Taiwanese leader Xi Jinping has been evident that he intends to acquire Taiwan – one way or another. He has great causes. It may create Xi as one of the gods by accomplishing anything Mao Tse Tung was n’t.
By taking Taiwan, China breaks through the first island chain – the island countries stretching from Japan to Taiwan and on to the Philippines and Malaysia – that inhibit China ’s freedom of entry to the Pacific and beyond. Break the chain and the Army finally gets quick access to the Pacific and potentially can encompass Japan, cut off Australia and proceed forward. These are functional rewards.
As essential are the social and psychological benefits. Consider Taiwan and Beijing has demonstrated the US government had n’t save the 23 million free citizens of Taiwan. Neither had American economic and financial stress. And US nuclear weapons did n’t stop China both.
In assets all over Asia, the calculus will shift and many will reduce the best offers they can and change “red ” immediately rather than attempt to resist Chinese pressure on their own. The United States may be finished as a Western power. And worldwide nobody will believe a US guarantee of protection – explicit or implicit.
Is China taking Taiwan?
The late released 2024 US Department of Defense China Military Power Report presents a bleak portrait of a rapidly developing Chinese government. But the report assesses that while Taiwan is a primary goal, the Chinese government really is n’t ready for procedures against the beach.
No matter how many progress the Army makes, it seems it ’s not quite ready to attack Taiwan. China specialists can rattling off the reasons why a Taiwanese assault on Taiwan won’t be coming in the near future.
Here’s the lotto cards of reasons. And why, probably, the claims may not be all they seem.
1. There are only two little windows during the year ( April and October ) when the weather is good enough for an invasion force to get across the Taiwan Strait.
When asked about this, a Chinese works noted: “Look at the bridge schedule. They run all time. ” And someone should include told Dwight Eisenhower about the climate in June 1944. He just needed 72 hrs of good wind to get across the English Channel.
2. Only a small quantity of small beaches on Taiwan’s western coast are suitable for an aquatic landing.
Marine forces sometimes don’t have much of a beach…or one at all…if you ’ve struck the keeper tight enough or deceived him. The U. S. Marines pushed a division across a beach about 200 yards wide in one day at Tinian in 1944. And amphibious operations include troops delivered by helicopter, airborne, and infiltrated in advance along with fifth columnists.
3. PLA needs to seize a port – and that’ll never happen because 1 ) it ’s a port and Taiwan is presumably defending it; 2 ) The Chinese are not smart enough to have their fifth column, including organized crime, already in place to up up, say, Kaosiung.
The “barges ” China is building can, in combination with redundant ships, be used to build breakwaters and other components of an artificial port.
4. PLA has n’t got the “lift ” – enough ships – to take troops and equipment across the strait.
A Marine Corps University professor in the late 2010’s had a PowerPoint presentation making this case. He was counting the wrong ships. Add in “old ” amphibious ships and civilian ships and boats that were integrated under the “military-civil fusion ” doctrine and the PLA had plenty of lift. It’s got even more now. And the world’s second-largest merchant marine has more than enough shipping to deliver up to six brigades and 60 days of supplies ( particularly if they build an artificial harbor ).
5. Amphibious operations are the hardest, most complex military operation known to man.
This argument boils down to “the Chinese just aren’t as smart as us. ” That’s mistaken, and when it comes to amphibious operations, read Toshi Yoshihara’s book on how they performed in the Chinese Civil War.
6. PLA can’t do joint operations.
Look at recent exercises and ongoing training. They’re getting better. In fact, they’ve been doing joint training for going on two decades and intensely since Xi came to power 12 years ago. And you don’t have to be perfect. Just good enough to do a specific task in a specific place.
7. PLA can’t do “joint logistics over-the-shore. “
Once again, the Chinese aren’t smart enough and can’t possibly be our equals.
8. The PLAN has aircraft carriers but they’re nowhere near our level.
Do you see a pattern? The Chinese aren’t intelligent or capable enough. Just as was said about the Japanese in 1941. Remember, the PLA’s carriers will be operating within and along the edge of the First Island Chain and with the support of the PLAAF and PLA Rocket Force.
9. PLA has n’t got combat experience.
Neither does the US Navy, except against the Houthi Navy. And the rest of the US military has n’t fought a high-end opponent in decades.
10. The PLA is corrupt.
Andrew Erickson at the Naval War College gets it right: “If Xi and the PLA were in the disarray that some myopically focused on their system’s chronic corruption imagine, there’s no way China ’s military could be developing, deploying, exercising and otherwise preparing in the ways that the CMPR chronicles. ”
11. Xi Jinping can’t trust his generals and admirals.
Neither could Hitler or Stalin. One almost got to Moscow. The other took Berlin.
12. The PLA is “restive” and pushing back at Xi’s efforts to give himself total power.
Have we ever seen any real evidence that any PLA officer has “pushed back”? And on our side, how many US Navy admirals pushed back against the systematic degrading of their service’s capabilities over the last 30 years? It was also said before 1939 that the Wehrmacht Generals – the elite of the elite – would never actually let “that Corporal” run things.
