Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[Kirkhill]

If it is an error to define the West as an entity is it equally wrong to define China as an entity?  I accept that it is a unitary state but it appears to be far from a "Nation-State".  Can the "Red Dynasty" manage a transformation from empire to federation?

The reason for the question is that I believe that part of the reason for the stability of the west that the author identifies is that the West is comprised of States that range in size from the 300,000,000 of the US to the 900 of the Vatican.  Despite the efforts of the EU the current world order makes a place for small, autonomous populations.  As I have stated before, I believe that the best the EU can ever hope to be, if it erases the current national borders, is an agglomeration of variously autonomous city-states with strong internal blood and culture ties.  Another form of tribalism.

The USSR dissolved.  Yugoslavia dissolved. Czechoslovakia dissolved.  France and Spain and Belgium and Britain are struggling against dissolution.  Many of the nationalist groups within those countries openly support and are supported by the EU (the principle of subsidiarity) because they perceive the EU as a way to reduce the power of Paris, Madrid, London and Brussels.  Small countries aspire to independence when they can afford it. 

In a poor Chinese empire there are contradictory tendencies for communities to compete for scraps or to cooperate to take on the outside.  (This is not peculiar to the Chinese.  It is universal.)  In a rich Chinese empire will all regions equally "float with the rising tide" of prosperity. (They don't appear to be doing so now.  In Canada we struggle with the same problem ourself, despite our liberal, western traditions).

If we accept the premise of the article that China need not be an enemy even if it is a competitor/partner is it still a safe bet that Beijing will be China in 50 years time?  Can Beijing continue to maintain its position of speaking for all 1,000,000,000 inhabitants it represents internationally currently?  Or will Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong continue to push for more autonomy as our on, more profitable, Canadian provinces do?

Couple this with China's struggle with the ongoing dessication that began 9000 years ago and really started to bite in the hills 4-5000 years ago, concurrently with the rise of the river civilizations.  It seems to me that the riverine Shang/Zhou/Qin/Han dynasties of Henan pushed down river with a successful survival strategy until they reached the sea.  They eventually reached the carrying capacity of the deltas, carrying capacity which shrinks with dessication, and were forced to push up into the southern hills (which coincidentally, like Taiwan, have become wetter as the north became drier).  Consequently, from where I sit, it appears to me as if the Han Chinese still have a lot of "unassimilated" members of their empire living within their borders.  What are the real limits for an autonomous Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Tibet, "Western Autonomous Region" ....Taiwan?.

If China can manage the transition from a political empire of subjects to a commercial empire of partners then I think that Ikenberry has a point.  But if China chooses to pursue a traditional military/political empire as a counter to the internal centrifugal forces does't it risk going the way of the Soviet Union with all the attendant dangers that presents?

It is my personal belief that our western dynasts never went away.  They just figured out how to maintain their lifestyles without the personal expense of maintaining standing armies.  The cities of the Bourbons, Hapsburgs, Plantagenets, Tudors, Stewarts and Oldenburgs, and the dynastic Houses they carried, are as prosperous as ever. If not moreso.

 

[Greymatters]

If China can manage the transition from a political empire of subjects to a commercial empire of partners then I think that Ikenberry has a point.  But if China chooses to pursue a traditional military/political empire as a counter to the internal centrifugal forces does't it risk going the way of the Soviet Union with all the attendant dangers that presents?

Bear in mind, the USSR existed for about 75 years (1917-1992) before dissolving into its current independent (mostly) components.  The old United Kingdom disintegrated into seperate nations after over a hundred years of being the dominant world player, albight willingly (or unwillngly, or half-heartedly, depending on whose hostory you read).  The US faced its challenge of unity with its civil war after about 90 years of existance, but survived the event.  Canada faced its own challenge to unity after a hundred years.  The current political regime in China has only been in place since 1949 (barely fifty years) so is still a 'young' country and has yet to face the spector of disintegration that faces every large nation after long periods of time... 

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
The current political regime in China has only been in place since 1949 (barely fifty years) so is still a 'young' country and has yet to face the spector of disintegration that faces every large nation after long periods of time...   

