China's military developments (tip to Weekly Standard) are designed to buy China that time:
The ONI stated that China's maritime strategy is focused on blocking U.S. or Japanese intervention in a future conflict over Taiwan. To that end, Beijing has begun equipping its medium- and short-range ballistic missiles based on shore, hundreds of which are deployed across the Taiwan Strait from the island that the communist regime views as a renegade province, with maneuvering warheads.
These radar-guided or heat-seeking weapons "provide the accuracy necessary to attack a ship at sea," ONI said.
And modern submarines are part of the mix. I've long assumed submarines were the weapon of choice to slow down our fleet to keep us from intervening in time to save Taiwan.
The missile part is most interesting. I have heard that the Chinese are developing their ballistic missiles to hit our carriers. Perhaps with poison gas. I am skeptical about that claim since I sincerely doubt that gas in sufficient density could be spread at sea by missile barrage. But if the missiles have enough accuracy to actually hit ships, I suppose they could be used with conventional warheads against our ships. That would slow us down in approaching Taiwan.
So are the missiles designed to go after our ships rather than bombard Taiwan? Bombarding Taiwan to bully them into surrendering makes no sense. I've always assumed the missiles were designed to damage ports and airfields over the weeks needed to wage the campaign in order to cut off reinforcements and resupply as well as hurt Taiwan's air force and navy. But am I right?
If I'm wrong and the Chinese do plan to use ballistic missiles as an anti-ship weapon, the Chinese could conceivably use their missiles to go after our ships and either sink them or keep them at bay.
And if this is what they are designed for, then the popular guess that Peking might try to subdue Taiwan with a missile barrage is clearly wrong. I never did buy that idea since the explosives tonnage is miniscule compared to past aerial campaigns that failed to break the British, Germans, and Japanese.
So if the Chinese use the ballistic missiles against our ships, they are clearly buying time. And the only real reason to buy time is in order to invade and conquer Taiwan. Nothing else makes sense. Because any less direct method will take long enough for us to figure a way around the missile barrage or for China to run out of missiles. Or, at worst, we might end up in a full scale war--a war China does not want since we are far more powerful. No, China would want a war for Taiwan over fast. Again, this argues for invasion.
The problem for China is that hitting our ships requires not just missiles with the accuracy to hit our ships, but surveillance to find our carriers and persistent observation to target them. In 1996, the Chinese couldn't even locate our carriers let alone target them. How will the Chinese target us? Subs? Satellites? Aircraft? Homing devices planted on our ships prior to the war?
If the Chinese go after Taiwan, I think they will want to invade and get it over with fast. And to do so, they'll want to slow us down. I don't know how the Chinese plan to do it, but if China invades Taiwan, Peking will obviously believe they have the solution to slowing us down.
The Chinese might be wrong, but we'll be at war before they find that out.
