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‘Ukrainian strategy has become a model’: Taiwanese beef up military to face China threat
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would look nothing like Russia's invasion of Ukraine. China could attack Taiwan with fires from the mainland, there isn't a deep depth of terrain within which to hide. It would be more about resisting an occupying force than trying to meet them on the battlefield.
The deterrence here isn't in stopping an invasion, but from making the fallout so costly that it wouldn't be worth it. Just rigging the TSMC plants with explosives and blowing them up when an invasion starts would accomplish deterrence more effectively than having soldiers shoot at each other. The unified economic sanctions of Russia after the invasion of Ukraine has been extremely costly and acts as a major message of deterrence against China trying to take Taiwan and risking reduction to the foreign trade that's so vital to their stability (which is why they're to develop their domestic market to reduce economic dependence).
Taiwan should stay independent, but it doesn't make sense to have a lot of people bleed for it.
I also hugely doubt China's blustering is as severe as Russia's. I know all militaries overstate their capabilities but I think one of the biggest factors in Ukraine's successful defense so far was that Russia was spouting all stars and then it turned out they had more like a junior varsity high school team. I think the delta between the perception and reality of China's military capabilities is much lower.
That's absolutely true of China's military equipment. It is absolutely close to equal to US equipment. The problem China has is it has no soldiers. It has a lot of people they call soldiers, but do not have people actually ready to fight.
India recently sailed both their aircraft carriers and ran sorties on them. This was massive show of force to China. China the country with 3 aircraft carriers, one of them super carrier level. So why is just sailing 2 aircraft carriers a show of force?
China has never sailed more than one aircraft carrier at a time. They simply don't have enough sailors or pilots to do it. China's military has a budget just like any other military. They spent all the money on equipment and nothing on training. They have a couple hundred thousand soldiers with full body armor and night vision, and that's it. US in comparison, this is the most basic level of protection. China simply did not invest enough on training and basics.
This is why you see all the articles about China hiring foreign pilots to train them. China is fully aware of it's limits and are actively trying to change that. As the US generals have already said, China is moving towards being able to overpower, but not today.
*Edit. And this is also the biggest difference between Russia and China. China is aware of their capabilities, where as Russia believed it's own propaganda. If and when China attacks, it will be devastating. However, I'm in the camp of believing they will never attack. Because they'll never feel ready. For all Xi said about being ready for war, they're no better today with training than they were 10 years ago. Even though today they're flying 5th gen stealth fighters.
Helpful to remember that while Taiwan is certainly much, much smaller, it is also mountainous and urban, with few good beaches. Some very unfavorable terrain to attack into, no matter how much you blast it first.
Their population is also quite high, that island has half the population of Ukraine, and they have money coming out of their ears.
They can make a conventional invasion extremely costly, even the old fashioned way. They wouldn't win unaided, but they could draw it out. Just due to the defensible geography.
And that's exactly why Taiwan trains to repel amphibious attacks, mines the beaches, builds bunkers and so on!