RE: China news roundup / Nachrichten 2020-01-28
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They should start rather sooner than later, I suppose. I'm afraid in a few years they might actually be successful with an invasion.
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The PLA's logistic capability (or lack thereof) would make it more difficult than it sounds. They'd need months to move enough troops and equipment to Fujian to launch a strike across that strait, and transport ships are the the only thing known to science that's more easily shredded than Chinese propaganda.
Then the beaches on the West Coast of Taiwan are nigh-unscalable cliffs, so they'd be landing on a one-way shooting range (and of course, the PLA has never done an amphibious landing drill on anything other than soft white flat sand). Even if they managed to get a force onto the island, they'd find that not only the Nationalist Army (with more advanced weaponry than theirs) but the people themselves would fight them to the death (and not one "soldier" in the PLA knows what to do against an enemy who actually fights back harder than a starving unarmed Uighur child).
If somehow they managed to close in on Taipei City amid all that, and if somehow there was not already a fleet of US and Japanese forces bearing down on the Chinese survivors, then Taiwan's "Cloud Peak" missiles would start raining down all over Beijing in Taiwan's death throes, and they've got enough of them that even without nuclear warheads they can turn everything inside the 3rd Ring Road to rubble (never mind that it basically already is).
I would agree to your general sentiment, but I think, the Taiwanese themselves are not that confident in their own armed forces.
I'm not convinced of PLA capabilities either (haven't seen much fighting except for a brawl with unfair advantage in the Himalayas), but in a few years they may have enough of a technological/logistical advantage that they might be successful. That's why I think it would be good for Taiwan if emperor Xi & his generals become a bit over-confident & try early.