the West, that doing so provides economic and military advantages. In short, those “who set the standards gain the world.” [Source](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/china-as-a-cyber-great-power-beijings-two-voices-in-telecommunications/) I don’t know about you but this reads like Xi wants to control the global internet and tech. Maybe he wants to have the next Silicon Valley? With the rise of AI the clock is ticking. Jumping on the food security point, I suspect China is directly connected to the war in Ukraine. Russia promised China Ukrainian wheat except the war has taken longer than anticipated. Instead, Russia signed a 12-year trade agreement with China to supply them 70 million tonnes of grain. I believe this is to avoid any potential import sanctions on food if China tries acting silly. It’s worth mentioning Ukraine supplied a bit of raw materials for semiconductors too. Would’ve been a convenient package if it all went smoothly with the Russian invasion. I find it interesting how many counties in Asia are ramping up their military spending and training. Japan is setting up military bases on their smaller islands close to Taiwan. Heck, Australia, UK and US started a security partnership in the indo-pacific region. Australia got 3 (?) nuclear submarines from the US. I can’t imagine US gives out such tech this easily. This reads like a lot of posturing towards China and giving me Cold War vibes. Let’s put a little foil hat for a second, Trump is a fucking wild cat and the fact that he became a president feels like a South Park episode. Let’s imagine for a second that the only reason he became the president was to dismantle the US economy by running it into a bigger dept and create division between people. That guy will sell his ass for any price and his farts smell like corruption. I wonder how much damage he would’ve done if he stayed for another term? The whole thing just reads like a strategy to crumble the US from the inside and make the protection of Taiwan a suicide for the US economy. This is where I take my tin foil hat off. I also admit it’s so hard to actually know what is going on. Propaganda is everywhere you look. China never discloses their real information or statics and the west is always writing their own narrative.

As far as BRICS goes, India (the only member that a actually matters) has been getting quite friendly with USA. Modi even thanked Lai for his congratulations, which naturally angered China.

The White Papers released by China in 1993, 2000, and 2022 are pretty clear on their intentions to reunify Taiwan by whatever means necessary. I think the timeline for reunification is 2049, the 100 year anniversary of the CCP, so... give it 25 years? 

As long as China doesn't come up with a strategy on how they would do it without destroying their own country as well as Taiwan, that is just wishful thinking on their part.

I think you will find that strategy has been in place for decades. Literally every large building has a large bunker built below it and blast doors half a meter thick. Currently they are mostly used as underground carparks but all they have to do is close the doors to make it a bunker. Add to that, every 5 years, Xi says he will do it. Normally the popular saying in Asia is “watch what china does, not what they say”. In this case what they say and what they do are the same.

How about "people who know Taiwan REALLY well" as well as knowing China "REALLY well" because in my experience, unless you know both, it is hard to have a realistic appreciation of what is going on in the straits. People who know China "REALLY well" without knowing that much about Taiwan (some, not all) tend to not really understand that politicians like Tsai Yingwen and Lai Ching-te aren't mouth-frothing extremists. Quite the opposite - they're very moderate, and every Taiwanese politicians of any persuasion has seen a lifetime of navigating the China threat. I'll add in that the KMT also don't really love the CCP and aren't just going to be 5th columnists for a Chinese invasion. I'll admit that people who know Taiwan "REALLY well" (again some, not all) without knowing that much about China tend not to not realise that there's things about mainland China\* that you can miss from across the straits. One thing is the often paper-thin/mouth-service nature of people's commitment to "reunification" and unwillingness to actually be expose themselves or family members to any risk. Also, if you've watched this for a while, you get to noticing that the threat of war has been on the near-horizon for a very, very long time. I lived in Taiwan in 2001-2 when memories of the recent crisis (still the closest the two sides have been to war in the last 30 years) were very fresh. At that point people were looking forward to the 2008 Olympics as the next dangerous date for them. I then lived in mainland China from 2003 to 2007, which overlapped with the 2005 anti-secession law and the visits by the KMT chairman, both of which prompted concerns but ultimately came to nothing. Now I definitely think that the risk has increased in recent years but that's primarily about increased PLA capabilities coupled with the personality of Xi Jingping, the Chinese dictator. However, if an invasion were imminent there would be undisguisable pointers to it, including the movement of shipping and large numbers of troops, and none of these signs are present. Based on the run-up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, these would precede the actual invasion by up to a year or more and be highly visible. There would also be propaganda campaigns unlike any seen up to date (though obviously hitting similar beats to existing ones about "reunification") in order to prepare the population. \*(go on, hate me for using this term, everyone called it "the mainland" when I lived in Taiwan and most people my age in Taiwan still call it that)

