I've thought that a potential target for our Marines in a war over Taiwan could be the increasingly important Chinese island of Hainan.
The Chinese are building up this base even more:
New Google Earth images of China, show underground hangers for aircraft at an airport outside the city of Le Dong, on the southern island of Hainan (near Vietnam). For over two years now, commercial satellite photos have been revealing details of a military buildup on Hainan. The most obvious example of this is the submarine base that China was building at Yulin, near Sanya. The base has underground docking facilities for nuclear and diesel-electric subs, created by tunneling into coastal hills.
I may have been very wrong about thinking the Marine Corps will not be likely to ever need to mount a division-sized amphibious invasion ever again.
