Sure, China's military advances are increasing option to attack Taiwan:
These options range from an air and sea blockade of Taiwan to a full-scale invasion, although the latter option would require a significant increase in the number of amphibious ships, according to the latest annual China Military Power Report released Thursday by the Department of Defense.
China has been setting the stage for capturing Taiwan for a long time.
I do not think that China will focus on an over-the-beach invasion using conventional amphibious warfare assets that we assume are needed for amphibious assault.
Analysts keep noting the lack of Chinese amphibious lift and conclude that China can't invade Taiwan.
That seems insane to me given that China considers Taiwan the most core of all their core territorial interests; and China has devoted a lot of resources to expanding and improving their military.
Yet given the importance of Taiwan to China, China's military modernization has not included a major increase in amphibious warfare ground units or ships. Why? Because China doesn't see the need to prepare to invade Taiwan? That seems highly unlikely. No, China has decided it does not need the amphibious assault ships that we think are necessary for a large-scale amphibious invasion.
I think the Chinese will go right for Taipei with an airborne and amphibious assault as part of an assault on Taiwanese west coast ports to move in the bulk of the invading army units.
The major question for China is not the means to invade but the price they'd need to pay to conquer Taiwan.
And as always, I'll repeat that China doesn't have to defeat America to capture Taiwan.
China just has to delay our effective intervention long enough to defeat Taiwan to force us to choose between the options of accepting China's victory or counter-invading to liberate the island democracy.
That's different.
