The U.S. has a defense agreement with Taiwan, which is the world's chief producer of quality computer chips, and the fear is that a Chinese move against the island would draw the United States into a major war with a nuclear-armed China.
Whether an invasion is imminent or not an article published by the Council on Foreign Relations outlines the enormous difficulties China would face in trying to take Taiwan.
The article features some excellent graphics and lots of helpful information so I recommend that interested readers check it out. Here are a few excerpts:
[I]nvading Taiwan or mounting a successful blockade would be the most complex military operation in modern history, and China’s military has not fought a major war in more than seven decades.Read the rest at the link. It's a good response to claims that China will almost certainly invade Taiwan in the next couple of years.
To invade Taiwan, China would have to conduct an extraordinarily complex military operation, synchronizing air, land, and sea power as well as electronic and cyberwarfare.
The Taiwan Strait [which separates Taiwan from mainland China], over ninety miles wide, is incredibly choppy, and due to two monsoon seasons and other extreme weather events, a seaborne invasion is only viable a few months out of the year.
Transporting hundreds of thousands of soldiers across the Taiwan Strait would take weeks and require thousands of ships. Each crossing would take hours, allowing Taiwan to target the ships, mass troops on potential landing sites, and erect barriers.
Some questions remain about whether China has the naval vessels it would need to invade Taiwan successfully. China’s amphibious fleet is relatively small, and although Beijing will likely turn to civilian ships to sustain and supplement an invading force, those take longer to unload and would be more vulnerable to Taiwanese missiles.
Even if Chinese troops successfully cross the strait, few deep-water ports and beaches in Taiwan could accommodate a large landing force.
Beijing would also have to assume Taiwan could destroy its major ports at a conflict’s outset to prevent an invader from using them.
Taiwan’s west coast has shallow waters extending from most of its beaches, meaning they are not ideal for an invading force. Due to the shallow water, China would have to anchor ships far from Taiwan’s coast and move equipment to the shores slowly, making the ships vulnerable to Taiwanese missiles and artillery.
Taiwan’s east coast is lined by cliffs that are too steep for an invading force to scale. Moving to Taiwan’s major population centers is only possible via a few narrow passes and tunnels, which Taiwan can destroy or defend.
To prevent China’s military from seizing the capital [Taipei], Taiwan can choose to destroy the city’s major port and the tunnels and highways leading into the city.
