I respectfully disagree. China is in no condition to fight a war like that.
Do they wish to take over the economies of the world? Yup. But they remain in a precarious situation right now. Their internal economy is in rough shape. Demographically, they are aging and cancer ridden. Their population is set to decline to under a billion people.
They depend on too many resources from outside. They get about 80% of their fuel imported through the straits, and through two pipelines from Russia. They are mining Africa and Central Asia into oblivion.
They are much more likely to try to grab resources in Russia before they go after the chip makers in Taiwan.
Taiwan is a strategic point for China as they would be able to control the sea lanes in the China Sea. But, right now that is not as critical as their resource constraints.
People thinking they are going to destroy Taiwan, engage the US, and have their economy destroyed are playing some kind of Call of Duty Fantasy game. Wars are won with logistics and the pieces are not lining up for them now-and they won’t for years to come.
“I respectfully disagree. China is in no condition to fight a war like that.”
I respectfully agree!
But just because they are in no condition to fight a war of conquest against any overseas neighbor doesn’t mean they won’t do it anyway.
Just like we are seeing in the Russian war to conquer Ukraine the Russians were ill prepared and dreadfully overconfident of their abilities.
Why?
Because decades of authoritarianism has conditioned their people not to give their leadership actionable negative information. People who tell Putin or Xi a truth that is not what Putin or Xi want to hear risk being denounced as counter-revolutionary, defeatist, traitors, and etc.
It’s easier to tell them what they want to hear.
“Yes, Tsar Putin! We can esily defeat Ukraine in ten days!”
“Yes, Chairman Xi! We can easily defeat Taiwan in ten days!”
The ability of Russia or China to win a war does not at all factor into the political decision to go to war.
But I will say that China is better postured to win a land war than an amphibious war. Hopefully China turns its eyes north to reconquer Siberia while leaving Taiwan alone.