While the current dynasty is young (I say it started in 1980 when Deng Xiaoping took power - I think Sun and Mao represented an interregnum) the Chinese people's sense of their own national identity - within their current core territorial bounds* - is very old. If you want to be conservative it goes back to only the Tang dynasty (1,400 year ago); I suggest it (China's own sense of itself as a nation) goes back 2,000 years.

The Chinese have endured a wide range of dynasties, foreign and domestic - they accept them all so long as they appear to hold the mandate of heaven which might be very loosely translated as the consent of the governed. There is no reason to think that the current Red Dynasty or, as I prefer Deng Dynasty, will not last as long as, say, the the Sui or the Yuan dynasties (37 and 97 years respectively) - it has already outlasted the Qin.

I don't think it is fair or wise to consider China as anything like a conventional, Western, empire. I agree that the vast Autonous Regions are, essentially, colonies, but the Chinese aim to turn them into something akin to Australia and Canada - replacing or, at least, overwhelming the indigenous minorities with right thinking Han Chinese. They just do not plan to make them really autonous. In fact they want to make then organic provinces - Chinese in all respects. This is the work of generations, even an epoch, but the Chinese are not afraid of long-term planning.


----------

* That's one of the reasons Tibet and Xinjiang are Autonomous Regions - they are not part of the ancient core of China.

 

[appletreecdn]

Bear in mind, the USSR existed for about 75 years (1917-1992) before dissolving into its current independent (mostly) components.  The old United Kingdom disintegrated into seperate nations after over a hundred years of being the dominant world player, albight willingly (or unwillngly, or half-heartedly, depending on whose hostory you read).  The US faced its challenge of unity with its civil war after about 90 years of existance, but survived the event.  Canada faced its own challenge to unity after a hundred years.  The current political regime in China has only been in place since 1949 (barely fifty years) so is still a 'young' country and has yet to face the spector of disintegration that faces every large nation after long periods of time...   

Through out the entire recorded history of China the trend has cycled between unity and disintegration.  It seems after a certain period of cohesion a shuffle that is destained to produce anarchy while planting future seeds of cohesion would occur and then the cycle goes on.  

With today's PRC, some observers have claimed that even though allowing the 'motherland' to break apart is considered the eternal sin on CCP's psyche, people shouldn't be suprised that the CCP would trade its own survival with the disintegration of the current territoty and it has happend in the past - Mongolia, Tang Nu Wu Liang Hai, Jiang Xin Pao, to name a few.

 

[Kirkhill]

China 50 years in 20091999
China 75 years in 2033 (Russia) 2024
China 90 years in 2039 (US)
China 100 years in 2049 (Canada)
China +100 years after 2049 (UK) (actually 1759-1944 would be a fair assessment - Quebec/Quiberon/Pondicherry to Bretton Woods or about 200 years which would delay China's unity crisis to 2149 or thereabouts)

Ikenberry's planning horizon is the 21st Century (pre 2100).  Most speculative discussions centre around 2050.


In point of fact though All the countries you mentioned only enjoyed their time in the sun AFTER they faced their unity crises.  Only after they had come to terms internally could they push externally and then, as noted only until the next unity crisis showed up. At most you are looking at maintaining a particular status over one to three lifetimes.  Arthur Herman points out that the institution of the Admiralty was defined from the time of Samuel Pepys to Horatio Nelson (1660-1805 = 145 years) by the overlapping lives of 3 men. Junior, faceless cogs in the wheel right enough but physical connections over 6 generations of sailors.  Edit: Who are the equivalents in the CCP?  Not the tall poppies but the roots and stems.

There is a body of literature that looks at the American Revolution as a Second Anglo Civil War (1640 being the first with 1860 being the third - 1640, 1776,1860) that was occasioned by the prosperity that the Yankees enjoyed. They had their backers in Britain that were just as happy to be relieved of the local defence burden as long as they could continue to invest in the country.  (Britain is still the 3rd largest investor in the US after Japan and China, 592,388 and 297 BUSD respectively and appears to be significantly increasing its holdings now that its WW1 and 2 debts are finally paid off - up from 61 BUSD in Oct of 2006)

*Thanks to The Skeptical Optimist for the US Treasury link -makes me wonder if the Bank of England hasn't reverted to type.  In the 18th century they paid Germans to fight the French and created an empire. In the 20th century they did the fighting themselves and lost an empire.  Now they seem to be paying the Americans to do the fighting with just enough 18th century type input to not be seen as shirkers.

