Why China Can't Conquer Taiwan in a War

The United States should focus on helping China’s neighbors deny China sea and air control in the region

By Zachary Keck

With Xi Jinping having consolidated his power at the 19th Party Congress, and the United States increasingly distracted at home, it may seem like a given that China will reestablish its predominance over the India-Pacific region. 

A new study casts doubt on this, however, arguing that Beijing doesn’t have the military power to defeat its neighbors. 

In fact, it probably can’t even conquer Taiwan.
The new study by Michael Beckley, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tufts University, was published in the academic journal International Security. 

In the article, Beckley argues that China’s neighbors could thwart Chinese military aggression through anti-access/area denial strategies with only minimal U.S. assistance.
“My main finding is that there is a budding balance of military power in East Asia, which the United States can reinforce at moderate risk to U.S. forces,” Beckley writes in the article. 

“Furthermore, this balance of power will remain stable for years to come, because China cannot afford the power-projection capabilities it would need to overcome the A2/AD forces of its neighbors. The main reasons are that power projection forces are more expensive than A2/AD forces by an order of magnitude.”
A2/AD is most commonly discussed in relation to China’s efforts to deny America the ability to intervene in any regional conflict or make it so costly that Washington is deterred from doing so. Some observers, including James Holmes, Toshi Yoshihara and Andrew Krepinevich, have argued that the United States and its Asian allies should this strategy around on China. 

Instead of seeking to maintain command of the sea and air as America has traditionally done, these scholars suggest Washington and its allies could simply seek to deny China the ability to achieve its goals. 

As Beckley puts it, “Under this strategy, the United States would abandon efforts to command maritime East Asia and, instead, focus on helping China’s neighbors deny China sea and air control in the region.
Beckley’s main contribution is to test the viability of this strategy for a number of foreseeable conflict scenarios. 

One of these, of course, is a Chinese invasion of the Taiwan strait. 

While amphibious invasions have always been the most difficult military maneuver to pull off, they are especially difficult in an era of precision-guided munitions that can pick off an invading force while they are still at sea.
To have any chance of successfully invading Taiwan, then, China would have to establish total air superiority and command of the sea in the area. 

As Beckley explains, “If Taiwan retained substantial air defenses and offensive strike platforms, a Chinese amphibious invasion would be impossible, because Taiwan could pick off PLA landing craft as they motored across the Taiwan Strait.” 

Although China has amassed an incredibly large missile force to destroy Taiwan’s defensive capabilities at the outset of a conflict, it would still need to take Taipei by total surprise to be successful. 

If Taiwan had some advanced warning of an attack, it could disperse its aircraft to some thirty-six military airfield across the islands, while also relying on a number of civilian aistrips and even some highways that double as emergency air bases. 

Taiwan also has a bunch of road-mobile missile launchers and anti-aircraft weaponry, as well as a number of ships and submarines capable of attacking Chinese forces with cruise missiles.
As Beckley points out, there is little reason to believe that China would be able to knock out all of these defenses in a surprise first strike. 

To begin with, Taiwan has sophisticated early warning air defense systems. 

Moreover, the United States has not even been able to achieve this level of destruction against much lesser enemies like Iraq during the First Gulf War or Serbia in 1999.
But if China was far more successful than the United States had been in those conflicts, Beijing’s ability to execute an amphibious invasion is still far from certain. 

For instance, Beckley notes that only ten percent of Taiwan’s coastlines are suitable for an amphibious landing, which would allow Taipei to concentrate its forces on a few key areas. 

Chinese forces trying to land would likely be severely outnumbered.
Thus, even using the the most optimistic assessments (from Beijing’s perspective), China would have its hands full trying to conquer Taiwan.

Consequently, Beckley writes, “the United States would only need to tip the scales of the battle to foil a Chinese invasion, a mission that could be accomplished in numerous ways without exposing U.S. surface ships or non-stealth aircraft to China’s A2/AD forces.” 

More specifically, by the U.S. military’s own estimates, America would need “10,000 to 20,000 pounds of ordnance to decimate a PLA invasion force on the beaches of Taiwan.” 

