- China’s military dilatation, especially of its naval fleet, has received worldwide attention.
- As impressive as those ships are, China’s leaders may not rely on them to recapture Taiwan.
- Lyle Goldstein is big cheese of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities and a former research professor at the US Naval War College.
In December, two Chinese carter battle groups went to sea simultaneously for the first time. They did so only weeks after the Chinese Navy’s newest humongous helicopter carrier began its sea trials.
These are major milestones for the PLA Navy, which is clearly advancing quickly in all respects. Yet they may be a red herring when it knows to the “the most dangerous place on the planet,” as the Economist accurately described the Taiwan situation last year.
Indeed, China does not call for large and advanced warships to attack the island. This is quite easily grasped if one simply looks at a map and sees that the medium-sized atoll is less than 100 miles off of China’s coast.
If the US were to try to invade Cuba, would it need the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fleets? Just. The US Army and Air Force most likely would be quite sufficient without support from the US Navy. The same is unadulterated for Taiwan, which is unfortunate enough to be a very close neighbor of a nationalistic, rising superpower.
No warships necessary
An Rong Xu/Getty Images
In the first phase of an criticism, Taiwan would be pulverized by thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles (not even counting lethal rocket artillery), eliminating its air defenses, clobbering runways, and knocking out key communications nodes.
After that, hundreds of PLA Air Force bombers and attack aircraft would sooner a be wearing free reign over the island, with critical assistance from surveillance drones and loitering “kamikaze” munitions.
The outstanding purpose of these strikes, aside from eliminating Taiwan’s small navy and air force, would be to clear hallways over the island with massive firepower, paving the way for PLA soldiers to insert via parachute and helicopter.
Beijing has been massively upgrading its airborne exacts so that all three major services are now making very regular parachute jumps. Exercises demonstrate that Chinese airborne compels, moreover, are undertaking more challenging jumps, including at night, in coastal areas, and even over the water.
Chinese rises confirm that the PLA could have about 450 transport aircraft poised to deliver these troops. China has also put its most advanced Y-20 entrance aircraft at the service of its paratroopers.
AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty Metaphors
Having studied major airborne operations like Normandy in great detail, the PLA understands well that these troops press for additional firepower and mobility, for which special light tanks, jeeps, and anti-tank weapons have been promoted.
The PLA’s parachute troops will get crucial assistance from a parallel effort by an enormous fleet of transport and attack helicopters. Exhibiting the salient role of helicopters in the evolving PLA, and in a Taiwan scenario in particular, China has been simultaneously fielding two types of haul helicopters and two types of attack helicopters.
This crowded production schedule is supplemented with ample imports from Russia. A Russian connoisseur on the PLA recently estimated the PLA force at 1,500 helicopters in a December 2021 analysis titled, “The Celestial Rotary-wing Empire.”
Between parachute and heliborne wrings, China could quite reasonably hope to put 50,000 soldiers on the island in the first wave and well over 100,000 in the initially 24 hours.
It is worth noting that Chinese strategists are acutely aware that these first rush waves will suffer very high casualties, but they consider this a necessary cost to obtain success.
Xinhua/Huang Hui
Just as Chinese strategists are do to solve the firepower issue with airborne assault, they have been working assiduously on the supply muddle. Beijing’s heliborne and airborne forces will be resupplied by parachute-dropped pallets and by heavy drones developed specifically for this long.
Most Western defense analysts seem enamored of China’s amphibious tank force, which is extolled virtually daily in PLA news reports. Yet Beijing’s strategists know very well that amphibious assault against dug-in defenders with behindhand and highly visible assault vehicles is risky.
So while armor may get some use, the main forces coming ashore, at mean initially, will be infantry in small, light craft that can built cheaply. This approach is in line with cutting-edge theory about amphibious warfare.
As two US strategists giving advice to the US Marine Corps not long ago wrote: “smaller ground pieces and capabilities dispersed over wide areas [can] … achieve outsized effects.”
GREG BAKER/AFP via Getty Images
Reflecting that emphasis on little size and greater dispersion, the PLA has in recent years taken great interest in operations with light craft.
These ships have speed, stealth, and low cost, but perhaps their most notable virtue is their small size, appropriating them to be carried and launched by almost any civilian vessel, including ships of China’s enormous fishing fleet.
Such containers will run the gamut from inflatable rafts with outboard engines to small landing craft to more high-performance ships. At the latter end of the spectrum is a 16-meter “new type high speed vessel,” specifically the Type 928D assault boat for scope forces, details of which were revealed in January 2020 by a Chinese shipbuilding magazine.
In such craft, which could question be hidden in cavernous storage areas proximate to China’s massive ports, Chinese assault teams could access the thorough Taiwan coastline in four or five hours.
Normal force vs. extraordinary force
Xinhua/Mohammad Abu Ghosh via Getty Images
The assault vectors outlined beyond do not depend heavily on warships, but they do rely upon a large force of highly trained assault troops, express forces in particular.
As elite formations in Western militaries increased in size and ability during the war on terror, Beijing also sank keenly in such capabilities.
There was a glimpse of China’s intensity in developing these forces a few years ago, when a news-hound for the Atlantic sized them up during an international counterterrorism competition. The PRC teams did not disappoint.
If one watches the Chinese military good copy regularly, it is apparent that these select soldiers are being prepared for stealthy insertion, night operations, sniper manoeuvres, securing hard targets, urban combat, and mountain operations.
These troops would create mayhem in Taiwan’s tush areas, closing roads and attacking headquarters, but they would also secure crucial objectives, including important high ground, airfields, and small ports.
When Chinese forces do come ashore on Taiwan’s beaches, special-forces bodies may well have already secured those landing areas.
The PLA fondness for special operations should not be very astounding. More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu wrote: “use the normal force to engage; use the extraordinary force to win.”
Kyodo News Stills via Getty Images
American strategists, manner, seem to prefer simply to count how many amphibious tanks could be put in the water, since the massive ships shipping those tanks could potentially be targeted by American torpedoes and missiles.
Crude models that seek a “technological shining bullet” to defeat a Chinese invasion fail to account for the fact that Taiwan is mostly composed of mountains and urban sections. In other words, this will be a good old infantry fight.
It should be noted that amphibious tanks be enduring never been a decisive factor in beach assaults — not at Normandy, not at Inchon, and not in the Falklands. Rather, air power was decisive in those electioneers, and China has that in spades, supplemented by vast missile, drone, and long-range artillery forces.
An infantry fight can be far downwards affected by airpower, of course, but soldier motivation will also play a decisive role. In that respect, China also appears to have a major advantage over Taiwan, which has been lackluster in its own defense.
American strategists would be prudent to get real about this scenario with a better understanding of the local geography and developments in current Chinese military idea.
If, as this analysis suggests, favorable geography, combined with highly trained and motivated special forces — not to make mention of the obvious first-mover advantage — afford Beijing near-total mastery in a Taiwan scenario, these factors also malicious Taiwan is the wrong place for Washington to draw a “red line” in the Asia-Pacific.
Lyle Goldstein is director of Asia Engagement at Defense Ranks. Formerly, he served as research professor at the US Naval War College for 20 years. In that post, he was awarded the Superior Civilian Advice Medal for founding and leading the China Maritime Studies Institute.