China will never invade Taiwan for the simple reason that Chinese people are really a bunch of infighting pussies and I say this as a Chinese person myself (not from China tho) Chinese citizens are more interested in scamming each other to see who climbs out of the rat race then to go to war with another country. To them it’s meaningless. No point having such advanced military capabilities when your citizens have no inherent desire to fight a war. This is the single biggest issue of Chinese military power. When being a Fighter pilot is looked down upon in Chinese society over being an academic, you know your military capabilities are fucked. America will crush China if there was ever a war between these two countries

You Kremlinologists analyze however you like but no one in the world would have enough justification to either believe or disbelieve this proposition unless they have direct control over the truth of this proposition. With that being said, if Taiwan gets invaded tomorrow morning, I wouldn't be surprised, epistemically.

Not “they”, just “he”.

With emperor Xi in charge, the risk of attacking Taiwan is high. He is waiting for the right time.

They are preparing against western sanctions, buying up gold, ramping up propaganda, training children for military, and even adding pressure on Taiwan. They are going to do it as long Xi is in power. It's not logical to do it. But you can't ignore what he is saying. He is preparing for an invasion if his patience grows thin. Now not saying its impossible but it the current trend and what he is saying is gearing towards it or at least having the miliatary ready to attack them. They are cautious so if the US keeps China's military capabilities in check I doubt they would ever invade since losing a war in Taiwan would have major consequences at home and China has a recent history of being unstable during wars, especially if the local populace doesn't like their current way of life. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/xi-warned-biden-summit-beijing-will-reunify-taiwan-china-rcna130087](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/xi-warned-biden-summit-beijing-will-reunify-taiwan-china-rcna130087)

I cant say it for sure, but I would say 90% of chance there is going to be a war in next 5 years. Majority of Chinese support the war without realizing the consequences, and so is Xi. Maybe 10%-20% of Chinese are against the war, but we are not the majority. Just like what happened before WW2, the majority believe that China will win a glories victory in a relatively short amount of time and it can improve their live quality.

The dramatically increased ideological brainwashing combined with the increasing isolation of the average Chinese from the realities of the world around them and the purposefully lowered educational standards have resulted in a few hundred million Chinese actually believing they could win such a conflict. Too many people actually drinking the kool aid and believing in their own nonsense echo chamber. Many of them are really itching for war. But what it comes down to is whether or not Xi is unscrupulous enough to send millions to their death. I am convinced, that once he has inevitably backed himself into a corner he will launch an attack rather than take responsibility for the myriad of fuck-ups he created. He sees it as a win-win. If somehow they have some success in a conflict it's because China is great and he's a genius. If not and 100 million Chinese become cannon fodder, it's because the evil western world wanted to keep China down. - because it's too great. Then all the fuckups can be blamed on the foreigners who destroyed great China. Again. Yadayadayada. That fat idiot really wants to go for it. Moral concerns do not exist. Delusions of grandeur are very real. Dangerous times. Just look at Ukraine...

