The same thing that kept the Soviets out of West Germany, the more successful you are conventionally the more certain you are to ellicit a nuclear response. China isnt invading Taiwan.

Look, the best military theorists on both sides of the Iron Curtain spent 50 years desperately trying to figure out how to fight a conventional war without provoking a nuclear exchange. No-one could figure it out. The inherint problem is that the more successful you are, the more you threaten the vital interests of your opponents, to a point where they are practically compelled to use a tactical or strategic nuclear weapon to retrieve the situation. This leads inexorably to a full nuclear exchange.
Practically speaking, for China to 'win' they would need to sink at least 1 US carrier, and probably more. This act would have such earth shaking ramifications for US security it would run a high risk of nuclear response to rebalance the power in Asia. Furthmore, China would almost certainly have to attack US and Japanese assets in Japan itself, another major red line. Finally, even if all this was possible without starting WW3, at best China ends up conquering a smoldering pile of rubble. There is simply no upside.
All this is is a reignition of the Cold War gamesmanship.

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Bill Roggio touches on but doesn't quite hit one critical point: China only has a few weeks' worth of strategic oil reserves (they've been building them up lately). Is there a word for the opposite of synergy? The combination of the lack of a blue water navy, the lack of strategic oil reserves, and China's dependence on Middle Eastern oil is particularly unfortunate for them.

Dave,

Yes, I agree, in retrospect I should have discussed this point in more detail. Good catch.

Mark,

I addressed your point in my comments section.

Why do you think China wants oil pipelines to Siberia and Iran? Add some distribution channels to ship a lot of containers by Birma and Pakistan and wouldn't be economical suicidal to blockade Taiwan.

"What Stops China from Invading Taiwan?"

The good folks who run the PRC aren't that dumb.

That was an excellent analysis. Of course, the policy vehicle that drives U.S. preparedness in the Pacific is the Taiwan Relations Act which stipulates that Congress and the Administration will...

consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States

and...

will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.

This is why we occassionally hear the Administration down-playing comments by the Prime Minister of Taiwan about independence. It is also why the Administration always fires back with support for a "one China" policy. It may be true that China cannot invade Taiwan, but the situation could escalate into an expensive arms race between the U.S. and China.

Posted at Fourth Rail too:

It's not merely a question of logistics or post-attack blockade. The Chinese will lose the American market. Too much of their economy depends on exports to the US - all the rest of China's potential markets together lack even a fraction of the capacity to absorb the Chinese exports suddenly not going to the US.

At which point there would be major, major disruption of world trade patterns in general and the demand for Chinese exports to other countries would shrink significantly until a new equillibrium is reached, so all the Chinese exports, and hard currency earnings, lost with access to the US market will not be replaced by short-term substitutes.

A voluntary boycott by the American people alone would be largely effective, and that is beyond the ability of an American government to affect. And the government could almost entirely close the US market to Chinese exports.

So it is an absolute certainty that the Chinese economy will crash and burn if China tries to invade Taiwan no matter what the invasion outcome is.

IMO the Chinese threat to Taiwan is a charade.

You must consider the objective here. China's interests as a country are irrelevant. What does is the interests of the ruling group - the group that determines China's military policy. That group is a formerly Communist hereditary aristocracy. They lack a legitimate claim to power with the collapse of ideology and the utter bankruptcy of socialism. Their current power is due only to inertia, force and apathy.

And they worry about retaining their power. Corrupt ruling elites always do, and boy are these guys corrupt.

So their Number One objective is to stay in power. Having Taiwan as an issue fits well with their use of Chinese nationalism as a vehicle to maintain their power.

But IMO they don't want to actually conquer Taiwan. First, they couldn't continue to use it as an issue if they conquered it. Sure there'd be a short-term boost, but that wouldn't last.

And these guys aren't fools - they know how much China's economy depends on access to the US market. They shut down saber-rattling and nationalist hyper-ventilation over the P-3 incident immediately after Wal-Mart told them it was considering a shift to other suppliers due to fear of an American consumer boycott of Chinese-made goods.

So they also know that China's economy will collapse from a US consumer boycott if they even try to invade Taiwan.

