Originally Posted by
Big Pistons Forever
An invasion of Taiwan will be no cakewalk for China even if the US does not intervene with a direct military response. I can see no conventional war plan that would not result in massive casualties on both sides. Even if China can successfully invade and hold the coast the inland topography is ideally suited to maintain a long and ugly insurgency against the invading force. China is obsessed with looking strong, a Vietnam scenario on their doorstep is the opposite of that. Finally the PLA still has a huge senior leadership problem. When most of your senior officers are chosen for political loyalty over Military acumen you don't usually get a good result...
Surely that is no different from the current US policy, exemplified by Gen Milley. Possibly that sets up a WW! situation of senior ineptitude on one side offset by senior incompetence on the other.
More generally, what is the rush and why act militarily? China is a massive market at Taiwan's doorstep that will not go away and Xi is not immortal. While civil wars are not unprecedented in China, all Chinese are conscious of their ruinous impacts.
In ten years, China will be military at least a peer to the US, working off a several fold larger industrial base. Plus Belt and Road will have spread Chinese influence much more extensively than at present.
Taiwan is run by pragmatists, one should expect them to react pragmatically to these changing circumstances.