Taiwan vs china...

put it like this:
is worth the consequences of such invasion?
i do not think so, since now china needs to import oil and some other material, if the world reacts with an embargo china economy will suffer the consequences

 

And it will seriously damage its economic growth.

 

hmmm....any one got any idea how the possible war will go...how will china attack? how will taiwan counter?

i think it will be china firing missiles and taiwan attempting to counter this and strike china with airpower. Then if the strike did not fail to stop china, a air war will go on with each side fighting for air superiority,while china send its subs to blockage taiwan...then if china is most likely to invade it if this succeed and began to send its destroyer and frigate with air cover to attack the ROC navy, followed by an amphibous assault on the northern and southern part of taiwan,namely taipei and kaoshung...at this point it is very diffcult for taiwan to hold on its own, but likely the USA will interve and hep taiwan and defend it with the US 7 fleet...this is what i think will happen...

 

At the start, I think China has two options:

- Launch a surprise attack which will have the advantage that the taiwanese military will not be prepared but the political disadvantage that China will be globally condemmed of an unprovoked agression.

- China slowly increases tensions with Taiwan and tries to discredit Taiwan on the international scene.
It could accuse Taiwan of separatism and of developping atomic or other weapons of mass destruction, and so trying to make it's claims sound justified.
In this scenario, China would also seek international support by telling the world that if Taiwan satisfies chinese claims, it could have a privilegiate status inside China, as Hong Kong for example, and thus making it's claims sound more moderate.
All this would be accompanied by chinese UN efforts that would sound like:
"This is an internal chinese affair, and we call to the world not to interfere in our internal business.".

All this would already cause great instability in Taiwan because their people and leaders know that even if they should suceed with US or other support to push back a chinese invasion, such a war would leave their island totally devastated.
So to many taiwanese it would seem wise to accept chinese demands if they are not to severe.

If however it comes to war, it could look like this:

The chinese launch missile and air strikes against Taiwan.
Taiwanese air defence would be very soon out of combat because due to sheer numbers, the chinese will not allow the taiwanese to use their air ports anymore.
I presume the training standards of the two nations are similar, the taiwanese having perhaps a slight superiority in aircraft quality.
But nevertheless, the taiwanese air force would be made ineffective in 2-3 days.

After having secured air superiority the chinese would land on Taiwan, probably on some different points.
These landings would start with airborne landings first, supported by helicopter based infantry securing beach heads.Later there would be an amphibious landing, heavily supported by air power and frigates.
If these landings succeed, the war ends some days later.

Should the US really decide to intervene then of course it gets a lot more complicated for the chinsese.
In that case they would probably decrete a blocade of Taiwan, threatening to sink every ship that nears the island.
In order to do so, it would use it's submarines, but I doubt that these alone could stop the US Navy.
Probably the chinese would use tactical atomic weapons(sea, air and land based) against the american ships, and the americans would do the same against the chinese ships.
If the americans really decide to send a great part of their fleet, then I think they could well prevent a chinese landing on Taiwan, but in that scenario, there wouldn't be that much left of Taiwan to fight over.

Fortunately this all is purely hypotetical, because it would not make any sense to the chinese to risk an open confrontatian over the Taiwan issue.
The way China is developping makes time work in it's favour and they would be very stupid to gamble their development over an issue that most probably can be solved peacefully in the future.

 

A week ago, China declared that it is its duty to stop any attempt at complete seperation from China by the Taiwanese, through military force if necessary. While this may be purely a game of words, it shows how volatile the situation might turn out to be.

 

I think that the Chinese military is indeed capable of mounting an invasion of Taiwan. However, Taiwan is a large island (this fact was one of the reasons the USA did not invade it during WW2), so the big question would be, does China have the sealift to not only land a sufficient force of troops to successfully invade the island, but also to keep it adequately supplied, reinforced and otherwise supported? Especially if the US Navy opposes such an invasion?

