Martial signaling notwithstanding, the likelihood that Beijing is about to embark on a major military endeavor in the Taiwan Strait remains fairly low.
Here’s What You Need to Remember: Although Beijing is undoubtedly committed to further widening the military imbalance in the Taiwan Strait and to deploying assets that can delay or even prevent a U.S. intervention, China’s ability to prosecute a quick invasion of Taiwan at acceptable cost remains, by most yardsticks, too much of an uncertainty.
Since the beginning of 2020, China’s signaling of its purported intentions toward Taiwan has taken an unmistakable turn for the belligerent, with editorials clamoring for military action and a substantial increase in People’s Liberation Army (PLA) activity around the democratic island-nation. Recently, PLA aircraft have frequently cut into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and crossed a median line in the Taiwan Strait that, although unofficial, had nevertheless served to reduce the risks of collision and miscalculation over the years. With Xi Jinping’s adjuring the PLA to “prepare for war,” commentaries in state-run media putting Taipei on notice, and the deployment of new DF-17 missile units and advanced stealth aircraft near Taiwan, it appears that war in the Taiwan Strait is just around the corner. Global media have weighed in on the issue, with several alarmist articles appearing in recent weeks.
Martial signaling notwithstanding, the likelihood that Beijing is about to embark on a major military endeavor in the Taiwan Strait remains fairly low. Most assessments indicate that despite quantitative and qualitative improvements in recent years, the PLA still does not have sufficient amphibious capabilities to launch an assault against Taiwan. Other variables complicate Beijing’s calculations, including uncertainty, despite ongoing advances in the PLA’s anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) capabilities, over a potential involvement by the U.S. in a Taiwan contingency, as well as the potentially high losses involved in amphibious operations in the Taiwan Strait, for which eventuality the Taiwanese military has been preparing for decades.
Although Beijing is undoubtedly committed to further widening the military imbalance in the Taiwan Strait and to deploying assets that can delay or even prevent a U.S. intervention, China’s ability to prosecute a quick invasion of Taiwan at acceptable cost remains, by most yardsticks, too much of an uncertainty. In fact, no such thing may even be possible. As the Department of Defense’s 2020 report to Congress indicates, China’s Joint Island Landing Campaign (登岛战役)—the most prominent of PLA plans for a major military campaign against Taiwan—“envisions a complex operation relying on coordinated, interlocking campaigns for logistics, air, and naval support, and EW [electronic warfare]. The objective would be to break through or circumvent shore defenses, establish and build a beachhead, transport personnel and materiel to designated landing sites in the north or south of Taiwan’s western coastline, and launch attacks to seize and occupy key targets or the entire island.”
It continues: Large-scale amphibious invasion is one of the most complicated and difficult military operations. Success depends upon air and maritime superiority, the rapid buildup and sustainment of supplies onshore, and uninterrupted support. An attempt to invade Taiwan would likely strain China’s armed forces and invite international intervention. These stresses, combined with China’s combat force attrition and the complexity of urban warfare and counterinsurgency, even assuming a successful landing and breakout, make an amphibious invasion of Taiwan a significant political and military risk.