So they don't want to conquer Taiwan. They want to use Taiwan as a symbol to whip up Chinese nationalism. That can only happen if Taiwan remains independent.

So consider this possibility - that China's hereditary artistocracy is aiming for the following outcome here:

Overt US blocking of a Chinese invasion through deployment of American forces in Taiwan - say a Marine expeditionary force (brigade size), a US Army air defense brigade (anti-ballistic missile), and a composite USAF/USN/USMC air wing. Such a force would absolutely deter any invasion, and shatter any that might be tried.

But it would give the mainland's aristocracy a perfect vehicle to whip up Chinese nationalism over, while providing a perfect justification for not actually trying to invade.

And thereby preserve Taiwan as a symbol for a long time.

there is a contradiction in your analysis. at one point you say walmart caused them to stop saber rattling after the p-3 incident. later you say their plan is to engage in some super-saber rattling as a goal of the taiwan posturing. wouldn't there be problems in whipping up the mob, and then leaving them hanging ? seems like historically, once a tyranny takes this sort of thing past a certain point, they are forced to take it all the way to real fighting, ala kuwait and the handful of wars between india and pakistan.

cjm,

Saber-rattling at Taiwan is not saber-rattling at the US. The P-3 was ours. Wal-Mart got the Chinese to back off right quick about the latter.

And the Chinese are saber-rattling at Taiwan right now. It will get worse.

I'm saying that their objective here is to get us to park a garrison in Taiwan, not to actually attack the place. Then they can hyper-ventilate for domestic political effect without having to worry about a domestic demand that they actually do it. And they get a convenient foreign devil.

I certainly agree that there is always a potential of going too far. But that would be much reduced by the sobering prospect of facing the US in open battle where we have all our high-tech cards. That immediate military threat is a lot more real to even the dimmest bulb Chinese than the unfamiliar, for all Chinese, threat of an American consumer boycott or naval blockade.

I.e., the presence of an American garrison in Taiwan is, for the mainland's rulers, the ideal solution. They can scream about Taiwan all they want for domestic political effect with minimal danger of actually having to do anything.

I repeat, the mainland's corrupt aristocracy gets, by their lights, a chance to both have their cake and eat it if we park a garrison in Taiwan. That would be a win-win situation for them.

It's not merely a question of logistics or post-attack blockade. The Chinese will lose the American market. Too much of their economy depends on exports to the US - all the rest of China's potential markets together lack even a fraction of the capacity to absorb the Chinese exports suddenly not going to the US.

True, but this can be dealt with by nationalisme.

But were will Americans buy their dvd players and other junk electronica?
Have you thought about that. And everybody just knows dvd players are so much more important than thailand.

China will only invade Taiwan if Taiwan formally declares independence. The risk isn't worth the gain in any other situation that I can see. Even taking Taiwan's currency reserves isn't gain enough.

a:
On consequences of economic brach with US: "this can be dealt with by nationalisme."
Really? If the Chinese leadership attack Taiwan, probability is it means they need a diversion from the political cosequences of modernisation: the coast/interior, old party/new rich tensions.
Would nationalism serve to cover these cracks? When the results of policy are economic collapse in the coastal provinces, the impoverishment of the new rich, absolute poverty for the migrant workers, loss of revenues needed to subsidise interior and old industries, need to assert dictatorial party rule again to manage the economy on command principles, rapid flight of all foreign capital.
Nationalism might sustain this in wartime, but in confrontation short of war, or in the aftermath of war, against this level of economic and social disruption?
The US, and other countries would take a hit in import sources, investments, capital goods sales, dumping of Chinese held dollars and dollar bonds etc. But dvd factories can be built - in, say, India - quite quickly.

For the rest of the world it would be an economic problem, perhaps a crisis; for China, a catastrophe.