Sorry for the usual anglo-centric ramble but the point is this - some folks in Europe/The West - have managed to figure out how to stay on top of the game regardless of the military/political situation.  That engenders a form of stability that the rest of us all benefit from - its good to have the Royal Warrant to supply the Royal Household with Kiwi shoe polish,  there's money to be made there.  And if the Grimaldis are wearing Prada this year Prada is probably going to have a good year.  

So while I take Edward's and Ikenberry's point about the US and the west accomodating China (actually Ikenberry seems to believe that it is only the US that needs to do the accomodating/leading - a point of contention) my contention is that China (sorry the Red Dynasty of Beijing) has to make a lot more accomodations if it is to fully join the liberalized western system of wealth generation.



Edited to correct some faulty maths.

 

[Greymatters]

The Chinese have endured a wide range of dynasties, foreign and domestic - they accept them all so long as they appear to hold the mandate of heaven which might be very loosely translated as the consent of the governed. There is no reason to think that the current Red Dynasty or, as I prefer Deng Dynasty, will not last as long as, say, the the Sui or the Yuan dynasties (37 and 97 years respectively) - it has already outlasted the Qin.

I agree this represents their cultural and ethnic identity, but I was thinking more of their current political identity, as you pointed out. 

Overall, you and Kirkhill both present good points.  It challenges and changes some of the viewpoints I have on the nation, and I look forward to reading more of it...

 

[tomahawk6]

I have been impressed by the posts in this thread. Alot of interesting viewpoints. The Russians tried to compete with the US with their state run economy and ended up collapsing because it couldnt compete with the US economy. The Chinese on the other hand still has a state run economy with a form of capitalism. Like Russia China has a huge underclass that so far has been left out of the economic boom. This is the basic weakness of the two major competitors of the US. Unless they can improve the standard of living of most of their population their economic house is built on sand.

The US economy on the otherhand faces a crisis from within, which is the only way for the US to lose its economic power. The crisis comes from the corporation hating socialists within both major parties. If they are able to come to power and implement their agenda then we will see the US economy will see negative growth. This is a worst case scenario and would probably see a reversal through the ballot box but its quite possible. As a major world consumer I think this would push the global economy into depression. I guess thats the problem with electing politicians who have no clue about economics.

 

[TCBF]

Perhaps a few of those 'corporation hating socialists' should have screamed a little louder about the events which led to the current sub-prime crisis.   Right now, bankers the world over are looking at their American counterparts and screaming "What the f_uck were you thinking?" over and over again.  An act of economic sabotage has taken place and the perpetrators have received hundreds of millions in bonuses and stock options, and now want the feds to bail them out.

Odds are, the ranks of 'corporation hating socialists' will increase after this, and that IS a bad thing.  But a little blood flowing down Wall Street might do some good as well.

 

[Kirkhill]

But a little blood flowing down Wall Street might do some good as well.

I trust you are indulging in hyperbole.  THAT is the last thing I would wish to see.  Capital seeks safety. It can accomodate a bit of incompetence from time to time.  It can even accomodate the occasional revolution.  No country survives the flight of capital though.

And the reason the foreign bankers are squawking is that they are the ones that bank-rolled the sub-prime loans.....

 

[tomahawk6]

The sub prime issue only affects 6% of homeowners and is a blip on the radar.

 

[TCBF]

- Point is the sub-prime crisis and the current ABCP (Asset Backed Commercial Paper) are both self-inflicted blips.  This is not so much a case of people loosing faith in a currency as loosing faith in the people entrusted to manage that currency and look out for the investors.  Who was looking out for the investors as the robber-barons took their profits and laughed at what they knew was coming?

- If the Chinese can develop an investment system structured over the next thirty years so that their regulators have teeth, investors may have more confidence in their system rather than the one stalling on the edge of recession in New York.

- I have no doubt the US can make it work, after all, they recently crossed the line in the sand most thought existed regarding corporate law: they actually found a lawyer guilty the same time they found Conrad Black guilty.  Up until then, the CEO et al normally took the heat (if any) while their accessory-to-the-crime lawyers walked.  No more.

