If President Xi Jinping has initiated a deep reorganization of the People’s Liberation Army, Western experts doubt that Beijing can currently “project forces on a very large scale”.
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“I think that the lesson drawn [from the Russian war in Ukraine] by the Chinese leaders and soldiers is that they will have to raise overwhelming force to consider an operation [against Taiwan] in the future.” The chief. of the CIA, William Burns, who was expressed at the Aspen Security Forum (Colorado) Wednesday July 20, has no doubt: even if China said to prefer a “peaceful reunification”, the American external intelligence boss shares the ‘Analysis of its military counterparts to estimate that it “will use the force one day or another to take control” from the democratic island. For his part, Beijing is convinced that Washington will defend the government of the Republic of China in Taïpei. The conflict could make 500,000 dead on both sides, according to the Pentagon.
it remains to be seen how the Chinese Communist Party will use the People’s Liberation Army (APL). Because the enormous logistical difficulties of the Russian army in Ukraine since the failed offensive -blunt of February 24 – cuts of cuts cut, ships prevented from access to the coasts – concern the APL.
His challenge is to project yourself through a strait of 180 kilometers. Chinese documents available “describe various operational concepts for an amphibious invasion of Taiwan, explains The 2021 report of the Department of Defense at the Congress on China. The most important, the” joint landing campaign on the island “, envisages a complex operation based on coordinated, nested operations, for logistics, air and naval support, and electronic war”. But no major amphibious assault operation was considered successful since the Second World War, apart from that of Incheon during the Korean War in September 1950.
China, in the state of its military means, would not do better than Russia, believe American analysts who worked for the Pentagon on this subject and delivered some conclusions on Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “We have no answers to many of our questions,” confessly confesses Lonnie Henley, former military intelligence, expert at the George Washington University. Can the APL bear an enemy attack while continuing to support its troops? Can it adapt its strikes day by day outside the pre-established plan, once the war started? “In my opinion, China cannot hold a major air combat operation beyond two weeks. It does not have the capacity to project forces on a very large scale, and we do not even know if it wants to do it” , says Mr. Henley.
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