China's leadership is determined to bring Taiwan under its control but its growing use of military pressure in recent years has stoked fears that it may invade the Island Chinese warships and aircraft Now operate around Taiwan on a near daily basis however as a major power with substantial diplomatic economic and Military Cloud Beijing has a range of other options to take the island without even needing to invade it today's video is sponsored by conflict of Nations a free online strategy game where you choose a real country to lead into a modern global conflict up to 128
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will get an exclusive gift 13,000 gold and 1 month of Premium subscription for free the offer is only available for 30 days so get started sooner rather than later Limited in natural resources Taiwan is much more dependent on trade than other nations this chart shows what that looks like the circles are sized by GDP and their location indicates the value of each economy's trade as a percentage of GDP the United States has the most resilient economy it's imports and exports amount to only 13 and 8% of its GDP respectively Britain sits at 26 and 17%
of its GDP while Saudi Arabia sits at 23 and 33% of its GDP Taiwan however is at the extreme end in 2022 imports and exports amounted to 61 and 69% of its GDP respectively only the Netherlands has a more trade-driven econom by comparison China's imports and exports are only 15 and 20% of its GDP even worse Taiwan Imports at least 97% of its energy from overseas one of the highest rates in the world oil coal and gas account for 44 29 and 20% of its energy Imports however its stock piles are low Taiwan only has
5 months of crude oil reserves 1 month of coal reserves and less than 2 weeks of natural gas reserves for electricity generation that's not a lot to go on even more important than having electricity is making sure people have enough food Taiwan Imports up to 70% of its food and its Reliance has grown over the years as people's diets have become more diverse if the Imports were cut off taiwan's food stock piles would last for about 12 months so while the Island's geography gives it natural defenses it also has disadvantages unlike Ukraine for example it
can't be resupplied via land borders in the eyes of Chinese policy makers this is a vulnerability worth exploiting in 2006 the science of campaigns textbook published by China's national defense University argued that the most optimal way to subdue Taiwan is to surround the island using large formation of Navy and Air Forces to sever enemy economic and Military connections with the outside world they're talking about a blockade one designed explicitly to cut off trade energy and other resources needed to sustain taiwan's economy and population of nearly 24 million people if China could inflict enough pain on
Taiwan for a prolonged period it might Force the Taiwanese to capitulate after all a nation cut off from the sea is a nation gasping for [Music] air violence exists in Shades from The Unseen to the undeniable gry Zone Warfare sits at the far edge of that scale suppose some sort of incident were to happen by the straight of Taiwan Beijing could use that to instigate a gray Zone blockade under the pretense of a humanitarian Mission or some law enforcement operation China could establish a quarantine Zone that covers Taiwan and set new terms for who can
enter and leave it the purpose of this would be to coers companies and governments to submit to China's terms and in doing so undermine taiwan's sovereignty claims moreover unlike an invasion a gry Zone blockade would not necessarily be interpreted as an act of War this final point is crucial if the Chinese Coast Guard were to lead the mission instead of its Navy America would find it more difficult to intervene militarily than in an outright Invasion so in case of a blockade law enforcement and civilian ships would play a fundamental role China's Coast Guard and Maritime
militia would be Chief among these if China were to impose a blockade it would start by publicly announcing a customs inspection for all cargo and tanker vessels entering Taiwan the Chinese Coast Guard would be authorized to board ships conduct on-site inspections and question Personnel non-compliant companies would have their Market access pulled back on the surface this approach would seem fairly innocent just file the appropriate paperwork with the Chinese authorities in advance and Taiwan is open for business no big deal however by complying Taiwan would effectively lose its sovereignty and slope into a slow surrender China
wouldn't even need to seal the entire Island to reach its goal cutting taiwan's trade by 50% would prove detrimental especially if China were to stop All Imports of oil gas and coal which would lead to power failures across the island without enough supplies taiwan's political will and defense would weaken making it harder to resist adding insult to injury Taiwan only has so many deep water ports and Chinese forces would Target these first kaung for instance is taiwan's busiest port in 2022 about $159 billion worth of trade entered through the port accounting for 57% of taiwan's
Maritime trade kilong sits in second place with $7.8 billion ta chong is third with $21.7 billion the port of Taipei is in fourth place with 20 billion and Malo is in fifth place with $9.5 billion worth of trade going in and out in the event of a blockade China would Target these ports first its Coast Guard could begin patrolling the nearby Waters and stop vessels that are non-compliant with the new Customs regime the bulk of China's Coast Guard would focus on Cung since that is the busiest port Chinese ships would likely enter taiwan's 24 nautical
mile contiguous Zone but stay out of the 12 nautical mile territorial Seas this would carry a lot of symbolism by Crossing into the contiguous Zone Beijing would be sending a message that it does not recognize taiwan's claims to these boundaries meanwhile smaller contingents would be deployed off the coasts of kilong taung taipe and Malo depending on the level of escalation China could even deploy ships to the Eastern Shore just to encircle the island entirely in support of its Coast Guard China could also deploy fishing vessels belonging to the maritime safety administration these would act as
