Chinese Military Operations in Taiwan

[Thomas Talus]

It’s very much a Chinese style of warfare, gain your objective with just about zero blood spilled, and quite possibly no fighting at all.

That is not how I recall Chinese military campaigns going, c.f. Battle of Siuyang.

 

[Susanna]

That is not how I recall Chinese military campaigns going, c.f. Battle of Siuyang.

Don't worry, I know my Chinese history. It's as long and bloody as anyone's, and better recorded. But surely you agree that modern China is conflict averse and prefers clever diplomacy over brute fighting? Apart from a brief struggle with India over a passage to the Tarim Basin and one with the Soviet Union and Vietnam over Cambodia, the PRC hasn't engaged in warfare since its inception. That's a remarkably short list even for a weak country, let alone for one so large and powerful as China.

 

[Male Idiot]

Don't worry, I know my Chinese history. It's as long and bloody as anyone's, and better recorded. But surely you agree that modern China is conflict averse and prefers clever diplomacy over brute fighting? Apart from a brief struggle with India over a passage to the Tarim Basin and one with the Soviet Union and Vietnam over Cambodia, the PRC hasn't engaged in warfare since its inception. That's a remarkably short list even for a weak country, let alone for one so large and powerful as China.

Why spill blood when you can watch America's future sons drip down from gay men's anuses and laugh, not having to expend a bullet as they gobble up meth baked chicken on tiktok?

 

[SIMIΔN]

That is not how I recall Chinese military campaigns going, c.f. Battle of Siuyang.

You can't lose a town if you eat the townsfolk.

Yin Ziqi had besieged the city for a long time. The food in the city had run out. The city dwellers traded their children to eat and cooked the bodies of the dead. Fear spread and worse situations were expected. At this time, Zhang Xun took his concubine out and killed her in front of his soldiers in order to feed them. He said, "You have been working hard at protecting this city wholeheartedly for the country. Your loyalty is uncompromised despite the long-lasting hunger. Since I cannot cut out my own flesh to feed you, how can I keep this woman and just ignore the dangerous situation?" All the soldiers cried, for they did not wish to eat [the woman]. Zhang Xun ordered them to eat the flesh. Afterwards, they caught the women in the city. When there were no more women left, they turned to the old and young men. 20,000 to 30,000 people were eaten. People always remained loyal.
— Old Book of Tang, Chapter 137.

 

[millais]

In the years before the virus, I had been in Taiwan and spent a few months living and working mostly in Kaohsiung and Tainan, 2 of the large southern cities on the island, but visited all over.

Culturally, seems like there's 4 groups with varying amount of affinity for the mainland:

1. Mainland Chinese (ethnically Han Chinese) - descended from Chiang Kai Shek's KMT army, social elite, intelligentsia, and bureaucracy that fled to Taiwan in 1949 after the Communist takeover. Still have cultural links to Mainland, especially after the detente of the 1990s. Minority of population (something like 10% at most, probably even less). Concentrated in Taipei and a few other northern towns. Most likely to have affinity for Mainland and support reunification. Speaks Mandarin dialect only.

2. Unassimilated Taiwanese (ethnically Han Chinese, Hakka Chinese, Aboriginal, or some mix of those 3) - don't have any ancestral connection to the mainland since the 1800s, constitute majority of the island population, and an overwhelming majority in all the southern cities (really all the cities except Taipei and the high tech industrial park cities and college towns). Little to no affinity for the mainland and the idea of reunification. Speaks Mandarin dialect plus Taiwanese dialect and/or Hakka dialect or Aboriginal languages.

3. Assimilated Taiwanese (similar ethnic mix as above) - don't have any ancestral connection to the Mainland since 1800s, but willingly got culturally assimilated with Group 1 after the KMT fled to Taiwan in order to climb up the socioeconomic ladder. Found all over the island, but concentrated in Taipei and are a majority in the high tech industrial park cities and college towns. Ambivalent about Mainland and reunification. Speaks Mandarin dialect.

4. Small Island Dwellers (Han Chinese) - basically the guys who live on all those tiny islands in the Taiwan Strait, like Penghu and Matsu Archipelagos, or on the frontline redoubt Islands right off the Chinese coast, like Quemoy. Culturally isolated from Taiwan and Mainland China even in the modern era, and the people there have a different cultural identity than those on the Taiwanese mainland. They are naturally a small minority of the population, but many of them migrate to the Taiwanese mainland for better jobs and get assimilated by Groups 2 and 3. Ambivalent about Chinese and Taiwanese Mainland. Speaks Mandarin dialect and Fujian or Taiwanese dialect.

I talked some politics with the locals in their language, and the unassimilated Taiwanese southerners are very pro-independence, even got treated to a political rant from a random cabbie about how I was being disrespectful by answering his questions with the Mainland Mandarin dialect instead of the local Taiwanese dialect.