This could be done, Beckley notes, using a single B-2 bomber or an Ohio-class submarine.
Beckley goes on to demonstrate that China would have difficulty gaining control over the East and South China Sea, given the nearly certain resistance it would face from countries like Vietnam and Japan. 

Thus, China’s ability to militarily dominate the region is more unlikely than is commonly appreciated. 

That being said, China’s strategy to date seems to be to win without fighting. 

So far, this has been relatively successful.

Why China May Have Made a Massive Mistake in the South China Sea

By Grant Newsham

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s comment during his confirmation hearing that the United States would deny China access to its man-made island bases in the South China Sea caused a predictable furor.
However, few people seriously think the US is going to blockade the islands.
This is a poor option anyway.
China’s military is not going to be rolled back and abandon the islands.
It can’t.
Beijing’s leadership has proven it is no better at running an economy than anyone else in human history.
That only leaves restoring China’s grandeur to justify Chinese Communist Party rule.
Backing down in the face of US pressure would be humiliating and possibly threaten regime survival.
Even if the US has few decent options for direct military pressure on existing Chinese-held island bases, Tillerson’s comments and subsequent statements by Trump Administration officials suggest an abrupt change in longstanding US policy towards China.
One might now anticipate an end to accommodationist (some would say, appeasement) policy under which the norm was ‘de-escalation’ whenever China did something provocative.
While the US more or less stood by, the People’s Republic of China has come close to establishing de facto control of the South China Sea and greatly expanded its position inside the entire so-called 1st Island Chain.
China’s military can make an opponent’s operations inside the chain extremely difficult – and this will become even more the case as the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities increase.
However, China’s leaders might ask themselves, ‘now what…?’
China’s strength inside the 1st Island Chain may not be the strategic advantage it seems – now that the United States appears willing to defend its interests.

Geography Class
Regional geography is an unchanging variable and not in China’s favor in this case as it leaves open the possibility that if push comes to shove, the US and its partners could hem Chinese forces inside the 1st Island Chain.
And, if necessary, make life exceedingly difficult for Chinese forces operating inside the chain.
The geography makes the 1st Island Chain effectively a barrier.
There are relatively few ‘access (or exit) points’ through the chain that stretches all the way from Japan in the north down past Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and over to the Straits of Malacca in the south.
Access points can be easily defended against an adversary seeking to transit such channels. 
All can be covered and blocked using a combination of land and sea-based anti-ship missiles and long-range precision artillery, sea mines (‘dumb’ mines will do nicely, and ‘smart’ ones do even better), anti-aircraft systems, anti-submarine weapons, and the like.
Most of these weapons also can reach well inside the 1st Island Chain – and one should not forget Vietnam’s ability to ‘reach in’ from the West.
Japan has already started installing such a defensive network in its Ryukyu Islands.
The aforementioned ‘asymmetrical’ weapons do not take into account the considerable resources of the US (and other nations) in the form of naval combatant ships, submarines, airpower, Marines, and surveillance resources that can be used to block the 1st Island Chain.
With a newfound US backbone, particularly if solidly linked operationally and politically with Japan and its considerable, if latent, military resources other regional nations might feel more confident about asserting their own interests.
Much of the intellectual work for an efficient strategic defense centered on defending from the 1st Island Chain and making use of economic pressure has already been done by retired US Marine Colonel, TX Hammes – whose ‘Offshore Control’ concept is a useful initial blue-print the Trump Administration would do well to consider.