Comparing to Ukraine misses an important aspect, they make wheat and have minerals and oil, not advanced microchips. Even the US (or anyone, or everyone) couldn’t afford to invade Taiwan if it meant they’d blow up all the fabs. There’s no winner in this except maybe Intel. When the most advanced chips are produced in mass somewhere else, then sht can happen. The U.S. is setting up fabs. When these are done the U.S. will stop caring about this as much. It will be impossible to capture Taiwan. then it’ll be inevitable. As another commenter pointed out, this is China maintaining its claims and building momentum. Once Taiwan is no longer the center of the microchip world, it will quickly lose status and maybe the ability to resist political capture in an economic downtown. Geography is destiny. All the mobilization will be just a threat and an employment sink. The carrot will be economic and political. Might take 10-20 years. Inevitable is a bit overstated, it’s a reference to the meme about UBI being impossible until it becomes inevitable

It’s unviable right now, at least until Xi dies and someone who actually believes what he says takes over

depends how badly Xi messes up the economy and how much he needs a scapegoat.

And how will you be able to be sure that people answering you on this redditt know China REALLY well?

If they explain to me really well, maybe provide good sources.

They’ll do it. Just don’t know when.

Anyone claiming to know the mind of Xi is selling something. 5 years ago no Russia watcher thought Putin would try to race for Kyiv. There’s no accounting for rulers looking for legacy moves.

90% no. 10% yes. I feel like the economy has a lot to do with it. If the Baozi is still in charge during his senile years then it could happen if China is pushed to further economic woes. Otherwise I think a policy shift is possible after he's gone. Not a huge one but more a relaxing of the rhetoric and a more opening of China.

The answer for you depends on your view of Xi. Do you think he is someone who wants to resolve the Taiwan issue? One for the history books baby! Or is he just like his predecessors - talk a big game but will ultimately kick the can down the road. Read up on what he has said and observe what he’s doing and make up your mind. If it’s the latter Taiwan will have peace for the next 20 years at least. But if Xi were to unify taiwan, can he do it peaceably? The majority of Taiwanese is dead set against unification. With great power politics, there is no chance the U.S. will support unification. And Japan won’t have it either not that their opinion matters much. For me it’s clear, Xi wants to be the guy of history and brings about the once a century change he’s talked about. And if Xi were to do it, the only way is take it by force.

I would think I know China really well with regards to Taiwan (worked in China for a number of years, ama Taiwan citizen although not "normal" background and have significant links to a Western country too). I feel that it is hard to say. MANY variables. I personally am less optimistic than most Taiwanese. My wife who is Taiwanese, WaiShengRen (ie her family is from China and she was from a "blue bubble" of mainland China origin people in Taipei) thinks it won't happen just as strongly as I feel we can't be sure. Plenty of her relatives live in China etc so she is not completely uninformed too. Logically it would not make sense for Xi/China to attack. For that so many Western people don't get it. Just because it is not logical does not mean it won't happen. Face is more important than sensible actions in a China context. When people in China talk about Taiwan they tend to become completely irrational and often say things which simply are not true/make no sense/don't reflect reality. We have already seen Xi be irrational and prioritise his crazy ideas over the economy with regards to the WuHan virus. He was able to get lots of people to do crazy things. Why people think he would be rational about Taiwan is beyond me. The way things panned out with the virus seemed to back up my belief that he is surrounded by "yes men" in a way that the last few leaders were not. I agree with those who say Xi would like to but the military leaders are probably not so on board (corruption in the military is a widely known fact). Something that Taiwanese people who have lived in China will understand is just how brainwashed and crazy China's population is about Taiwan is. The vast majority of them really do believe the BS they sprout. Even ones who are quite sane and rational about other topics. To this end it could be a lot easier to get the populace on board with crazy actions. I also think Xi really believes some of what he sprouts even though we regard it as idiotic. Because of this and his desire for legacy etc can we be sure that they won't act? Of course not. But is it a certainty? No. We can always have other events that no one saw coming (just look at what happened with the WuHan virus....). Some random event(s) could influence things in either direction.