 

[Betonhaus]

Culturally, seems like there's 4 groups with varying amount of affinity for the mainland: <snip>

Sounds to me that the important bits (to international trade) of Taiwan would be relatively ok with being assimilated, while the ones that would fight the hardest are the ones that NATO wouldn't mind using as cannon fodder to get what they want?

 

[quackrock]

You can't lose a town if you eat the townsfolk.

Yin Ziqi had besieged the city for a long time. The food in the city had run out. The city dwellers traded their children to eat and cooked the bodies of the dead. Fear spread and worse situations were expected. At this time, Zhang Xun took his concubine out and killed her in front of his soldiers in order to feed them. He said, "You have been working hard at protecting this city wholeheartedly for the country. Your loyalty is uncompromised despite the long-lasting hunger. Since I cannot cut out my own flesh to feed you, how can I keep this woman and just ignore the dangerous situation?" All the soldiers cried, for they did not wish to eat [the woman]. Zhang Xun ordered them to eat the flesh. Afterwards, they caught the women in the city. When there were no more women left, they turned to the old and young men. 20,000 to 30,000 people were eaten. People always remained loyal.
— Old Book of Tang, Chapter 137.

"It became necessary to eat the village in order to save it."

 

[millais]

Sounds to me that the important bits (to international trade) of Taiwan would be relatively ok with being assimilated, while the ones that would fight the hardest are the ones that NATO wouldn't mind using as cannon fodder to get what they want?

I think that most of the engineers and other highly educated professionals who are essential to TSMC operations on the island would try to flee abroad rather than stay and work under Chinese occupation, but purely for financial motivations rather than political or cultural loyalty.

Most all of the middle class and upper class Taiwanese I met and worked with had or knew a family member or friend who emigrated to the West for education or work and made a successful life for themselves, and a lot of them know friends or family who went to boomtown China to make a quick buck or establish a pioneering enterprise and then lost it all when Chinese gov seized their company or locked everything down for the coof but refused to let them liquidate assets and get their money out.

And they know that West is cool with you to make your money and then take it back home when you have had your fill of the West. But when you make money in China, they make it really hard for you to take your money abroad.

Also, for the TSMC engineers in particular, they are willing to work for peanuts right now compared to dumber, higher paid engineers in the West, while having to be on call 24/7, tons of unpaid overtime, etc, so if they could get war-victim asylum in the West they would have no problem landing the same job but with better pay and working conditions, which would be even better for their career than getting poached by the Chinese companies.

 

[teriyakiburns]

As for using regular ships. Yes and no. Most still need some form of harbor or dock facility. China did some drills with this a year or two ago. It's possible but not really ready for prime time. And falls apart without air and sea superiority.

Even after the beachhead is firmly established, with harbours and docks and marshalling facilities, the landing can still fail catastrophically. The Allied landings at Gallipoli demonstrate this; Commonwealth troops had established multiple beachheads and pushed well inland, creating the impression of a secure landing zone that could be used to ferry in more troops and heavier equipment. They had the advantage at sea and in the air, superior equipment and the better-trained men. The subsequent campaign lasted just a few months before the Turks broke the Allied forces completely.

 

[SilentDuck]

I think that most of the engineers and other highly educated professionals who are essential to TSMC operations on the island would try to flee abroad rather than stay and work under Chinese occupation, but purely for financial motivations rather than political or cultural loyalty.

Most all of the middle class and upper class Taiwanese I met and worked with had or knew a family member or friend who emigrated to the West for education or work and made a successful life for themselves, and a lot of them know friends or family who went to boomtown China to make a quick buck or establish a pioneering enterprise and then lost it all when Chinese gov seized their company or locked everything down for the coof but refused to let them liquidate assets and get their money out.

And they know that West is cool with you to make your money and then take it back home when you have had your fill of the West. But when you make money in China, they make it really hard for you to take your money abroad.

Also, for the TSMC engineers in particular, they are willing to work for peanuts right now compared to dumber, higher paid engineers in the West, while having to be on call 24/7, tons of unpaid overtime, etc, so if they could get war-victim asylum in the West they would have no problem landing the same job but with better pay and working conditions, which would be even better for their career than getting poached by the Chinese companies.

Everything at the chipfabs is meritocracy and autocracy. Multi-generational Han family efforts and schemes... all of whom are ridiculously hard working and brilliant regardless of how their long dead or senile relatives felt about Mao. Are they going to give up their god-given corporate positioning, home soil and being off the shore of their ancestral homeland in favor of an utterly alien country on a steep decline with diversity hiring, inclusion and random troon mass shootings? I could see fleeing to the 1980s and 1990s idea of America but not present day.

