They’ve been telegraphing it for a while now. Originally they wanted to go in 2026 most likely but with stockpile depletion from Ukraine even if that wraps up I think they want to wait for European NATO vassals to bring new arms production capabilities (spurred by the Ukraine situation) online so they can be in a stand-up fight with China for longer without running out of weaponry. Given that, 2028-2030 definitely seems more realistic but it’s hard to say what their plan is. They talk of things like sea-borne drones that act as autonomous self-propelled sea-mines and dispersing those in the straits, they have this idea of turning it into a “porcupine” that’s too painful to invade but that counts on either China not enacting a sea blockade or being unable to due to say those kinds of mining activities and/or naval warfare keeping supply lines open.
Of course they could end up chickening out and just using all this to boost defense industry profits.
They could also swerve and instead of openly attacking China they could push Taiwan to declare independence, support them a little, ensure they fall in the end (after inflicting some damage and weakening to the PLA and learning about their tactics and secret weapons), wail about “democracy” to force Europe to decouple from China with Russia-level+++ sanctions and then go on to start attacking and undermining the multi-polar order. This would be done through proxy conflict, through attacking AES in Africa, through destabilizing partner states with insurgencies and “moderate rebels”, through open military invasion of those that resist the usual color revolutions and moderate rebels to topple them. Basically cold war 1.0 playbook all over again to isolate, hem in and prevent growth of the enemy.
At that point the west’s massive amount of bases on land on various islands that allows interception of Chinese shipping to Africa closer to Africa become very valuable, they try and interdict and throw up a blockade on Chinese shipping worldwide, they attempt to force China to fight a far and wide war away from its own shores where it holds the advantage to give themselves the advantage of their strength and neo-colonial holdings OR to submit to isolation and blockade and being locked into being a regional power with Russia, DPRK, Vietnam and a few other friendly SEA nations with Africa, Latin America, central Asia, west Asia, etc all locked out to them as markets and partners (and all locked in with the US-led hegemony).
Because say what you want about the greed of the west and problems with weapons contractors over-promising and under-delivering to suck up more money, the western war planners are not ignorant. I feel there is a very good chance they don’t want a conflict confined to the SCS where China has land-based missile power and can fight them effectively. I feel there is a very good chance that Taiwan is only the opening salvo, the rationale and causus belli for what follows in attempting to draw China into a wider world war further afield where the US has multiple advantages and feels it can more easily win with its much.
China has done well to build a new Silk Road via rail, which has recently made it all the way to Tehran. That will certainly limit the effectiveness of any attempted sea blockade.
I mean not really. You can only ship so much via a single rail line and it doesn’t reach markets in Africa or allow African ore or products to be brought back to China, it doesn’t reach most of west Asia/middle east, it doesn’t reach LatAm, etc. The amount you can ship on a train vs a cargo ship is pretty substantial too. Train loading points become bottlenecks compared to sea ports.
Having looked at the belt and road while it’s definitely a contingency lifeline it’s hardly insurmountable and is meant more to tie other nations closer to China economically to make them less useful to the west but that will take years to really unfold. The west is great at introducing insurgencies and they need only do so in a few key countries with CIA assets repeatedly blowing up rail lines and bridges to bring this route to a crawl. I assure you they’ve thought of this and have plans in the wings.
India alone would have more than enough motive and reason to agree to help the US in disrupting the B&R west of India via clandestine operations given their desires to take Chinese manufacturing and make it Indian manufacturing.
I’m of two minds here. On the one hand, the US is so weak it couldn’t defeat Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the world. On the other hand, it will certainly continue supporting Al Qaeda/ISIS spinoffs for as long as they’re at all effective, as shown most recently in Syria.
What that means for China and the Global South isn’t obvious, but Pakistan’s military victory over India gives us some hope if not insight. China’s military tech outclasses the West’s. If it comes to a fight, the West will lose. Nukes are all the West has left up its sleeve.
