No, The Chinese Will Not Invade Taiwan

A Marine Veteran Pours Cold Water on the Hype.

For years, and with increasing intensity, we have been told that the Chinese government is not only resolved to conquer the island of Taiwan by force, but, thanks to its well advertised build-up of military might, has the means to do so. “The threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years,” Admiral Phil Davidson, the retiring head of the Indo-Pacific command told congress in 2021. The prediction that China would be ready to invade by 2027 has since become official dogma in Washington, spawning untold billions of dollars in defense spending pegged to this threat. Despite constant invocations of China’s expanding navy, including amphibious capabilities, the Pentagon has studiously avoided telling us exactly how China could manage to move a necessarily enormous force across the stormy seas of the Taiwan strait and subdue the well-armed island.

Fortunately, we now have a clear-eyed examination of the reality behind the much ballyhooed threat. Marine veteran Dan Grazier is Director of the National Security Reform Program at the Stimson Center in Washington D.C. As well as serving tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was specifically trained in amphibious warfare. Grazier has taken the trouble to explore the practical difficulties facing anyone seeking to invade Taiwan. I spoke with him recently to discuss his conclusions, which he and Stimson colleague McKenna Rawlins have now laid out in a report due to bepublished this week.

Cockburn

We have been hearing for many years now that Taiwan is under imminent threat of a Chinese invasion. Can the Chinese in fact invade and occupy the island?

Grazier

Well, they can attempt it.

Any military problem can be overcome, if you're willing to sacrifice enough to achieve it. So if the Chinese were willing to spend years trying to subdue the island and its population and absorb the massive numbers of casualties that would go along with it, then yes, they might be able to do it eventually. The Chinese do want to bring the Chinese majority population on Taiwan back into the greater fold of the Han Chinese on the mainland. But killing massive numbers of people does not really aid that strategic goal. It's not going to foster goodwill on either side of the Taiwan Strait. So I just don't see a situation where the Chinese would be able to conduct a massive amphibious operation and do it in a way that is politically viable for the Chinese Communist Party.

Cockburn.

Supposing they do decide to go ahead, what are the practical difficulties facing an amphibious invasion of Taiwan?