Boomer generals are hungry for the big one and war with China. You leave Taiwan for USA that means the possibility of internment and open societal discrimination when things start to go poorly. USA would be quick to take them in but a few wartime rounds of sabotage by CCP agents with Taiwanese credentials and the Han is banned from critical and sensitive industries, with semiconductor being at very top of every list. A great feat of discrimination that the HR diversity hires will vigorously oblige.

In terms of movement of money, Canada proved liberal governments in the west are one small step away from being the CCP. Freeze your real world and digital assets and arrest you for honking your horn. Things are on shifting sand now and the West isn't exactly the bet it once was.

 

[quackrock]

Are they going to give up their god-given corporate positioning, home soil and being off the shore of their ancestral homeland in favor of an utterly alien country on a steep decline with diversity hiring, inclusion and random troon mass shootings?

Yes if the money is good enough, which often it is. Moving to America isn't necessarily forever, either. I've spoken to people who were or who know TSMC engineers and this was their opinion. I'm sure opinions vary but the logic seems pretty straightforward.

 

[Thomas Talus]

Don't worry, I know my Chinese history. It's as long and bloody as anyone's, and better recorded. But surely you agree that modern China is conflict averse and prefers clever diplomacy over brute fighting? Apart from a brief struggle with India over a passage to the Tarim Basin and one with the Soviet Union and Vietnam over Cambodia, the PRC hasn't engaged in warfare since its inception. That's a remarkably short list even for a weak country, let alone for one so large and powerful as China.

It's easy to be peaceful to your neighbors when you've lacked significant force projection capabilities for nearly all of your current government's existence. Also, they were certainly willing to provide support for the Norks in the Korean War, and continue to support them in fomenting conflict in the area.

 

[SIMIΔN]

Time for a musical interlude.

(This guy likes making trolling PRC ultranationalists angry, there's English subs)

(This song captures the feeling of many Taiwanese; that Taiwan is their independent home and they bear no ill will towards the PRC, no subs unfortunately).

 

[RodgerDodger]

Don't worry, I know my Chinese history. It's as long and bloody as anyone's, and better recorded. But surely you agree that modern China is conflict averse and prefers clever diplomacy over brute fighting? Apart from a brief struggle with India over a passage to the Tarim Basin and one with the Soviet Union and Vietnam over Cambodia, the PRC hasn't engaged in warfare since its inception. That's a remarkably short list even for a weak country, let alone for one so large and powerful as China.

Well besides those 2 attempts to invade Taiwan, in 1954 and 1958 respectively, where they got their asses kicked.

 

[Fatniggo1488]

Well besides those 2 attempts to invade Taiwan, in 1954 and 1958 respectively, where they got their asses kicked.

Ah yes, nothing at all has changed since over half a century ago...

 

[Susanna]

Well besides those 2 attempts to invade Taiwan, in 1954 and 1958 respectively, where they got their asses kicked.

Yeah, that's why I specifically used the word warfare.

 

[draggs]

China can't cross the Strait without neutralizing the 7th Fleet and Japan first. It's not negotiable. Leaving any significant forces capable of striking at the invasion fleet is unacceptably risky

China can't neutralize the 7th Fleet and Japan, so it's a moot point. Notice that these claims of China winning require everything going spectacularly right for China and spectacularly wrong for the US-Japan-Taiwan. When that never happens in war, and China is still developing a doctrine and experience in that doctrine for the kind of blue water air and sea operations needed, while the opposing forces have decades of experience

These claims are as credible as the repeated embarrassing claims about Russia's imminent victory in Ukraine. They're pure fantasy

 

[CuzinEd]

I highly doubt China will do anything to Taiwan. The Russian fail war in Ukraine has kind of made China rethink their moves towards Tiawan. Taiwan has had nearly 70 years or so to prepare. Ukraine had a decade to prepare to fight Russia. The Chinese military is just about as garbage tier as the Russian military is. Also China would have to cross water to get to Tiawan. All Russia had to do was cross into Ukraine. China would have to cross a super-sized moat.

 

[Ghostse]

Don't worry, I know my Chinese history. It's as long and bloody as anyone's, and better recorded. But surely you agree that modern China is conflict averse and prefers clever diplomacy over brute fighting? Apart from a brief struggle with India over a passage to the Tarim Basin and one with the Soviet Union and Vietnam over Cambodia, the PRC hasn't engaged in warfare since its inception. That's a remarkably short list even for a weak country, let alone for one so large and powerful as China.

Korea really is the forgotten war.

 

[Susanna]

Korea really is the forgotten war.

You’re right, that did happen after the PRC was formed. In fact, how bloody a conflict it was is probably a major factor in Chinese military thinking to date. China devoted literally half its GDP to the army, and one sixth of the whole Korean population were dead at the end of hostilities, both from bombings and from the US-backed south committing pogroms and other atrocities against northern civilians.