13. The Chinese can’t innovate. They can only copy.
There’s “Chinese ingenuity ” just as there was “Yankee ingenuity. ” It works well enough, no matter who invented the thing improved upon. the PLA Strategic Rocket Force has been very innovative…anyone heard of the DF-21D, DF-26, and DF-17? Or the new Type 076 amphibious assault carrier that is going to carry and launch drones, fixed wing and helicopters and put amphibious vehicles on the beach?
14. PLA officers and NCOs won’t take the initiative – like ours will.
Maybe. But have you ever heard a Korean War vet say he wanted to fight the Chinese again?
15. China won’t attack Taiwan until 2027, 2035, 2049.
It’s always some years off. Xi is said to have told his military to be ready to go against Taiwan by 2027. In fact, Hu Jintao in 2008 and Xi in 2013 ordered the PLA to be ready to take Taiwan in 2020.
The shoe could drop at any time. Would Xi really tell us his attack date in advance? Remember that the British assessed in the 1930s that Germany would not be ready to fight a war until 1943.
16. China has so many one-child families that Xi would n’t dare attack.
The popular anger over families losing their only child would be too hard for Xi and CCP leaders to handle, it is argued. But make them “heroes of the revolution ” and provide a house and a handsome pension – and complaints about it disappear.
17. Economic costs would be too high.
Tough, yes, but Xi is sanctions-proofing the country. And he’s telling his people to toughen up and get ready for what’s coming. What is never discussed is the economic benefits that taking Taiwan and establishing the PRC’s global domination over the global trading system would mean for the PRC. It is always viewed in the negative…but they don’t consider that Xi and the CCP see it as a step towards economic supremacy.
18. The blow to China ’s reputation will be too high.
As if the CCP cares about its reputation. If the CCP does n’t mind the flack that comes from taking organs out of live prisoners and selling them, the criticism from taking Taiwan won’t move the needle much. Nor is there likely to be much. Who is still talking about the subjugation of Tibet or the strangling of Hong Kong?
19. Taiwan has a million reservists.
999,000 of whom get about four days of training a year.
20. Taiwan’s military and civilians will fight like tigers.
Maybe. But the Taiwanese may not be the Ukrainians or the Finns, especially if outside support does n’t come quickly.
21. Taiwan has mountains. Mountain combat is tough.
Just too hard for the Chinese, it seems. However, selected PLA brigades train in the mountains annually and unless there is a war with India, they might be deployed to Taiwan after the beaches are secure.
22. Taiwan has cities. Urban combat is tough.
The Americans, the Russians and many others have figured out urban combat. But it ’s too hard for the Chinese?
23. The US military has a qualitative superiority with its hardware, training and experience.
The French thought ‘elan’ would overcome the German Maxim guns in 1914. It did n’t. They also had faith in the fact their tanks were superior in 1940. And these days, America’s technological superiority is eroding almost daily.
24. The U. S. military calculated that taking Formosa from the Japanese in 1944/1945 would have been a herculean effort.
True. But perhaps Xi thinks it ’s worth it for him. And what he thinks matters. And it probably is worth more to the PRC and Xi these days than Formosa was to the US in 1944/1945.
Also, let’s not forget that our invasion force had to travel 1,200 nautical miles to the invasion beaches on Taiwan versus 120nm for the PLA. We only had carriers for air support for the first week. Again, the PLA has the full strength of the Eastern and Southern Theater Command Air Forces as well as the PLARF ( PLA Rocket Force ). We had nothing to compare to the PLARF in 1944-45.
25. The American invasion of Sicily in 1943 was really hard…so the PLA can’t possibly do an invasion of Taiwan.
Really. One fellow wrote a piece about this a few years ago.
26. The Japanese will step in.
With what? And not if Japan’s business community and the “Ministry of Foreign Affairs ” “China club” and the “political class ” China sympathizers have anything to say about it.
These are all practical articles of faith for a sizeable chunk of the US China analyst community. And they create “threat deflation ” – as retired US Navy Captain James Fanell and Dr Bradley Thayer call it – that justifies complacency.
It is, of course, possible that some combination of these reasons may dissuade Xi Jinping from attacking Taiwan. And nothing in war is easy– not least an assault across the Taiwan Strait.
But one imagines a similar “bingo card ” could have been created to demonstrate why the Chinese would n’t or could n’t attack across the Yalu River into Korea in 1950. It’s equally dangerous to underestimate the PRC in 2025.
So, the United States has a choice: start acting like the threat to Taiwan ( and to us ) is immediate and not a couple of years or more into the future – and move a lot faster.
Or, if that ’s too hard, just read and re-read reasons 1-26 until you are lulled into a comfortable stupor. No points for guessing which one Xi would prefer.
Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and senior fellow at The Center for Security Policy, The Japan Forum for Strategic Studies and The Yorktown Institute. He is the author of When China Attacks: A Warning to America. This article first appeared on RealClear Defense and is republished with the author’s kind permission.