a maritime militia the difference though is they wouldn't be authorized to board or inspect commercial vessels instead their goal would be to fill in the gaps between the Coast Guard's contingents by having these civilian ships spread interchangeably across the quarantine Zone taiwan's domain awareness would be thrown off which would make it harder to counter China's movements further out into the sea China's Navy would take a back seat in the blockade but they would nevertheless deploy carrier battle groups and surface action groups to the corners of the island this Naval deployment would be massive and the
pla Navy has trained precisely for this scenario in previous exercise es each group had three to six ships including destroyers frigates support vessels submarines and some even aircraft carriers while enforcing the blockade Chinese Air Forces would continuously fly sorties of manned and unmanned aircraft around Taiwan again these are operations that the pla has exercised repeatedly in recent years the purpose of these Naval and air formations would be to intimidate taiwan's forces and deter foreign intervention should Taiwan respond to the blockade and use kinetic Force to Target the Chinese Coast Guard directly it would give the
other side a pretext to escalate tensions this would then open Taiwan to a full out War which it may not be able to win China's Coast Guard is the largest in the world in terms of the number of Oceano vessels and it out matches its Taiwanese counterpart in both quality and quantity many times over however to calm International outcry Beijing could reduce the number of inspections or Focus strictly on Taiwanese owned vessels the terms would be entirely up to Beijing most likely in case of a blockade the threat alone could compel most shipping companies to
either comply with the new Customs regime or delay shipments to Taiwan altogether in general though China's objective would be to coers the majority of foreign ships to submit to the new regulations but do so just below the threshold of conflict that would drive the US and its allies to come to taiwan's Aid supposed a blockade by the Coast Guard isn't enough to force Taiwan to give in in that case Beijing could step up the escalation ladder and have its Navy lead the block Ade the composition wouldn't necessarily change though the Coast Guard and Maritime militia
would dispatch additional vessels along taiwan's quarantine Zone while the pla Navy would remain well behind both forces bringing expensive warships within range of taiwan's coastal anti-ship missiles wouldn't do any good after all so while the pla Navy would take charge of the blockade its ships would stay about 70 nautical miles away away from taiwan's coast to avoid attacks from this distance the Navy would establish sea control and provide intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support elsewhere the pla Navy would intensify its Gray Zone Warfare for instance Chinese submarines could covertly deploy sea mines at the entrances of
taiwan's largest ports and energy terminal facilities nearby Kong is the Yung an LNG terminal the country's main LNG facility strategic sites such as these would be fair game for the pla if needed Beijing could put the shipping industry on notice unauthorized cargo ships and aircraft entering the quarantine Zone would first be warned and then fired upon if they don't comply in this instance Regional shipping insurance rates would jump and shipping conglomerates could even halt traffic to Taiwan altogether at the same time China could establish an unofficial no-fly zone over taiwan's air defense identification Zone the
pla Air Force and the pla Naval Air Force would look to establish air superiority in this Zone and steer away unauthorized aircraft breaching the no fly zone China could even team up with Russia and hold joint strategic aerial patrols over the East China Sea these patrols would serve to deterge Japan and nearby American forces from intervening still more as a show of force the pla rocket Force could hold exercises of its own its arsenal of 1800 conventional missiles is one of the world's largest Taiwan is well within the range of these weapons but in a
blockade operation these missiles would be primed to deter intervention by outside forces meanwhile from the mainland China could conduct cyber attacks targeting Taiwanese Communications and financial systems in an attempt to isolate the island from the rest of the world these efforts would be in concert with a misinformation campaign meant to sew confusion and incite public unrest against taiwan's government which could also undermine calls for international support controlling the flow of information would allow for a more prolonged blockade but to effectively isolate Taiwan digitally Beijing would have to turn to the sea floor Taiwan relies on
more than a dozen unsea cables for the bulk of its internet service China could disrupt these lines and leave the island in the dark in response Taiwan could switch to low earth orbit satellite internet as a contingency it recently signed a contract with the French satellite company utat to provide satellite internet in the event that its Communications network is damaged however the bandwidth would be too low for mainstream civilian use all things considered with its vast resources China could shut down Taiwan for months on end though it would probably pause occasionally to allow negotiations to
take place and so for Beijing a blockade would be preferable to war even if it comes with greater uncertainty about how the International Community would respond but taiwan's reaction shouldn't be taken lightly though if it proves resilient and somehow receives assistance from the United States or others China may find it difficult to force the island into capitulation without forcefully occupying it soon after things could go horribly wrong Taiwan has teeth of its own so the blockade could escalate into an invasion and there's just no way of knowing how that would go a war across the
straet could Ripple into a flood at home I've been your host Chiron from caspan report if you approve of what we do please leave a comment hit the like button and mayhaps share the video in any case thank you for your time and S [Music]