China’s Miscalculation
Xi Jinping and his immediate predecessors perhaps didn’t think through the geography angle as much as they might have.
And China tipped its hand too soon in 2009 when it ended its so-called charm offensive, which was indeed lulling to sleep regional nations (and even many Americans), and started throwing its weight around.
Nowadays, almost nobody in Asia who isn’t on the Beijing payroll, or hopes to be, sees China as benign.
The more prevalent view is one of an acquisitive bully.
Scratch the surface even in Malaysia and the Philippines and there is plenty of resentment toward China.
And Xi managed to do the near impossible by making Japan take its defense more seriously — something successive American administrations couldn’t achieve.
The Chinese thinking appeared to be that after absorbing everything inside the 1st island chain and intimidating Japan, the 2d Island Chain would be next, as China moved from strength to strength – with nobody able or willing to resist.
Beijing perhaps had reason to believe the US ‘wouldn’t do anything’ – and US behavior after the Scarborough Shoal standoff in 2012 between Philippine and Chinese vessels bore that out, as did successive invitations to RIMPAC while the island building effort was in full-swing. 
Add to that mix the United States’ scant support for the Philippines after the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling on the South China Sea in 2016.
So, for a scheme ultimately dependent on American acquiescence, Donald Trump’s election threw a wrench into the works.
As welcome as a change in US policy might be, dealing with China’s attempts to dominate East Asia will not be not be easy nor risk-free, unless one wishes to cede everything inside the 1st Island Chain in what would uncomfortably look like a reprise of the Sudetenland in 1938.
Things might get frightening as Chinese invective kicks in – and the inevitable physical confrontation – involving the US or one of its regional friends comes along.

Flash Point
One bellwether may be at Scarborough Shoal and the US response to a Chinese effort to ‘fill’ the shoal and build on it.
Taiwan is also in for a hard time – not least given its strategic position on the 1st Island Chain, which potentially gives the mainland a foothold to ‘break’ the chain and have unfettered access into the Pacific.
Taking some risk on behalf of US interests is unavoidable – and at long last imposing some risk on China is called for – as Professors Toshi Yoshihara and James Holmes at the US Naval War College have advocated.
China needs to decide if potentially taking on the full might of the United States — to include serious economic costs (which President Trump is capable of inflicting) — is worth the effort and the drain on resources of continuing its drive to dominate East Asia and international waters and ocean territory of other nations.
With the right approach on the part of the US, China may find that after all its effort to build island bases — ruining its image in the process and motivating Japan to take its defense seriously — it has merely done the 1917 equivalent of moving the Western Front a mile to the east – at great cost, but with few prospects for further advances.

Sina Delenda Est: Standing Up to China Is Smart Foreign Policy

China's fifth column is making the argument to do nothing to antagonize China, even if it means forfeiting American interests and ideals. That would be a historic mistake.
By James Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara

The Japan Times must be having a hard time finding copy to fill its op-ed pages. 

Exhibit A: a screed from an “adjunct senior scholar” at the Chinese Communist Party–affiliated National Institute for South China Sea Studies in Haikou, China, concerning U.S. strategy toward China in the age of Trump. 

In "Mark Valencia"’s telling, Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency has liberated “U.S. China-bashers” to have a “field day” at China’s expense. 

“Extremism” rules the day in Washington and academic precincts.
Zounds!
Wicked times are afoot, you’d think. 

But bear in mind that a lot of things look like extremism to someone who’s fronting for an extremist regime. 

To build his case "Valencia" refers obliquely to “two academics from the Naval War College.” 

The nameless academics, he says, suggest that “America should revive its past ‘daring-do’ [we think you mean derring-do, "Mark"] and ‘recognize that close quarters encounters, cat and mouse games between submarines and opposing fleets, and even deliberate collisions’ could become routine elements of the U.S.-China rivalry.”
We confess to being the scurrilous duo. 

The passages "Valencia" quotes come from an article we wrote for Orbis, a journal published by the University of Pennsylvania’s Foreign Policy Research Institute. (Look for the article here since "he" doesn’t bother furnishing a link.)
We compiled the article long before the election, and aimed it at whichever candidate might prevail. Our bottom line: China is already competing with America in the China seas and Western Pacific. Close-quarters encounters between Chinese and American ships and planes are already routine elements of the U.S.-China rivalry—just as they were between Soviet and American ships and planes during the Cold War. 

And Chinese seamen and airmen initiate these encounters.
Washington can either wrest the initiative away from Beijing, or it can remain passive and continue losing ground in the strategic competition. 

Better to seize the initiative. 

To do so the new U.S. administration must relearn the art of deterrence, and to deter Chinese aggression the administration must accept that hazards come with the territory. 

That’s Strategy 101—basic stuff for anyone fluent in statecraft.
"Valencia" is a lumper. 

He lumps our analysis with other commentators’ views, many quite different from our own, before attempting the equivalent of an op-ed drive-by shooting. 

