Also, the US must know that it cannot win in any conflict with China regarding Taiwan right?
Depends on your definition of "win".
The US can reduce China to a glowing crater - at the price of being reduced to a glowing crater itself. That's probably not "win" in your book (nor in mine).
The US cannot conquer mainland China.
Can the US defeat an attempted mainland invasion of Taiwan? Maybe. The answer would be no if they shared a land border, but they don't. That 90 miles of water makes an invasion much more difficult and vulnerable. And China has no experience with amphibious assaults. The US would take losses in such a case, but would they win? I'm not sure anybody knows.
Taiwan is idealogical to China. Taiwan is merely a pawn in the game for the US. The US will bow out of a war for Taiwan within years but China will never give up - even if the war lasts 100 years.
Taiwan is at least somewhat ideological for the US. We believe in the right of self-determination (going clear back to the Declaration of Independence), and we believe that Taiwan should have that right.
It's ideological for China because Xi made it so. I'm not an expert, but I don't think it was ideological for China under, say, Deng. Well, Xi won't live another 100 years. Will it still be ideological for the next guy?
I sometimes wonder if the real issue is that Taiwan represents the incompleteness of the revolution. It's like if the Romanovs had escaped Russia and lived in exile. It would have been a constant thorn in the side of the soviet government. It's not just about the territory, it's about erasing the past.
With that said, no matter how ideologically important it is to China, I don't see how they're in a position to fight a protracted conflict. They would need it to be a sudden move, a _fait accompli_ by the time the west gets up in the morning. The fact is that China is a massive importer of food and other resources by sea and the US navy can blockade anything it wants.
PRC/TW is an unfinished civil war prolonged by US. Ultimately that's all there is to it. Civil wars end when one side defeats the other or some kind of mutual formal settlement. PRC won't settle for anything other than unification. Reunifying against US who sustains the divide in the first is just as signficiant.
Entire US can blockade PRC is old/irrelevant narrative now. The basis is US can unilaterally blockades with little cost to itself. Thats no long true. PRC has established mutual homeland vunerability on CONUS - they can conventionally degrade US critical infra via long range strikes which is just blockade further down the extraction chain. TLDR is resource autarky means nothing wihtout security. US gained shale/energy autarky but lost security relative to PRC. Hence US less likely to blockade PRC to disrupt PRC mainland if PRC can exact proportional cost on CONUS at scale - something US adversairies historically could not do. Which makes TW fair accompli even more irrelevant - PRC's ultimate strategic goal is to displace US military out of east asia / her back yard. They benefit and are designing a military around a protracted war with US+co (JP/SKR/PH). Basically bulk of PRC/PLA modernization is designed to fight US because TW is a freebie if US military challenged to point where it can't intervene in IndoPac at all.
Comments
Depends on your definition of "win".
The US can reduce China to a glowing crater - at the price of being reduced to a glowing crater itself. That's probably not "win" in your book (nor in mine).
The US cannot conquer mainland China.
Can the US defeat an attempted mainland invasion of Taiwan? Maybe. The answer would be no if they shared a land border, but they don't. That 90 miles of water makes an invasion much more difficult and vulnerable. And China has no experience with amphibious assaults. The US would take losses in such a case, but would they win? I'm not sure anybody knows.
Taiwan is at least somewhat ideological for the US. We believe in the right of self-determination (going clear back to the Declaration of Independence), and we believe that Taiwan should have that right.
It's ideological for China because Xi made it so. I'm not an expert, but I don't think it was ideological for China under, say, Deng. Well, Xi won't live another 100 years. Will it still be ideological for the next guy?
I sometimes wonder if the real issue is that Taiwan represents the incompleteness of the revolution. It's like if the Romanovs had escaped Russia and lived in exile. It would have been a constant thorn in the side of the soviet government. It's not just about the territory, it's about erasing the past.
With that said, no matter how ideologically important it is to China, I don't see how they're in a position to fight a protracted conflict. They would need it to be a sudden move, a _fait accompli_ by the time the west gets up in the morning. The fact is that China is a massive importer of food and other resources by sea and the US navy can blockade anything it wants.
PRC/TW is an unfinished civil war prolonged by US. Ultimately that's all there is to it. Civil wars end when one side defeats the other or some kind of mutual formal settlement. PRC won't settle for anything other than unification. Reunifying against US who sustains the divide in the first is just as signficiant.
Entire US can blockade PRC is old/irrelevant narrative now. The basis is US can unilaterally blockades with little cost to itself. Thats no long true. PRC has established mutual homeland vunerability on CONUS - they can conventionally degrade US critical infra via long range strikes which is just blockade further down the extraction chain. TLDR is resource autarky means nothing wihtout security. US gained shale/energy autarky but lost security relative to PRC. Hence US less likely to blockade PRC to disrupt PRC mainland if PRC can exact proportional cost on CONUS at scale - something US adversairies historically could not do. Which makes TW fair accompli even more irrelevant - PRC's ultimate strategic goal is to displace US military out of east asia / her back yard. They benefit and are designing a military around a protracted war with US+co (JP/SKR/PH). Basically bulk of PRC/PLA modernization is designed to fight US because TW is a freebie if US military challenged to point where it can't intervene in IndoPac at all.