China is getting increasingly aggressive with Taiwan — but war would be disastrous for both sides

Recent Chinese military action shows that Xi Jinping has taken a much more aggressive stance on Taiwan than his immediate predecessors.
War with Taiwan could be disastrous because the Taiwanese military is powerful and a conflict risks the involvement of the US.

Tensions between the Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan have recently flared up as China held the largest show of naval force in its history this month and made new threats directed towards Taipei.

The Chinese also flew bombers around Taiwan in a show of force this week as well, and though tensions decreased a bit when promised live-fire drills were scaled back, the events are a reminder to analysts and policymakers that one of the worlds oldest Cold War-era conflicts remains unsolved, and could escalate to war.

Much of that has to do with Chinese President and General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping, who has taken a much more aggressive stance on Taiwan than his immediate predecessors.

"Xi Jinping has essentially linked rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation to the retaking of Taiwan,"

"We were in a period of relative quiet with the Taiwan issue, and now it's in a more primary place on the agenda as far as Beijing is concerned," Glaser said.

At the core of the issue is that the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) wants Taiwan, known officially as the Republic of China, to return to the fold to create one country that is unified under the rule of the Communist Party of China.

But Taiwan, with the help of the US, has so far managed to resist the PRC's attempts to isolate it politically and economically, and has even shown signs of moving further away from the PRC and towards official independence — a move that would almost certainly provoke an armed response from the mainland.

Taiwan's military has a few advantages if it comes to war. First and foremost, Taiwan has been training to defend the island for decades.

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Taiwan's geography also provides another advantage. Crossing the Taiwan Strait would take up to 7-8 hours by sea, and during that time Taiwan could prepare for an invasion, and use its navy and air force to attack incoming Chinese ships, and set up anti-ship mines along the Strait.

The PRC also does not currently have the capability to transport the required number of troops (once estimated to be as high as 400,000) needed to take the island.

Furthermore, Taiwan is very mountainous, and does not offer a lot of landing zones where the People's Liberation Army (PLA) could establish solid beachheads. Roughly only 10% of its shoreline is suitable for the large-scale amphibious landing that the PLA would have to make.

All of this means an invasion of Taiwan by the PRC would be extremely costly. "China has no obvious starting move that guarantees that they don’t absorb a lot of risk from this,"

It deployed carrier battle groups to the Strait in 1995 to prevent war from breaking out, and relations between the two countries remain strong. One analyst Business Insider spoke to calculated that US submarines could sink 40% of a PLA invasion force.

She pointed to Xi's comments at the 19th Party Congress last October; "We will resolutely uphold national sovereignty and territorial integrity and will never tolerate a repeat of the historical tragedy of a divided country," he stated to wild applause.

"We have firm will, full confidence, and sufficient capability to defeat any form of Taiwan independence secession plot. We will never allow any person, any organization, or any political party to split any part of the Chinese territory from China at any time or in any form."

China is getting increasingly aggressive with Taiwan — but war would be disastrous for both sides

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