ON GEOPOLITICS
Considering a Chinese Invasion of Taiwan, Part 2
Editor's Note: This is the second of a two-part column exploring the challenges China would face in a theoretical invasion of Taiwan and the areas where Beijing has already improved its capabilities for such an ambitious military operation (the first part can be found here). The primary author, Zeke Cooper, is an Applied Geopolitics Fellow at RANE who has conducted significant research on China-Taiwan relations.
The Initial Invasion
Looming over any Chinese calculations of a Taiwan invasion is the United States Indo-Pacific Command, which is composed of approximately 375,000 military and civilian personnel arrayed across the Pacific from Alaska to South Asia, with a notable arc of military alliances and partnerships enclosing nearly the whole of the Chinese coastline. For Beijing, this means speed is of the essence in any Taiwan invasion or military coercion scenario.
China has two basic options at the start of a Taiwan invasion: either deter U.S. intervention or pre-emptively disrupt the U.S. ability to respond. The former requires careful timing, an overwhelming capability and ideally political confusion and/or disunity inside the United States. The latter risks instantly escalating the conflict to a full war with the United States, as Japan saw in 1941 following the attack at Pearl Harbor. While China could hope to disrupt a U.S. response through an unfavorable maritime environment in the South China Sea, it could only be confident in undercutting U.S. capabilities to respond through targeted strikes against key U.S. assets in the region, particularly those in Okinawa and Guam.
For Beijing, then, an ideal Taiwan war scenario is a fait accompli. Chinese forces would rapidly overwhelm Taiwanese defenses, deter or delay U.S. intervention, seize key political centers, and force a capitulation by Taiwanese leadership before foreign forces could physically intervene. This is similar to what Russia apparently sought to achieve in its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, though Moscow clearly miscalculated both the country's will and military capability to fight back, as well as the West's social and political will to rapidly intervene. The maritime nature of a Taiwan conflict further complicates assessments of how easy it would be for China to do so. On the one hand, an amphibious assault on the island is much more difficult and dangerous than Russia's land invasion of Ukraine. On the other hand, disrupting the resupply of Taiwan by foreign powers is easier given Taiwan's distance and the risks of maritime resupply.
With Taiwan reunification an ever-present goal for Beijing, China seeks to achieve regional military preeminence in order to prevent other (especially Western) powers from countering China's strategic plans. Beijing aims to achieve this by making its military more capable, efficient and technologically advanced to compete as a top-tier force. China's rapid naval expansion is just one case in point. In 1996, the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) comprised 57 ships; by 2019, that number had increased to 335 ships, surpassing the U.S. Navy's 296. In 2022, China led the world in ship production by tonnage.
The Chinese military continues to invest in hypersonic-capable warhead delivery, the development of space-based platforms and advancements in directed energy weapons. Furthermore, Chinese forces are looking to integrate artificial intelligence and machine learning into C6ISR (command, control, communications, computers, cyber, combat systems-intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) processes. Operationally, a more capable fleet will enable the CCP to project forces beyond the first island chain that encloses the Chinese coastline — the presence of a robust fleet off Taiwan's eastern coast will raise the cost of an American-led intervention.
Whatever way China chooses to deter or delay U.S. intervention, Beijing needs a massive amphibious force to accomplish its goals in Taiwan. By some assessments, China needs some 600,000 troops to cross the 80-mile-wide Taiwan Strait to ensure victory. Even if we consider a significantly smaller 300,000-person invasion force, the logistics challenges are still significant, and the risks during the crossing are substantial.
China will rely on railways and vehicles to transport the bulk of personnel and materiel from the country's interior to the coast for embarkation. Absent air and naval superiority, Chinese sea points of departure will still be threatened by long-range fire from Taiwanese and supporting Western forces, while ships in transit might be targeted by their subsurface fleet. China will also need to disrupt any Western attempts to reinforce Taiwan with troops or materiel, likely pushing Chinese fleet operations out to key choke points around the periphery of the East and South China seas. While designed to secure the invasion of Taiwan, such actions will significantly disrupt supply chains throughout maritime Asia, risking rapid economic retaliation from abroad and putting global pressure on China to stop its operations.
The greatest threat will come from the fast-attack submarines from the U.S. Pacific Fleet, looking to interdict the transit of high-value targets like Chinese troop transports and support vessels. In contrast to the perceived parity between U.S. and Chinese air forces, China's anti-submarine warfare capabilities have few answers for the fast and quiet subsurface fleet. Even without U.S. intervention, Taiwanese military doctrine emphasizes ''offshore engagement,'' meant to prevent and delay Chinese forces from landing in Taiwan. Taiwan's subsurface mines, coastal batteries and air and missile forces could attrite Chinese forces soon after an invasion begins, and Taipei has plans to sabotage key ports and other infrastructure critical to a Chinese landing. All the while, China will want to limit the amount of ordnance it expends on Taiwan — the purpose of a war would be unification, not the destruction of Taiwanese infrastructure and industrial capacity.
China, then, must assert domination of air and sea space around Taiwan as part of any invasion, both to degrade resistance and to deter U.S. intervention. In addition, Beijing needs significant maritime lift capability to move large numbers of soldiers, equipment and supplies to Taiwan. China has carried out several exercises using commercial roll-on/roll-off ships to test their use in a conflict scenario, but many experts and analysts assess that Beijing still lacks the number of vessels necessary not only for the initial invasion, but for the massive logistical effort necessary to maintain progress. Further, as China has expanded its navy, its focus on bluewater capabilities has seemed to prefer large amphibious ships more suited to distant operations than numerous smaller craft suited for a Taiwan scenario.