 

[Cloud Cover]

- Conrad Black was a lawyer;
- It is true that the US Sarbanes Oxley act has special provisions of accountability for lawyers - these were required in order to get around the principle of solicitor or attorney client privilege- which many dirty, low down, good for nothing clients such as CEO's attempted to hide behind in the USA, and continue to hide behind and recieve generous protection from the courts in Canada. 
 

 

[CougarKing]

Many thanks for an enlightening summary CougarDaddy.

Digestion time.

Kirkhill,

Did my recent posts on the PLA and CCP leadership's past relations at least partially answer your question?  I assume you would have read or gotten most of the gist of it by now.

What are the real limits for an autonomous Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Tibet, "Western Autonomous Region" ....Taiwan?.

Also, Kirkhill, Guangzhou is a not province but merely a city within Guangdong province, although I believe it deserves the same level of provincial status that Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin have gotten, since they are all megatropolis cities. In fact all those SEZs- Special Economic Zones- such as Zhuhai, Shenzhen and Xiamen, as well as non-SEZ industrial cities like Wuhan all deserve some level of special megatropolis provincial status.

In 2047, when Hong Kong's period as merely a "Special Administrative Region" with all the pre-handover democratic rights and freedoms instituted during British rule, is supposed to expire, I think Hong Kong might qualify as yet another megatropolis with provincial status, provided the PRC govt. still exists that far into the future.

With today's PRC, some observers have claimed that even though allowing the 'motherland' to break apart is considered the eternal sin on CCP's psyche, people shouldn't be suprised that the CCP would trade its own survival with the disintegration of the current territoty and it has happend in the past - Mongolia, Tang Nu Wu Liang Hai, Jiang Xin Pao, to name a few.

Appletree,

That "sin" of letting the "motherland" disintegrate is a sin of many past dynasties as well. The Taiping Rebellion of the mid-1800s comes to mind, although the Manchus/Man Zu/ Qing Dynasty eventually stamped it out with their banner armies; if I can recall correctly, these Qing banner armies even relied upon some Western mercenaries to help quash the rebellion.

Do you remember the story of Koxinga/Zhèng Chénggōng (鄭成功)? The story of that half-Japanese, half-Chinese sea pirate who eventually ended up as the Ming Dynasty's last warlord admiral? The one who conquered and expelled the Dutch colony on Taiwan/Formosa and reclaimed it in the name of the Ming? The one who held out in the island for many years while the mainland fell and the Ming Dynasty fell to the Manchu conquest of the mid-1600s? His story is quite interesting; the fact that his forces expelled the Dutch presence in 1662 is probably the only major instance in Chinese history, other than in certain battles in the Korean War (I don't think there many Chinese victories of much note in the Opium War or the Boxer Rebellion), when a Chinese force defeated a Western force. However, Koxinga's stronghold was later stamped out by a Qing invasion force that took Formosa in 1683; will history repeat itself with the last ROC holdout being quashed by the PRC for simply changing the name of the de-facto island nation?

 

[Kirkhill]

CougarDaddy:

Your response was most helpful, as is your clarification on the Province/City/SEZ/SAR question.  That latter though raises a point that I think is particularly germain to the discussion.

It is my belief that Cities are real and Countries/Provinces/States are abstractions. 

Cities are outgrowths of the nuclear family.  They originate when, in microbiological terms, a Colony Forming Unit (CFU=a number of organisms sufficiently large to establish a viable colony that can grow on a Petri Dish to the point it can be clearly seen by the naked eye) lands by volition or accident on a chunk of terrain where it can prosper and reproduce.  Once established, like black mold, it spreads like billy-be-damned and is virtually impossible to eliminate.  (Carthago delenda est IIRC does not mean Carthage is deleted but Carthage should be deleted - despite "salting the earth" Carthage was still competing with Rome when Rome fell and Augustine and Pelagius were fighting it out about 410 AD, 600 years after the salting). 

The original CFU and its descendants create an environment of walls and holes that is every bit as real as mountains and rivers.  The City becomes an artifact that even if the inhabitants did leave would remain for a pretty long time.

