China's Dilemma
A viability assessment of the invasion of Taiwan by the People's Republic of China
The effort to convey specific assessments based on the available data on this topic turned into a miniature research project fairly swiftly. As such it generated a paper with a somewhat more academic format than I usually post here; with the usual footnotes, endnotes, and a bibliography. Substack is not configured to allow for much of this, or if it is I am currently unaware of how to manage it. Instead, I’ve elected to post the entire paper in a pdf format here. Apologies for any inconvenience that may cause, I hope you all find it informative.
- Patrick Fox
Nice essay. But what I found missing was the fact that taiwan is completely export/import dependend. It will not survive a sea blockade for long. And from what I can see, China does have the capabilities to enforce a blockade.
Good essay. Hard to find anything to disagree with.
The points on the small scale of Chinese sealift are crucial; the ROC's submarine force is unimpressive but if the USN is engaged, it's inconceivable that the Chinese could manage ongoing sustainment of a landed force against the USN's interdictment efforts. And that's assuming that Chinese A2/AD is so good that USN surface assets can't get close, which is possible but untested.