Chinese carrier in landing and take-off tests

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Oberon

This is true, the last estimate I saw had their military capable of hitting Taiwan by about 2018, however I reckon they'll wait until at least 2020 before they do anything...IF they do anything.
As it stands, right now, they benefit more from peace than they do from war, and as long as that remains the case then China will not conduct nor provoke any major military confrontation.
Taiwan, as it stands, is one of the PRCs major trading partners, and it's own military is no slouch. Politically it's a mess, and on its own it wouldn't be able to resist the PRC steamroller for more than a month. However, its infrastructure and industries would be ruined and it would cost the PRC many millions or billions to get Taiwan up and running again, therefore it would be a loss for the PRC in the long run. A major propaganda victory to take the last strongholds of the KMT, but there would be a government in exile set up somewhere which would continue to promote the goals of the KMT so it would be a bit of a bust politically. Plus there's the possibility of an underground resistance movement sparking off troubles in the rural parts of China or through the more liberal youth of the cities.

What the PRC would like the most is if Taiwan would become a Special Administrative or Autonomous Zone like Hong Kong and Macau. That would keep the lucrative trade, prevent conflict and reduce the likelihood of a civilian uprising. So it's likely that any large military would be used to lean heavily on Taiwan to do this as the 'best option for both of us'.

Of course, for this strategy to work, they have to either push the US out of the way of the Taiwan straits, or have enough military force available to counter-act it. The hope is to be able to achieve all this without firing a shot, after all, as Sun Tzu said, 'To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.'

However, in places like the Spratleys and Vietnam, that's another matter entirely, I could see limited military force being used to achieve Chinese goals in these areas.

Do you think once the "old guard" dies off, that they'll lose interest in Taking Taiwan by force? I agree 100% with you regarding the economic issues. The risk/reward seems to be too expensive. That's a lot of money to spend to have you're flag flying over them.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Do you think once the "old guard" dies off, that they'll lose interest in Taking Taiwan by force? I agree 100% with you regarding the economic issues. The risk/reward seems to be too expensive. That's a lot of money to spend to have you're flag flying over them.

It is possible, certainly the PRC seems to be gradually opening itself up a bit more, letting certain expressions of discontent by the liberal youth slide more than they did thirty or even twenty years ago. So there is a gradual shift towards a more open state, in which it is likely that many of the next generation of political leaders would be more inclined to let sleeping Taiwanese dogs lie, and perhaps even move towards an official ending of the civil war. However that's something for thirty or forty years down the line. At the moment I think that there's only one faction in the PRC that would consider taking Taiwan by force as a good option and that's the hardline Maoists, they care little for the economic dreams of Deng and the prosperity it has brought parts of China, they will look at things along a more ideological line and that will bring them into direct conflict with Taiwan. Thankfully, the present men of power have done a good job of sidelining Maoists and hardliners, Bo Xilai is a good example of this, the son of one of the men who orchestrated the Tiananmen Square massacre, he is the champion of the 'Chinese New Left' who are a group that feel that modern China has lost touch with the communist ideals that it was founded on, his spectacular fall from power has set the New Left back significantly and prevented a potential threat to the status quo, the maintenance of which is vital to the current Politburo and the success of the PRC.
What concerns me is the global economic slowdown is beginning to effect the PRC, its growth rate is slowing faster than initially predicting by Chinese analysts, and if the bubble bursts in the manner in which it did in the West, then a lot of happy Communists are going to become unhappy Communists, which will give the Maoists the leverage they need to increase their popular support, which will make it harder for the current Politburo to sideline their members. The last thing that the PRC, and indeed the entire world, needs is a 1991 Moscow coup attempt in Beijing.