If left undisturbed the original CFU establishes an inbred monoculture that likely either dies from eating itself out of house and home or else by fouling the area so completely it has to move.

Fortunately it is seldom left undisturbed.  Other cultures wash over it and sex miscegenation occurs.

9 months later a hybrid is born.

Who lays claim to the hybrid depends on who gets to write the tale.

Interestingly when the Vikings settled France they ended up speaking French and becoming Normans.  When they arrived in England they ended up ruling but speaking English.  When the Franco-Viking Normans showed up in England they too ended up speaking English, all the while proclaiming the superiority of their mongrel upbringing.  I believe something similar can be seen in the territory of China with the Manchu's coming in from the hills but learning to speak Han in order to rule (and bringing the occasional blue-eyed, red-headed gene from the steppes along with them).

With that in mind I find it interesting to look at political geography not from the standpoint of borders, which vary from year to year, but from the standpoint of the cities, towns, villages and hamlets.  That is where the culture is defined and definable. It is where people live, communicate, compromise and have sex.  It is where they eat, work and defecate.    The boundaries they claim may appeal to their vanity but ultimately they only control the space they live in.  Everything else is negotiable.

From that Beijing and Guangzhou have very different starting points as colonies and have been exposed to very different influences.  They exist in very different envirionments and are subject to different opportunities and threats.  What gives us to assume that Beijing's appreciation of what is best for Guangzhou will continue to be seen by the people of Guangzhou as being in their continued best interest?  Does there come a time when Guangzhou, or any of the other SEZs/SARs become sufficiently wealthy in their own right (or develop the support of a strong external patron to counter Beijing) that they can contemplate ignoring directives from the centre?

 

[Kirkhill]

Some more grist for the mill

China by language and dialect (maps)

Map 1 - Chinese and Non Chinese language areas
Map 2 - Mandarin Chinese and Southern Chinese language areas
Map 3 - Mandarin Chinese and Chinese dialect areas
Map 4 - Population density and distribution of linguistic groups in China

Mandarin seems to be the language/dialect of the Huang He or Yellow River valley and delta.  A variant Mandarin form is found in the contiguous Yangtze Delta.  The further you move into the southern hills you go the more variants you find until by the time you reach the southern border you are into separate languages entirely.  In the north the language difference is starker with Beijing being the eastern portal connecting Mandarin with Mongolian.

If that were Britain I would be looking at Devonshire and Newcastle speaking mutually unintelligible forms of English, the Channel Islands speaking French and the North of Scotland speaking Gaelic or Norwegian.....not far off the mark.  And despite 300 years of unification Huddersfield and Plymouth might as well be on different planets.  There is a move to break England into seven modern districts that would have been recognizable to King Alfred the Great 1200 years ago.

 

[CougarKing]

Kirkhill,

Perhaps India would make a better comparison to China regarding the diversity of the people within a single nation. You have Hindu speakers forming the majority- correct me if I'm wrong, as well as regional ethnic differences including Kashmiris and Sikh and Tamil(yes I think there are Tamils on mainland India aside from those in Sri Lanka), etc. I'll defer to someone more informed about Indian cultures and minority groups to elaborate.

As for Chinese languages and dialects, you have Mandarin (which is actually a development/variation of the Beijing dialect/Bei Jing Hua); the way you can tell a Beijinger from the rest of Chinese is when they say and slur an "r" any Mandarin word that ends in a vowel.

For example:

A regular Mandarin speaker would say: "Hao, Hao de" (Good, good) but a Beijinger would say "Hao Hao'r de" to say the same thing.

Mandarin is a tonal language and was developed through the centuries by the scholar-official class as a means by which the dynastic center/capital could communicate with the rest of the regions of the empire/Middle Kingdom. Mandarin has four tones for every word like "hao"- (pronounced "how"), and pronouncing the word with a different tone will change the word's meaning entirely.

For example, "Hao" in 3rd tone means "good" while "Hao" in 4th tone means a number/figure in the ordinal sense- #1, #2, #3= yi hao, er hao, san hao, etc.

Shanghainese has more than 5 tones, while Cantonese has as many as six or seven, if I can recall correctly. Of course, the locals will always switch to their provincial/native/minority dialect when trying to be deceiving or want to relate something to each other in confidence, when a foreigner (lao wai) or even a Chinese outsider from another province is in hearing distance.