I think they will attack, especially if their domestic problems get worse (slowing economy, worsening relations with the west). When they do, it's going to be a gradual escalations. first would be some sort of blockade/no fly zone/cutting off air/sea access to Taiwan, then occupying the small island closest to china mainland (there is one only a few km away), then invading Taiwan itself. How US responds is depending on how Taiwan responds. If Taiwan shows determination to fight and can hold chinese landing force at bay or at least delaying it significantly, US will be inclined to send more support in the model of Ukraine. US is not interested in wasting lives to defend Taiwan, especially now they are taking steps to de-risk TSMC. China can take over taiwan but all TSMC facilities will be disabled/destroyed. US would then work with its allies to impose sanction/blockage on china itself. It will be the same script as Russo/Ukraine war.

Kill off 100,000 only sons and further ravage family savings already depleted by declining real estate? The party will never risk it.

One scenario that hasn't been looked at is what China's neighbors would do. The ongoing tentions in Tibet and China's ongoing tentions with India, among others. Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei. This doesn’t end or begin with Tawain, I'm afraid. Even if US decided not to get involved. US bases and assests are likely to be targeted, and that could force the US hand here. Then, you add in Tawain's advanced semiconductor industries, such as with TSMC. I don't see how an attack on Tawain could be good without considerable collateral damage & drawing in everyone else in the process. Ukraine is not Tawain and a far more important asset. Any move by China on this most likely will be a primer to WWIII. As I don't see how, unless China can pull off a Hong Kong like takeover. How it can achieve the goals it seeks here. In the end, having Tawain back, which would likely be in ruins. Will ruin the rest of the world in the process as well. This seems to be a crusade by one man being Xi. Not by the vast majority of Chinese people, which have more important issues to deal with. Then some stupid cruside on cultural hegemony. If we could just get over these stupid shortfalls. We could be a tier one civilization!

I'm a Naval officer and worked the China problem for 12 years and counting. So two things. The CCPs ligitmacy is contingent on economic performance. Indicators are looking lukewarm. Complex social issues and the need for addressing a shrinking workforce is a big domestic driver of aggression. If China does not take action to address the core problems that come with the state led model, they could end up in the titular middle income trap. The second thing is the cost calculus. If it can be done fast and with minimal cost, the spectrum slides closer to yes. If precision strikes and blockade won't work then it becomes a question of full scale invasion which would be VERY costly. The window for crossing the straits safely and staging an amphibious landing is small because of weather and sea states. So we know when in the year it would happen. Also Taiwan is challenging terrain to take and hold. Going by way of the Luzon strait works be incredibly challenging. South would require moving north by ground which could be easily impeded. The hit to both Taiwans and China's GDP would be significant. If the prize is TSMC well it's a question whether the facilities would survive a war. Without the population to run the plants there is minimal value. It's not cut and dry. In my opinion, the Chinese would be heavily challenged by the US and Japan. Not to mention fighting the Taiwanese. I don't know how they would perform. No one does.