 

With the US Navys involvement (unless the 7th fleet suffers a pearl harbor), the chinese dont have much chance of conducting along campaign. Without the US navys interference, deffinatly.

 

would japan be allowed to help taiwan in this case, they were in rather good releations with taiwanese....

 

I've read that as well, but my take is that the Chinise Navy has put a lot of resources into submarines of various sorts, cruise missile armed light surface vessels etc etc. I suspect it's oriented more towards a raiding kind of strategy to scare of the US. Something in style with the old WW2 Kriegsmarine.

That I don't really believe, DW. The amount of shipping needed to transport enough of the huge Chinese formations to Taiwan to actually take the isles are just mindbogling. Fair enough, not much water separates the mainland from Taiwan, but it's enough, I think. Amphibious operations are not easier today than back in WW2, on the contrary! Furthermore the Chinese have to secure complete and total air superiority before launching an invasion, and that I'm almost certain they cannot achieve.

Besides, I really can't see the Chinese Army, the ground elements of the PLA that is, having the troops for this. The lack of training, general quality and modern doctrines are still a problem in the PLA. The PLA (all branches) might have a lot of new Russian toys, but that's about it. The PLA ground forces are still primarily based on huge unwieldy mass-formations, not fast, mobile units capaple of a successful modern amphibious operations against a very tough target as Taiwan.

Well, yes, but one side, Taiwan, is a democracy and a modern state in all regards and the other is an unpleasant, corrupt Communistic state, which btw have occupied Tibet and routinely oppresses its own population, Hmm, not much of choice, nor problem in my view, unless of course we're talking about money, then there might be problem as mainland China represent a truly gigantic marked.

Regards!

- Mr.B.

 

Youve struck up some good ponits Mr.B, but the truth is China does have the necessary ships to conduct fire support missions. These kind of ships are extremely cheap and im not talking about a tomahawk missile totting warship but simple ships carrying rockets to saturate the landing area before the troops land. China does have this ships as most large navys do.

 

But does China have the necessary sealift to launch and then support a massive amphibious landing? I mean, look at what it took to get the Normandy landings ashore, or the American landings in the Pacific. And any Chinese landing on Taiwan would have to be massive, due to the size of the island and the amount of opposition they'd likely run into..

 

I have to admit the liklyhood of a sucessful landing by the Chinese at Taiwan would require absolute air superiority and naval superiority to protect the valuable cargo ships. If such conditions are satisfied, China wil be able to land its troops simply by usuing every ship there is, maybe even some Junks . An inverse dunkirk if you see what I mean.

 

true, and china had a rather large airforce, wether can taiwan defend that invasion depends on the morale.

 

China's pilots, from what I've heard, aren't very well trained by Western standards. Of course, they now have a ton of highly accurate missiles which can supply some of their deficiencies.

 

but how many mordern planes are there? like the su-30 and J-10...and how good is china main infrantry, they had hardly engage in a normal warefare, using grueilla tactics most of the time,
and if taiwan was invaded, how long can they last?

 

IMO air power is crucial, especially considering how deadly and accurate modern air to surface mutinions are. Launching a massive invasion of that magnitude would require plenty of artillery and air support to ensure that ships can get to and onto the beaches safely. Conventional warfare today is all about air power.

BTW I read somewhere that Taiwan has three times as many third-generation (Mirage 2000, F-16 etc.) fighters as the Chinese. But then again newspapers aren't exactly very trustworthy...

 

how about the ability of each country ability to build fighter planes, how many planes ships or guns will they build in times of war, and how long will it last if a war did break out?

 

China will win that easily - especially as there is very little chance that Taiwan can distrupt their factories, while All of Taiwan is, I think, within range of Chinese aircraft / missiles. If it ever gets to a war of attrition, China will win.

 

True; Beijing has lots more warm bodies to sacrifice than does Taiwan.

 

China would win , ..... but at a heavy cost , the people of taiwan would fight like the russians did at Stalingrad.