While spoken languages all differ in varying ways, just about all the dialects spoken by all Han groups- such as Cantonese- will almost certainly have a WRITTEN equivalent that is the same and readable even by Mandarin speakers. Everyone in mainland China uses Simplified Chinese (jiǎntǐzì, 简体字)for their writing, which was developed when the PRC came into power not only to standardize the writing system on the mainland, but also as a means by which the CCP could further isolate Taiwan, who still use the Traditional Chinese (fántǐzì, 繁体字) writing.   Furthermore, people in Hong Kong- though they speak Cantonese- use Traditional characters for their writing, as does every overseas Chinese person living in any of the many Chinatowns scattered across the world; Singaporeans of Chinese descent use Traditional Chinese as well. 

As their names suggests, the Simplified writing system uses less strokes and is quicker to write, while Traditional characters are closer in stroke number to Classical Chinese characters.

For example:

the word China or Zhong(1st tone) Guo (2nd tone) would be written as:

中国 in Simplified Chinese


中國 in Traditional Chinese

Soldier= zhan (4th), bing (1st)   战士 in Simp.
                                             戰士 in Trad. 

Some characters will obviously be the same in both systems, while the more complex characters will obviously be reduced to one or even two radicals or parts of the original Traditional character if they are converted to Simplified.
                                         
If reunification between Taiwan and the mainland is INEVITABLE though, as Campbell suggests, they will have to give up one of these systems and institute the other; it would be a very costly undertaking if Traditional Mandarin were to be reimposed on all forms of media/medium throughout the mainland if the ROC govt. ever came back to liberate the mainland (fat chance-Chiang Kai-Shek gave up that dream just before he died, though his body is preserved/interred in Taiwan awaiting burial on the mainland), although I have heard from local students while I was studying in Beijing that mainlanders are also taught the Traditional as well- probably so they can read older texts like those on surviving Buddhist or Taoist temple inscriptions. However, everything OFFICIAL is written in Simplified in the mainland though. Thus, what writing system Taiwan will use after reunification with China will be another issue they will have to deal with.

Interestingly, anyone who studied both Mandarin and other East Asian languages such as Korean or Japanese will notice that the latter two languages also use borrowed Chinese characters for some of their older, more traditional words; this demonstrates the cultural influence China has had on its neighbours through the centuries.

For example:   中国 - pronounced "Zhong (1st) Guo (2nd)" in Mandarin will be called
                                                  "Chu Goku" in Japanese. (the 2nd "u" is silent here)

Borrowed Chinese characters used in the Japanese language are called "Kanji" (which itself is pronounced "Han Zi" in spoken Mandarin if you read the same characters for Kanji-  漢字 = Hanzi/Kanji).

I'd also like to close this post with a little Mandarin wordplay joke which attests to why Chinese people REALLY DISTRUST politicians.

As you know, Pres. Chen Sui Bian is the President of the ROC/Taiwan, while Mayor Ma Ying Jiu was the mayor of Taipei the last time I checked.  The joke is that if you put the two men together into one person, you would get a liar.

The last character in Chen's name- "Bian"- when combined with the first character in Ma's name-"Ma"- are themselves individual radicals/parts that, when combined into one character, literally embodies the Mandarin verb for lying, and when modified with the noun particle "zi", then becomes the word for LIAR= PIAN ZI= 骗子.

;D   

 

[Kirkhill]

Very Punny these Chinese.  Where's the "groaner" smiley when you need it?

Your point about India is well taken CougarDaddy.  It too is an Empire.  The difference though is that it has always been a "community of communities" in the Canadian idiom, especially under the British.  They were just as happy to deal with a local Nawab or Prince instead of having to take on the expense of a local District Commissioner and his staff.    Where Mao opted for centralization in order to impose the one True solution on his "Warlords"  India opted for the Westminster model of decentralized interests centrally recognized.  In Britain we call our Warlords Barons, Earls, Dukes, Counts, Marquesses etc and gave them a guaranteed seat in Parliament for the best part of a thousand years while democracy developed.  Now we call them General Secretary of the Trade Union Congress or some such.  In Canada we call them Premier.