All of our views are equivalent for him; all are expressions of “extremism.” 

The others—Gordon Chang and James Kraska, to name two—can doubtless speak up for themselves should they choose. 

We’ll stick to speaking up for ourselves.
And anyone who takes the trouble to read our item—download early, download often—will realize "Valencia" excerpts a couple of quotations out of context and retrofits them to a predetermined storyline. 

First write conclusion, then fit facts to it!
Let’s go through this point by point. 

First, Valencia implies that Trump’s victory initiated our analysis. 

“This deluge,” he opines, “was stimulated by statements by Trump and his nominees for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson and secretary of defense, James Mattis.” 

He goes on to assert that such “statements by incoming government leaders and influence peddlers provided an opportunity for America’s China hawks to promote their views.”
Wrong.
"Valencia" has it precisely backward. 

And a simple internet search would have revealed the blunder before he committed it. 

Explains Orbis editor-in-chief Mackubin Owens helpfully: “This special issue of Orbis features articles by FPRI associates offering ‘advice to the next president.’ 

Written before the election [our italics], these essays offer recommendations for national security affairs in general, as well as for regional issues.”
And so it was. 

We drafted the article in August—months ahead of the election, and when Hillary Clinton remained the odds-on favorite to win the White House. 

We assumed a Clinton administration would be the primary audience, but wrote it to advise whoever might prevail in November. 

In short, this was a nonpartisan venture, compiled in the spirit of our running counsel to the Obama administration.
And it should have bipartisan appeal.

As secretary of state, it’s worth recalling, Clinton was also the architect of America’s “pivot,” a.k.a. “rebalance,” to Asia—an undertaking aimed at counterbalancing China. 

Considering China’s record of bellicosity in maritime Asia, and considering Clinton’s diplomatic past, we had good reason to believe that she and her lieutenants would prove as receptive to our message as Trump.
More so, maybe. 

In any event: it’s misleading and false for "Valencia" to accuse us of devising “U.S. tactics in the Trump era.” 

We are devising strategy to deter a domineering China—no matter who occupies the Oval Office. 

That our article appeared after Trump prevailed represents mere happenstance.
Second, "Valencia" insinuates that we hold extremist views. 

Well, we guess so... insofar as anyone who wants to deter an aggressor from further aggression entertains extremist views. 

Deterrence involves putting an antagonist on notice that it will suffer unacceptable consequences should it take some action we wish to proscribe. 

It involves fielding military power sufficient to make good on the threat, whether the requisite capabilities be nuclear or conventional. 

And it involves convincing the antagonist we’re resolute about making good on our threats.
We’re glad to keep company with such hardnosed practitioners of deterrence as Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and John Kennedy—extremists all, no doubt. 

Statesmen of yore made Moscow a believer in American power and resolve—and largely held the line against communism.
Except in that trivial sense, though, there’s nothing extreme about our argument. 

We maintain that China and the United States are pursuing irreconcilable goals in maritime Asia. 

The United States wants to preserve freedom of the sea, China wants anything but. 

Both contenders prize their goals, and both are presumably prepared to mount open-ended efforts of significant proportions to obtain those goals. 

If Beijing and Washington want nonnegotiable things a lot, then the Trump administration must gird itself for a long standoff.
Simple as that.
We also point out that China embarked on a massive buildup of maritime power over a decade ago. Excluding the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet, Beijing already boasts the largest naval and coast-guard fleets in Asia, not to mention a seagoing militia to augment its navy and coast guard. 

And these forces continue growing. 

China’s navy may number over 500 vessels by 2030. 

By contrast, the U.S. Navy espouses an eventual fleet of 355 vessels, up from 274 today. 

President Trump is on record favoring a 350-ship force. 

Defense budgets may—or may not—support a U.S. Navy that large.
These are objective facts about which the Chinese media regularly brag. 

Based on these material trends, we postulate that maritime Asia is becoming increasingly competitive, that China is a formidable competitor, and that the trendlines are running in its favor. How’s that for extreme?
We thus urge U.S. policymakers to acknowledge that the forward U.S. presence in Asia will come under mounting danger in the coming years. 

Washington may have to gamble from time to time to shore it up. 

