The Chinese have two missions if they want to capture Taiwan. Defeat Taiwan and delay America. China worked on the latter mission.
China is using its increased reach at sea to isolate Taiwan from outside support:
[Three] months ago, China conducted its most elaborate live wargames around Taiwan. This included live firing exercises in international waters near Taiwan. This was a Chinese demonstration of its ability to cut Taiwan off from American, South Korean, and Japanese support. China declared that the recent exercises were meant to discourage outside support.
This has long been part of what I've considered the key factor in a Chinese conquest of Taiwan:
As I've droned on repeatedly here, China does not need to defeat America to conquer Taiwan. China needs to defeat Taiwan to conquer Taiwan. And to defeat Taiwan, China only needs to delay our intervention long enough to defeat and conquer Taiwan. This is a far less difficult mission than deterring America or defeating us.
And I don't think we really appreciate a Chinese victory doesn't require conquering all of Taiwan, as I addressed in Military Review.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing. I gave up after repeatedly trying to get the video screen to show a sinking Chinese carrier. Refine it too much and Bing won't create your "violent" image.