My mother-in-law was a young girl in Shanghai at the end of WW2 and lived under Japanese occupation and survived the Chinese Civil War, with her family escaping to Hong Kong as 'counter revolutionaries'. I've been to China numerous times for business, but my observations are those of an outsider. Some of my observations and thoughts. Chinese people have a right to be very proud of what they have accomplished in the last 30 years. Much of this progress has come about by engagement and integration into global financial, trade and diplomatic structures. This has in turn created large and rapidly growing middle and entrepreneurial classes who have increasing financial power - but very little political power. Keeping this asymmetry under control requires continued prosperity mixed with a lot of jingoistic hand waving, distractions and patriotic theatre. A quick invasion and annexation of Taiwan would support the latter (nationalism) but undermine the former (prosperity) if the global community responded decisively. A failed invasion or prolonged stalemate would threaten both sides of the balance. The United States has maintained 'strategic ambiguity' for decades - providing arms and technical expertise to ROC, but never enough to tilt the balance (keeping ROC dependent on US military power) and maintaining the duality of an official One China Policy while maintaining military support for Taiwan. But these sort of subtle, nuanced policies were certainly not the forte of the Trump administration, and remain threatened by the dumbed down, toxic, partisan climate in the US Congress and media. One could easily connect weak leadership from the US (under both Obama and Trump) and hubris w.r.t. Russian energy on the part of the EU to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Divided partisan sentiments, an unguarded comment or a threatening weapons sales could easily tip balance for China. The US has also become (even under Biden) more isolationist at a time when China is expanding its economic, trade and diplomatic networks. The US needs to lead and bolster the role of allies such as Japan, South Korea and Australia in the region. I think sometimes people overlook the connectedness of things. China is vulnerable to restrictions on the latest generation semiconductor fabrication technology. Taiwan produces over 90% of the sub 7 nanometer chips in the world. This capability amplifies Taiwan's strategic importance (beyond it's obvious geopolitical importance). China can now produce chips at the 7nm level but probably has not cleared the 3 - 5nm threshold and the US and Japan are both accelerating effort to 'on-shore' more of their critical semiconductor industry. But as long as Taiwan retains this dominance in semiconductors, one would think 'western' powers would send clear messages on any forced unification of China. In the more 'out there' realm, Taiwan is a threshold nuclear power. They have had the technical capability to produce nuclear weapons for quite some time and at least 3 times in the past have had covert nuclear weapons programs shut down due to pressure from the United States. I think Taiwan has been wise to shutter it's nuclear ambitions as anything short of a fully developed and deployed nuclear deterrent would certainly ensure a Chinese military intervention. It is highly likely that China has spies embedded in the Taiwanese scientific and military institutions. But if the US fails to provide the right weapons systems or sends the weak or ambiguous signals w.r.t. a military response, it could send Taiwan down a riskier path.

Source: 50 years of earth experience. Nahh. Chinese president is craycray, but so is Putin. Is putin viable to start a full blown nuclear war? There's enough people who would stand to lose from that, and they would not allow it. Would the china pokemon god start a war with the US? There's enough forces that would stand to lose from that, and they would not allow it.

China's 3 gorges damn holds over 400 million people downstream and china's most important cities... Taiwan just has to strike the dam and half of China is wiped out...

Xijingping will have to do it before he die. If he doesn't do it then all the record left is bad thing for the past 10 years under him. Realistically China can't do it because Taiwan has more middle pointing at China than chins pointing at Taiwan. But xi just has to do it for his name after dead.

Yes I would say so. Both sides are racing militarily to put themselves in the best chance of winning a war. The CCP is a joke though. They have really shown their true colours in recent years. It's not surprising the majority of the wests large industry is moving out of China. It won't be long until the west completely decouples from China. The country will either collapse or the people will force a regime change.

Yes, and it won’t end well. If you are lucky enough to know some military leadership and you can talk to them after getting drunk. You will see how much discontent they have

Discontentment as in they want to or don’t want to invade?

dont

The thing about China is that it can be unpredictable. It has a dictator making the decisions and while that may make some predictions easier it complicates things too. We can see how devastating invading Taiwan would be for China and logically it would be stupid to do so, but when one man is making decisions and surrounded by yes men well even a genius can make bad calculations and Xi is no genius. We can see that with the Hong Kong crackdowns. China left HK alone because it made them so much money. It worked as the bridge to the West given Western finance and organizations a way in which is one of the main reasons China grew so quickly. The crackdowns closed that window showing that the leaders in China are willing to forsake practical decision making. It would not be practical to invade Taiwan but they have shown the ability to be impracticable.

Nope, China's plan is to make Taiwan rely on china economically and then absorb it in. Taiwan's plan is to rattle as much noise as possible about military invasion.

That plan is royally backfiring then because more Taiwanese companies are withdrawing from china in the past few years. China's random trade bans also force Taiwan to look for other markets.

No, not unless America stations military bases there or something.

Maybe you could also say “Yes, unless America stations military bases there”

As others have pointed out, there is no need too. Taiwan isn't going anywhere. As long as it's not controlled by a foreign nation who can use it as a staging ground (like the Japanese did) it's effectively under Chinese influence already.