It may have to hold things that Beijing treasures—things like the Chinese navy’s surface fleet—at risk. 

We encourage decision-makers to embrace risk as an implement of statecraft rather than shy away from it. 

Manipulating and imposing risk is a universal strategy that practitioners in Beijing routinely employ. Washington should reply in kind.
And as "Valencia" well knows—or should know—risk-taking constitutes part of the art of strategy. 

The approach we recommend is well-grounded in theory, as articulated by the late Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling and many others.
There is nothing novel about risk, then. U.S. leaders must rediscover this elemental fact. 

For too long Washington recoiled from taking risk, treating it as a liability while conflating it with recklessness. 

But a risk-averse nation has a hard time deterring: who believes a diffident statesman’s deterrent threats? 

We simply implore civilian and military leaders to realign their attitude toward risk to match the changing strategic landscape in Asia. 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Our argument, then, is a far cry from the extremism "Valencia" deplores in his hit piece. 

A casual reader of his commentary can be pardoned for concluding that we advocate reckless action on the U.S. Navy’s part. 

But it’s "Valencia" who failed his audience.
Third, "Valencia" claims that because of recent statements from U.S. policy-makers—and by implication because of our writing, which he falsely depicts as a product of those statements—“the damage to the U.S.-China relationship and the stability of the region has already been done.” 

But what damage is he referring to? 

As of this writing, the Trump administration has been in office less than a week. 

The White House has issued no official policy touching the South China Sea. 

As far as we know, our fleets in the Western Pacific have done nothing unusual.
"Valencia", it appears, is objecting to a few China-related tweets from Trump following the November elections. 

"Valencia" is indulging in hype.
China, by contrast, has inflicted colossal damage on regional concord. 

Beijing has repeatedly intimidated the Philippines, Vietnam, and Japan in offshore areas. 

It has built islands occupying thousands of acres of land in the heart of the South China Sea. 

It has fortified these manufactured islets, breaking Xi Jinping’s pledge not to militarize them. 

It has rattled its saber through successive military drills, and issued stark warnings about war through various media mouthpieces.
And lastly, "Valencia" suggests that the United States should relinquish vital interests—including those of its Asian allies—to mollify Chinese sensibilities. 

He cites, for example, a Chinese scholar voicing concern that “The theme of clash of civilizations [is] becoming increasingly popular in Chinese circles.” 

"Valencia" also frets about “a possible Thucydian trap [we think you mean Thucydides trap, "Mark"],” a “supposedly ‘inevitable’ conflict between a status-quo power and a rising power.”
His implication, presumably, is that Washington, the guardian of the status quo, should acquiesce in Beijing’s bullying to escape the Thucydides trap. 

That would square with China’s party line. 

And indeed, aggressors do love to win peacefully.
"Valencia" further objects that the timing of a U.S. policy turnabout is inconvenient for the Chinese. 

He observes that the 19th Party Congress will convene this fall to determine China’s leadership transition. 

Xi Jinping might take a hard line in advance of the congress to placate nationalist audiences. 

A U.S. policy shift might box him in.
That may be true, but Chinese Communist Party politics cannot form the basis of U.S. foreign policy. 

Nor, it bears mentioning, do the Chinese consult or respect American political timelines as they pursue foreign-policy aims. 

Just the opposite: they regard the last months of a departing administration and early months of an incoming administration as opportune times to make mischief.
"Valencia"’s message to America is plain: do nothing to antagonize China, even if it means forfeiting American interests and ideals. 

He falls squarely into the don’t provoke China school we take to task at Orbis. 

It is precisely this camp’s thinking that begat paralysis in U.S. maritime strategy in Asia. 

Inaction is no longer tolerable as the strategic circumstances change around us.
As for the Japan Times and its readership: Japanese leaders and rank-and-file citizens should pray the Trump administration rejects "Mark Valencia"’s words. 

If the administration heeded them, it would loosen or abandon the alliance that underwrites Japan’s security and prosperity. 

That would constitute Beijing’s price for U.S.-China amity. 

And if America paid that price, surrendering the Senkaku Islands to China would represent the least of Japan’s worries. 

Dark days would lie ahead.
Let’s make China worry instead.