Despite military preparations, a Chinese attack on Taiwan could fail for various reasons, the expert said.
There are several ways in which the Chinese military could fail in a full-scale attack on Taiwan, and failure to seize the island could potentially threaten the Chinese Communist Party’s hold on power, according to a former intelligence officer.
Lonnie Henley, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute with more than 40 years of experience as an intelligence officer and East Asia expert, explored the different challenges the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would face in a potential amphibious assault on Taiwan, in an article published by the U.S. Insitute of Peace on Nov. 5.
The Chinese military could fail to seize Taiwan due to several reasons, Henley wrote, and an unsuccessful attack may have “dire consequences for China’s global standing” and pose “a severe threat to the CCP’s legitimacy and hold on power.”
“To begin with, Taiwan would be lost to China forever; absent a total transformation of mainland China’s political system, a Taiwan that had survived the worst China could throw at it would have little incentive to consider unification in the future,” Henley wrote.
“The U.S. and perhaps others might grant formal recognition of Taiwan independence.”
China considers Taiwan a part of its territory even though the CCP has never ruled the island. Currently, the United States has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, ever since Washington changed its diplomatic recognition in favor of Beijing in 1979.
Last year, CIA Director William Burns said that CCP leader Xi Jinping had instructed China’s military to be ready by 2027 to conduct a successful invasion of Taiwan.
Henley explained that prior to a Chinese military attack on Taiwan, there would be a political mobilization campaign declaring that “war was the only way forward,” regardless of the human and financial costs involved.
“In the wake of a failure to conquer Taiwan, CCP leaders would be scrambling to assert a formula proclaiming strategic victory despite the military outcome, in a desperate effort to save their own skins,” he wrote. “It is not at all clear whether they could succeed.”
The war’s economic toll would make it less sustainable for China to maintain projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, also known as “One Belt, One Road”), Henley added.
Beijing rolled out the BRI in 2013, intending to build up geopolitical clout by financing infrastructures throughout Southeast Asia, Africa, and Europe.
According to a report published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in September, China provided $679 billion toward investment projects through its BRI from 2013 to 2021.Should the Chinese regime decide to launch an amphibious assault, it would need to move a large number of troops across the Taiwan Strait, a narrow body of water separating the two neighbors. Further, it would be necessary for China’s military to maintain air superiority in order to protect the amphibious force.
Henley said that China could fail to gain air superiority if it could not suppress Taiwan’s air defense or fail to minimize U.S. air power around the island.
In other words, if U.S. forces can neutralize China’s integrated air defense system along its coast, the Chinese landing force and key targets inside China “will be naked in the face of massive air strikes and the entire Chinese operation will probably fail,” according to Henley.
Currently, the U.S. government maintains a policy called “strategic ambiguity,” which means that Washington is deliberately vague on whether it would come to Taiwan’s defense if it were attacked.
Henley also questioned whether China’s military planes could sustain enough sorties, given the condition of the aircraft engines, which he noted are prone to failure with extensive use or significant stress.
China would also face the risk of not landing enough troops on Taiwan, Henley said. Factors that could lead to such a scenario include China’s inability to execute a complex landing campaign that would likely involve thousands of civilian ships working alongside the Chinese navy, successful attacks from U.S. forces, and Taiwan’s success in defending its beaches.
More challenges await Chinese forces after capturing a beachhead, according to Henley.
“Moving the required volume of supplies would require defending cargo ships crossing the Strait, keeping major ports in operation, and keeping on-island transportation links intact, all soft targets for U.S. strikes and Taiwan defenders,” he wrote.
Landing on Taiwan’s shores does not guarantee the island’s surrender, Henley added, saying that Taiwanese forces could delay or thwart Chinese military advance toward Taipei by taking advantage of the island’s densely urbanized terrain and challenging topography.
The CCP’s invasion could also fail if “internal or peripheral opponents” take advantage of the attacks for their own ends, forcing Beijing to “reprioritize other theaters above Taiwan,” he added.
Regardless of a victory or defeat, Henley said, China would need to deal with enormous costs—economic loss from disruptions to foreign trade and potential foreign sanctions against China, destruction of Chinese infrastructure, expenditure of munitions, personnel losses, and “enduring hostility” from Washington, Canberra, Tokyo, and other governments.
“A sober recognition of this enormous and inevitable cost should constitute the primary deterrent to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, even more than the calculus of whether the military operation would succeed,” he wrote.