I don’t agree. Taking Taiwan by military force is a tough military problem, especially if you want anything left when you are done. They could unleash a massive missile and bombing campaign and level everything standing, but they still have to have boots on the ground and Taiwan has a lot of geography very amenable to a successful long term guerrilla campaign of attrition.
This scenario would be devastating to the China communist leadership as it would represent failure.
I also feel that Taiwan is not likely the pushover that people may think. Qualitatively I think they are significantly ahead of the PLA and Chinese senior leadership is still prioritizing political loyalty over military competence.
Yes the overwhelming force disparity means China will inevitably win but it will likely be at a very high cost. That cost would IMO be hard to hide from the Chinese people even with the current government choke hold on information.
Bottom line I bet serious money against deliberate overt sustained military operations against Taiwan. If it came to war it would most likely be a stupid move by an over eager PLA commander which provokes a response that China feels they can’t ignore and the situation spirals out of control.
Much more likely is a scorched earth economic embargo designed to drive the Taiwan economy to its knees. Destroying the economy of a client state to the economic disadvantage of China in order to obtain a political win, is obviously on the table given what is happening in Hong Kong.
Sorry, you are judging China by Western values. The Chinese public would never hear of any failure, neither would they question them too hard.