 

[tomahawk6]

Interesting article by strategypage today about the hurdles China faces if they tried to invade Taiwan. Many of these points have been made in this thread.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlog/articles/20080105.aspx

China Rues The Waves

January 5, 2008: China's big problem with invading Taiwan is not just whether or not they could defeat the defending forces. The big problem is American control of the world's oceans. It's been that way for over sixty years, and many people just take it for granted. Chinese military planners see that control, which they can't break, as a major obstacle to their success in grabbing Taiwan. Like Japan, in 1941, China has to import (a third of) its oil. That will increase to 50 percent in a few years. America can instantly turn off that supply. The U.S. did that to Japan in 1941, and then Japan went to war. But China would find that supply cut after they went to war.

For the last five years, China has been building a national fuel reserve. These oil tanks are still being filled. In a year or two, they will have 14 million tons (China imports that much every five weeks). That's to keep the civilian economy and  military operations going for 30 days, but that would be on the assumption that use of personal vehicles would be restricted, and even the commercial sector would have to get by on less. China wants to expand that reserve to 75 days, but that would take 5-10 years.

For an attack on Taiwan, the military would need about 300,000 tons of fuel a day. Most of that would be burned by aircraft and ships. Normally, the Chinese military uses about 3,000 tons a day. This is increasing as aircraft fly more often to train pilots up to Taiwanese standards, and warships spend more time at sea so they can handle a naval assault on Taiwan.

A Chinese invasion would have to succeed fairly quickly. Running out of oil is only one of the considerations. China can produce about a million tons a day. The Taiwanese would have a hard time attacking China's oil fields (which are largely deep in the interior), but putting some smart bombs on pipeline pumping stations near the coast (where most of the oil is consumed) would severely diminish access to that oil for a while.

In other words, cutting off oil supplies for the military is a problem, but not THE problem. Keeping the economy going is the major consideration. The current Chinese government, which is basically the unelected leadership  of the Chinese Communist Party, survives only as long as the economy flourishes. Without that ten million tons of oil imports every month, or the ability to export goods, the economy collapses, and along with that so does support for the Communist Party.

It's all about the economy, control of Taiwan is only a political sideshow.

 

[CougarKing]

They are obviously slowly increasing their amphibious capabilities so they can land more than the single-500 man strong PLA Marine brigade they have on their obvious target: any port on the Taiwan coast where commandeered Ro-Ro ships can unload more of their armor.  Or is this possibility just an unlikely assumption on my part?

One shouldn't ignore the PLA's 3-division strong 15th Airborne Corps based in Wuhan either in a Taiwan invasion scenario. However, I'll leave it to the professionals here to comment on whether they think any such airborne landing would still be feasible given the types of defenses Taiwan has; whether Taiwan's vaunted F16s or its SAM batteries on its warships will affect such an airborne drop is not in my lane to say.

Gentlemen,

Since we've come back to the topic of a PLA invasion of Taiwan, I was wondering if the above observations of mine seem possible/feasible from the point of view of professionals? Greymatters' point about the importance of EW to the ROC/ Guo Min Jun/Taiwan forces who have to defend against such an invasion is well taken.

Also, in the event of such an invasion, do you think that the ROC forces stationing some of its crack ground units on the islands of Kinmen (pronounced "Jin-men Dao" or "Jinmen" Island), Quemoy and Matsu, which are ROC-held islands just a few kilometers offshore from the mainland that have been held since 1949 (purportedly Chiang-Kai Shek's stepping stone to his imagined liberation of the mainland before he died) would make a difference in delaying the PLA at all?

 

[tomahawk6]

The key is how much damage does the PRC want to inflict on the island ? They have to gain both air and sea control before launching the invasion.Also an invasion is not easy to conceal. If the PRC didnt care about damage they could rain missiles on military targets throughout the island. If the runways are closed there goes their air superiority problem. Getting the subs will be critical but doable if you dont mind losing some frigates/DDG's. Once you have control over the sea and air the invasion can commence and then you will see airborne forces. If I were Taiwan I would launch a pre-emptive strike on the naval staging areas.Take out the amphibious ships and no invasion.