Name: Why Taiwan is NOT Ukraine
Uploaded: 2022-05-22T14:03:55.000Z
Duration: 17 min 59 s
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程度の副詞

In many ways, the Russian invasion of Ukraine  felt all too familiar to the people of Taiwan.

Here is a larger, more powerful,  authoritarian, and revisionist bully  

attacking its democratic neighbor for  nothing more than historical proximity.

And beneath a mountain of explanations,  theories, and models is really just  

one man's deranged pursuit of empire. Or,  something else entirely — we truly don't know.

It even began like we expect an attack on Taiwan  would — with a long, drawn-out buildup of forces,  

followed by a sudden and  chaotic barrage of missiles.

With very large present populations  but below-replacement fertility,  

both China and Russia are what you might call  “demographies in decline” — and there isn't  

much time left. A man born today can expect to  live 74 years in China and a mere 67 in Russia.   

“Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow”  isn't just hypothetical, either.

Quote “reunifying” with the island has been the  goal of every Chinese leader for the last 70 years  

and chairman Xi Jinping has gone well  out of his way to eliminate ambiguity.

Needless to say, China's refusal to call  Russia's actions in Ukraine what they  

are — an invasion — wasn't too comforting  to the 23 million residents of Taiwan.

…Yet, China is not Russia. And Taiwan is  not Ukraine. For all their similarities,  

there remain huge differences the  world would be unwise to ignore.

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Just 100 miles, or 160 kilometers,  east across the narrow Taiwan Strait,  

you could be forgiven for thinking China could one  day just swallow up its little disconnected tail.

Russia has three times the population of  Ukraine. China, 60 times more than Taiwan.

The Russian economy is — or, more accurately,  was — 9 and a half times larger than Ukraine's.  

China's is 22 times the size of Taiwan's.

The Russian landmass is 28  times larger than Ukraine's.  

And China's, 265 times larger than Taiwan's.

In 2020, China spent $244 billion on defense.  

Taiwan, just 11, about as much  as the Netherlands or Colombia.

Of course, as the American Navy demonstrates, not  every dollar spent on defense is created equally.

Still, the disparities are quite dramatic. China  has upwards of 2 million active duty troops,  

thirty-three hundred fighters, and 59  subs to Taiwan's 160,000, 560, and four.

In other words: China is probably every bit  as big, strong, and powerful as it looks.

And yet, ask just about anyone in the  defense community and they'll tell you:  

a Chinese invasion of Taiwan  would be just downright hard.

Now, there are many different ways China could go  about this — by launching a Cuba-style blockade,  

by first seizing smaller islands on its  periphery, or even infiltrating from within.

But the most likely sequence  of events would be as follows…

First, China would start bombing critical  Taiwanese infrastructure — ports, airports,  

and bases — in hopes of causing chaos, confusion,  and a breakdown in the chain of command.

Second, China would attempt to establish air  

superiority — control of the skies and  therefore cover for what comes next.

As we've seen in Ukraine, this  is much harder than it sounds,  

even for an ostensibly larger  and more powerful attacker.

Still, up to this point,  there's no doubt China could,  

at the very least, quickly inflict  serious and irreparable harm.

This next phase is when the People's  Liberation Army likely runs into trouble.

As anyone who's seen “Saving  Private Ryan” can attest,  

amphibious assaults are no walk in  the park, even on the best of days.

Generally speaking, to be successful, they  require three conditions: air superiority,  

overwhelming fire and manpower or surprise,  and the ability to quickly reinforce.

Every battle is different, of  course, but historical successes  

have, with few exceptions,  possessed all three criteria.  

In the vast majority of cases, the absence  of even one of these has led to failure.

If everything goes as planned for China, it  will have accomplished the first. But that  

still leaves two very difficult hurdles,  which brings us to the real challenge…

Russia's struggles so far in Ukraine make it  easy to lose sight of the basics. This is not,  

with one major exception, a geographically  challenging environment. When you come across  

pictures of the war, make a note of what you  see: roads — and what you don't: mountains.

We're used to seeing Russia's invasion on a map.  

But this is what it looks like on the  ground — what geographers would call  

flat, Eurasian Steppe. The biggest natural  impediments are trees, grass, and… tractors.

The coast of Taiwan, on the other hand, is much  trickier. Sure, there are flat mud plains and  

coastal rice paddies, but any invader would  soon be met with 2 and 3-thousand foot peaks  

within artillery distance of the shoreline.  In between are fairly populous, urban areas.

Take the usual defender's advantage — 2  or 3 attackers per defending troop and,  

thanks to Taiwan's tall and irregular  coastline, multiply it several times over.

If that sounds hard, well, the  world's most powerful military agreed.

The United States considered  attacking then-Japanese-occupied  

Taiwan in 1944 — going so far as to  draft plans for “Operation Causeway”.

Overtaking a patchwork of 30,000 starving  Japanese defenders, it estimated,  

would require an invasion force over twice the  size of D-Day — 400,000 marines and 4,000 ships.

Despite commanding this  incredible concentration of force,  

Pacific War planners considered the idea too  risky and opted for the Philippines instead,  

referring to Taiwan as an  “unsinkable aircraft carrier”.   

Suffice to say, China would need a figurative  boatload of troops. Somewhere between 1 and  

2 million, to be precise — making it the  largest amphibious operation in history.

If war is primarily an exercise in logistics,  

this would be the ultimate challenge. Moving  that many bodies simultaneously is no easy feat.

Take a simple, back-of-the-envelope calculation,  for instance. Assuming China was using that same  

2020 equipment from earlier, this is all it  could transport across the Strait at a time.

Even if all it transported were troops — it  could only move about 30,000 — or 3% of the  

total number of active PLA Ground  forces — at a time. And remember,  

that's if they just carried  people — with no tanks or armor.

For obvious reasons, this hypothetical operation  has been nicknamed the “million-man swim”.

Oh! And by the way, nothing  about this would be a secret.

Experts estimate the world  will have no fewer than 30  

and up to 60 days of warning — giving Taiwan a  full 1-2 months to make itself as impenetrable  

as possible — laying mines, staging weapons,  and repositioning critical infrastructure.

Not only that but we also already know during  which parts of the year China could attack.

Waves are too strong in the Winter  and typhoons too unpredictable in the  

Summer — leaving just two good  candidates — April or October.

There are only about 13  beaches across all of Taiwan  

suitable for landing — and  “suitable” is being generous.

Take one of these — Linkou beach, for instance.  Although invaders would be welcomed by about  

a mile of flatland, they would soon be  confronted by two huge mountain ranges.

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