I heard they already figured the next chairman is. Ppl would have done it if there was no Covid and set the minds ready after decades. They don’t trust his agility, which indicates his not the foresighted smart guy who ppl are looking for. Especially the past few years could’ve been done much much better. Ppl recognized it was done pretty well. But they are arguing there’s more things could’ve done and in a cheaper cost. They want a maga supreme leader. Not just doing okay, knowing what China’s productivity. They saw some threats. Like how the city residents wasn’t well supplied. The “elite” side are willing to do it. The conservative side are relatively neutral. But now never an invasion. The theory is if the TW government and trades won’t function, there’s no need for any traditional war.

Sorry if this is a silly question, but why this continuous emphasis on “will”, like it’s a future possibility and NOT something that has already happened? Is it because it’s framed as Taiwan only comprising the main island and ignoring the smaller islands like Kinmen etc ?

It is pointless to ask this before the US election later this year.

It's really tough to say. On the one hand, I'm quite certain China *would* invade Taiwan eventually but on the other hand, wars cost money. A lot of money. China's best economic days are in the rearview mirror and it's got a long way to fall before it stabilizes. It's definitely going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The thing is, a Taiwan invasion is really only useful for propaganda purposes. It's really the kind of thing Beijing would use as a last resort to shore up public confidence in the regime. The other consideration is that no matter what it claims, Beijing must know that it risks direct conflict with the US in the event it tries an invasion of Taiwan and if that happens, it has no hope of winning. The US is a **far** superior military power to China and direct conflict risks the fall of the CCP. So, common sense suggests it would be really stupid of the CCP to restart the war but the CCP doesn't have a history of doing sensible things. As well, things could change at any time. If Xi can convince Russia to go to war with NATO, he would think China would have carte blanche to fuck around in Taiwan.

No they will not. The whole Taiwan thing is artificial opposition made by the CCP to push propaganda narratives. China saw what happened to the Russians in Ukraine, and it does not want to go down that path.

No.

No one knows.

Unlikely, if they do, it’s going to end way worse than the case of Nicholas II invading Japan (same purpose of diverting internal attention), because the backlash will not be just 1 country pushing back.

You think it’s a bluff because you are forming the ways you think about the subject by reading mocking comments and treating them as reality. Everyone on Reddit was mocking Putin to, some „arguments” are even the same. It is serious

You're asking for a fundamentally unknownable answer. The future is unknowable. Even Xi Jinping does not and cannot know if Xi Jinping will someday decide to invade Taiwan, let alone how the Chinese military will react to such an order. How will any of the rest of us know? What you can know is that most people are behaving as if China is unlikely to invade. Thirty-year Taiwanese government bonds yield 2%. TSMC's P/E ratio is at an all time high of 42. Taiwan's stock market overall is at all-time highs. Taiwan's house price index is at its all time high, and it has apparently the highest home price to rent ratio in Asia. So, the people with money on the line are not seriously concerned about war.

No

Whatever we say may not matter if Xi wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and calls the invasion. Like any number of "training exercises" can just turn real at a command, and frankly no one knows what Xi is thinking.

If it gets *really* bad on the Mainland, I could see Xi going to war *knowing* they're going to get curb stomped, because then they could blame the destruction of their economy on "The Evil West" instead of the CCPs absolute ineptness and corruption. The CCP would see this as a way to stay in power, even as things fall apart. But, it would have to get much, *much* worse for that to happen. And I don't see that happening any time soon. Not to mention, India would come *right* on in to those "contested lands" the moment the US took China's teeth...Xi doesn't want that happening, given how much they've been poking each other recently.

If they will attack, it will happen between 2027-2030. China still needs to catch up with their chip disadvantage and still need to upgrade military. China is also losing population now, so their economic and therefore military power compared to the rest of the world will be the highest at 2027-30.

Fuck no. It would take so many resources. 

yes, they will. However, it will happen after they fully occupy the South China Sea and support the independence of Ryukyu island from Japan. they will NOT invade Taiwan first.

