China wants Taiwan and I think it is dangerous to assume China "knows" it can't win a war to capture Taiwan.
No:
Once more China is threatening Taiwan with invasion. More forces (ballistic missiles, aircraft, ships and troops) are being moved to the coastal areas facing Taiwan. Any invasion has to deal with Taiwan Strait, a 300-kilometer-wide water barrier between China and Taiwan. China would not risk war with Taiwan unless their attack were a near sure thing. [emphasis added]
I need to correct that: China would not risk invading Taiwan unless they believe their attack was a near sure thing:
Just as I've worried that we'll let our military hollow out as we cut our defense spending and leave our leaders falsely believing we have a fully capable military, I've also worried that Chinese leaders will believe their more powerful military is all-powerful. ...
China is a danger because their chest is swelling over their regained military stature. And while their actual power will help decide the outcome of a war, their beliefs about their power will help decide whether they start a war.
I liken it to new soldiers just out of boot camp. You enter probably out of shape and a pure civilian. You endure and come out part of the mean green fighting machine, with new muscles and the new skills of killing planted in you. You think you are a bad-ass SEAL Team 6-level killing machine in your still-crisp BDUs (or whatever they are called now).
But you are not a killing machine. You aren't even a cog in the killing machine. You are just the first rough stamping of a cog that will eventually be sanded and polished into a part of the killing machine. I remember our drill sergeants telling us that we need to avoid being full of ourselves when we leave basic training and move on to a new base or go back on the block. We are stronger than when we arrived. Do not mistake that for being stronger than other people, they warned. If we do, we'll get our butts kicked.
China has gotten out of world power basic training. Let's hope they don't throw a punch before they realize how much farther that they need to go to be actually powerful.
China's military power is unprecedented in world history. Will the Chinese civilian and military rulers really appreciate their limits? Will the Chinese look at their past difficulties that the initial Strategypage post goes over and say, "Well, those wars took place before we became bad-ass. This time is different!"
I mean, how many rulers through history who started a war believed they would lose that war when they started the war?
The possibility that China might start a war in the belief--whether right or wrong--is one reason I want a bigger Army role in plans to deal with a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, as I wrote in Military Review.
UPDATE: Well, that's what Xi said.