Some experts and analysts assert that China's inexperience in conducting joint operations precludes a successful invasion of Taiwan. In this telling, the inherent complexity and coordination of both military and maritime militia vessels would serve as obstacles rather than assets. However, China could overcome (or at least blunt the impact) of these challenges by increasing industrial capacity and recruiting more personnel to absorb otherwise crippling losses on the shores of Taiwan. Although there are seven key landing sites on Taiwan due to geography,
There are seven key sites in Taiwan that are the most geographically suited for a Chinese landing. But Beijing could look to surprise Taiwanese defenders by concentrating combat power at locations that present natural obstacles for a landing force and thus are likely to be less heavily defended. This would likely come at a high cost of personnel for the Chinese forces and take additional time if the element of surprise is lost — something in short supply for a successful invasion.
In a kinetic conflict 80 miles from mainland China, Chinese forces must avoid delays both in the initial crossing, as well as in allocating resources to forces in Taiwan as conditions change. Beijing will have to define clear objectives from the beginning and commit the necessary resources for mission success. Shifting priorities to other parts of the island and funneling fresh troops and equipment would introduce considerable friction, even with air superiority and freedom of movement. Though the distance is not great, the maritime nature of the conflict would make it riskier. Ships damaged or sunk would likely mean losing all the supplies or personnel that were onboard, especially given China's limited experience with large-scale maritime rescues. In a land war, by contrast (like Russia's invasion of Ukraine), striking trains carrying war materiel within mainland China may have a more limited impact on war logistics, as rail lines and rail cars can be more quickly repaired and replaced than ships.
Consolidating Gains
Any success in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will be short-lived if it cannot be sustained. Troops need to be fed, equipment needs to be replaced or refitted and casualties need to be accounted for and evacuated. China's military assesses that 2,100 aircraft and 8,000 ships will be required to support the inflow of fresh troops and supplies and the evacuation of casualties. In 2016, President Jinping Xi established the Joint Logistic Support Force (JLSF) to consolidate logistics elements at the strategic level. The new formation is intended to increase efficiency, lower costs and maintain oversight of unit supply levels and requirements. Subordinate units have specialized equipment and can monitor consumption rates via information networks to preempt needs and provide precise support. In a real-world test of its capabilities, the CPC was able to leverage the JLSF to provide medical services and build hospitals to support emergency response efforts across the country early in the COVID-19 crisis.
For China, a rapid landing and overwhelming of initial Taiwanese defenses and the establishment of a robust logistics train would be only the start. Taiwan has an active-duty force of 165,000 in addition to 1.7 million reserve personnel. If the Taiwanese are unable to prevent Chinese troops from landing, they will likely resort to urban combat or over time transition to concealed positions in the forested mountains. This is because, despite the manifold capabilities of the Taiwanese defense forces to inflict considerable losses on the Chinese military, they do not have the resources to sustain a defense-in-depth strategy and prevent China from offloading tens of thousands of troops on the island if these Chinese forces are able to gain a foothold. Instead, Taiwan would likely draw Chinese forces into difficult urban conflict as its forces execute a decentralized defense that relies on a bias for action by small enterprising units.
The optics of a violent occupation of a ''part of China'' will have a deleterious effect on China's international standing and hinder the overall aim of exerting control over Taiwan. The response by Ukraine to Russia's invasion highlights the perils of carrying out an occupation among a militarized civilian population. Winning hearts and minds is central to a successful counterinsurgency operation. However, the violence of action required by the Chinese at the start of an invasion could permanently turn the Taiwanese population against Beijing.
Finally, even if China is capable of deterring U.S. and international involvement, and of overwhelming Taiwan's military and guerrilla defenders, there are still major long-term challenges of occupation, including ensuring stability and figuring out how to use Taiwanese manpower and industrial capacity — not to mention completing political integration. In 2003, former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told Congress that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to maintain control of Iraq post-invasion. The 1945 allied occupation of Germany and the 1999 NATO deployment to Kosovo occupied their respective areas at a ratio of 1 soldier for every 40 civilians. At that rate, with Taiwan's population at 24 million, China would need 600,000 personnel to secure vital public facilities, critical infrastructure and the population, as well as address the insurgency. This rough estimate also does not account for a protracted, large-scale conflict with America and its allies.
A High-Risk Option
Given 30 years of military modernization, investment and technical advancements, China's People's Liberation Army is assessed by many to be capable of militarily seizing Taiwan, depending on many other outside factors. However, the enterprise would come at a great cost. The integration of joint elements, complex planning and the inherent difficulty associated with amphibious operations have impeded Beijing's ambitions since the 1950s. The close relationship between Taiwan and the United States since the exodus of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist forces has enabled Taiwan to heavily fortify the island against the threat of invasion. Pledges of support by U.S. administrations and the placement of military installations throughout the western Pacific portend a likely U.S. kinetic reaction to Chinese aggression. Furthermore, a violent incursion into Taiwan would serve to isolate China politically and economically, and would be far from guaranteeing the effective integration of Taiwan into the greater Chinese political, social and economic system. By contrast, assuming that Beijing aims to exert de facto political and military control over Taiwan and enable the Chinese military to project combat power beyond the first island chain to establish clear regional military dominance, it retains options short of what would be an incredibly risky invasion. Namely, the employment of gray zone strategies would allow the CCP to continue to pressure Taiwan without necessarily instigating a military reaction from the United States or its allies. Although this strategy has its own perils and shortcomings, compared with an all-out invasion, it may be Beijing's best option.
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