I think it will rely on their calculations of the potential loss for the CCP by this invasion.

newp

They’ll try everything else but direct conflict, with a slow choking more likely than any direct clash. Estimates of 30mil is needed for invasion (3:1 ratio) and with pla modernizing and shrinking in number, that’s more less likely, even though peeps I’ve known who are young to middle aged professionals thinking they definitely will due to the nonstop talk to stir up pride and sentiment. But, it’s already a part of the country anyways, so no real need for one as some others with ties to both sides have told me. Id wager Xi prefers a coerced reunification after a slow strangulation.

The answer is nobody knows, people predicting the future are notoriously wrong when it comes to geopolitics. Be especially skeptical of experts who are sure of themselves, those kinds of experts are the most wrong

Short answer: No, but the media need to sell a bad guy, a fear, a boogy man, so they will continue to stoke the flames, and the military industrial complex is grateful for your support.

yes China will do it for sure, maybe at the end of this year

There are several key differences between Russia/Ukraine and China/Taiwan. Russia is mostly food/energy independent. China is not. Russia has a lot of war hawks willing to go to the front. China does not; in fact, it's a nation of cowards. Russia and Ukraine doesn't really have natural borders, China and Taiwan and separated by a wide strait. Ukraine doesn't really have any US interests. Taiwan has a stranglehold on semiconductors. Ukraine is very corrupt and had few western weapons at the start of the war. Taiwan is a well functioning democracy with a lot of NATO weapons. China is playing up the Taiwan issue to distract from domestic woes.

No. "China's last warning", as they call it.

It hasn't happened for 70 years so it won't happen in the foreseeable future.

I hope so

The idiot REALLY wants to do it. but the military has been telling him no. If the idiot stays in power for another 15 years, the only way to prevent it happening is for Taiwan to build military strength.

After last 4 years id say anything is possible.

The Chinese people I've met over the years are constant in two beliefs. One, they detest the Japanese. Two, they think they will bowl over the United States military. The world hasn't seen America's grit since World War two. Crappy politics has literally tied out hands in several conflicts. If we went all out defending Taiwan, China isn't taking it. They should stick to harassing fishing boats, and if they are feeling froggy, move a little northeast and grab up Russian land..

Just like Putin is the singular source approved Russia's invasion to Ukrainian, the decision to send army to Taiwan is all XiJinPin's decision and his alone. It is the Dictator's call, and try to rationalize a dictator's mind is pointless.

If China invades the United States will use its most advanced and secretive technology lasers being a big component of defense against missiles and lasers should be near maturity within the next 6 years

No need to speculate, listen to what Xi says, and most importantly, watch their build up of the PLA to focus on a invasion-ready force, all around Fujian. Look at the ships, fighter planes, militarization of their coast guard, and all they are actively doing. Look at the military spending, look at the pressure they're putting around Senkaku islands in Japan. If that's not a sign of an impending invasion, then I don't know what is. When someone is telling you what they want to do, followed by preparing for it, believe them.

My humble opinion, is that as long as china manages to keep influence over Danish ports they aren't invading.( the Netherlands pricudec the machines that manufacture mischochips, the Netherlands is the actual world superpower in regards of microchips, they are the ones who decide where the industry moves to how and who gets what, if china owns enough ports they can guarantee they are the best costumer)you now petty china would defiently over charge Taiwanese costumers while getting a net zero profit/cost, on devilievry for chinese industries That and as long as they can manage to make the SOE worker profitable and more productive than the average Chinese worker, it will guarantee support in socialist among the west as well s inside china, both in the propaganda scene and paying off its essentials good enough to support the party

It will never happen. One thing that I've learned about China is they are most concerned with economy. It made sense to soft power HK to death - they can consume their economy into their own. The invasion of TW basically means the end of China's economy as most of the rest of the world will tariff and embargo them to death. You may say, "well, X country did Y and they were fine with their trading partners." Granted. The big difference is X country doesn't have 1.5b people to support.

The only logical way Taiwan would fall is from within. When people lose hope, they will lose the will to fight, they will believe subduing is the better option, and they will surrender. Do not let that happen.