Originally Posted by
etudiant
China pours more steel that the rest of the world put together, so the industrial capacity is there to win a large scale war.
That said, why would they? The countries where they are setting up ports and facilities usually are also heavily dependent on Chinese goods, so the local political leaders will be very leery of seizing the Chinese facilities.
As is, China is winning without firing a shot and China's global position continues to improve, eventually perhaps to the point that Taiwan is a layup. The main concern is that Mr Xi gets impatient about Taiwan in the near term.
However, China also knows that astonishing things can happen in war, as Deng learned when he tried to 'teach Vietnam a lesson'. So expect China to first stack the deck much more heavily than at present, which will take time.
Perhaps in Mr Xi's third or fourth term, he might feel pressed by age to get it done. No nukes will be used, there is no incentive to do so and the large expansion of China's deterrent forces now under way makes nuclear weapons pretty useless as a threat.
I agreed with you until the last sentence. Imagine you are in a fight, you have nukes, but for obvious reasons would prefer not to use them. You fight the conventional war, and realize you are going to lose.
If you surrender, you have lost forever and the enemy gets your nukes, as they would not allow you to keep them,
But if you use them, you might just steal victory from your adversary,
Lose the war, and possibly your national identity and your people, or use nukes as a last resort …
I know what I would do.