This is one of the reasons why Tom Holsinger's analysis makes sense: the Chinese leadership are smart enough to realise the potential downside.
Where they may miscalculate is on the potential downside of a "stategy of tension", which in turn might destabilise the Chinese regime. And panicky autocracies can be dangerous.
Germany 1914 keeps coming to mind.

a:
On consequences of economic brach with US: "this can be dealt with by nationalisme."
Really? If the Chinese leadership attack Taiwan, probability is it means they need a diversion from the political cosequences of modernisation: the coast/interior, old party/new rich tensions.
Would nationalism serve to cover these cracks? When the results of policy are economic collapse in the coastal provinces, the impoverishment of the new rich, absolute poverty for the migrant workers, loss of revenues needed to subsidise interior and old industries, need to assert dictatorial party rule again to manage the economy on command principles, rapid flight of all foreign capital.
Nationalism might sustain this in wartime, but in confrontation short of war, or in the aftermath of war, against this level of economic and social disruption?
The US, and other countries would take a hit in import sources, investments, capital goods sales, dumping of Chinese held dollars and dollar bonds etc. But dvd factories can be built - in, say, India - quite quickly.

For the rest of the world it would be an economic problem, perhaps a crisis; for China, a catastrophe.

This is one of the reasons why Tom Holsinger's analysis makes sense: the Chinese leadership are smart enough to realise the potential downside.
Where they may miscalculate is on the potential downside of a "stategy of tension", which in turn might destabilise the Chinese regime. And panicky autocracies can be dangerous.
Germany 1914 keeps coming to mind.

Mr. Farren,

Lefties do not understand the difference between hard currency and Monopoly money. That's why they are lefties.

John Farren, Tom Holsinger:

I think you're misunderstanding what a is saying. He/she/it is sarcastically wondering if more U. S. nationalism isn't the solution. This is part of the widespread belief that all of the world's problems are created by the United States (oogo-booga-booga) and, specifically, because we're all Nazis.

Tom Holsinger:

We don't have hard currency anymore but I understand what you're saying. Where I think I disagree is that I think you're underestimating what the Chinese oligarchy is willing to do to retain power. Maintaining stability i.e. control is the highest value. Killing a few million Chinese/Taiwanese/Americans pales before such a consideration. You may be right that they're playing a game. But I doubt that they're bluffing.

Here are some hard numbers from Strategypage.com

March 18, 2005: The US trade deficit (the value of goods bought from China versus what was sold to them) reached $162 billion. That amount accounts for over twenty percent of China's GDP (total economic activity.) This has serious military implications. If China goes to war with the United States, the first impact would not be bombs, but an end to exports to the United States. Putting over a hundred million Chinese out of work would have a larger impact than any bombing campaign. Taiwanese companies also control over $50 billion of economic activity in China. Taking Taiwan, in one piece, would add about ten percent to China's GDP. But the loss of American markets would be far greater.

The bottom line here is that any Chinese regime that invaded Taiwan would be committing suicide as far as the Chinese economy was concerned.

The problem is that neither the Chinese Communist aristocracy nor the nationalist propaganda blinded Chinese people on the mainland understands this fact in their gut.

Thus Tom Holsinger's scenario for an American garrision in Taiwan becomes the only rational policy choice for the American federal government.

Few understand what proportion of China's hard currency earnings come from exports to the U.S.

Lefties in particular assume that China can pay for imported oil with Monopoly money.

And that China's ruling group can maintain power without either hard currency or imported oil.

#13

I expect that China will blockade Taiwan when they need a diversion to another problem. This problem will probably be a big economic problem in China. A economic collapse on top of another big problem doesn't sound that bad especially if your the top dog as you will be toast when you do nothing.
If the root cause of the economy problem is already a collapse in American demand than a treatend American boycot isn't even a serious problem. You also need to realise that a blockade will be accompanied by a serious increase in weapon spending.

Nationalism might sustain this in wartime, but in confrontation short of war, or in the aftermath of war, against this level of economic and social disruption?

Depends on the way the war is fought. China would IMHO only blockade Taiwan by unmanned means but this blockade will go on for years if not decades. They wouldn't even try an invasion so the total number of deaths will be small outside the deaths needed for propaganda purposes. (A few hunderd on the Chinese side which every schoolboy wil know by hart)

But dvd factories can be built - in, say, India - quite quickly.

One yes, two also but not on the scale which would be needed to substitute China's industry. Another problem is that the transportation links to places like India are not big enough for the demand

#17

Lefties in particular assume that China can pay for imported oil with Monopoly money.

The US dollar isn't as colorful as real monopoly money but otherwise it looks a lot like it. Besides they don't pay Iran, the Stans and Rusland with money but with dvd players.