A PRC invasion of Taiwan in the 1950s

After the Chinese Civil War, the U.S. was ready to abandon the KMT, but the Korean War made America place the 7th fleet in the Taiwan Strait. Let's say that Kim Il sung never invaded South Korea, so Taiwan remains unprotected. Would the PRC have the capability to pull off an amphibious assault, and how costly would it be?
 
Would the PRC have the capability to pull off an amphibious assault, and how costly would it be?
Yes, they would have the potential ability. The cost depends if Chaing Kai Shek were to pull him self out of a tail spin and make the PRC pay. Time was on ROC (Taiwan's) side in the sense of settling down, but not in the case of a beach head. If they did a MacArthur (1941), keep planes on ground, not bomb the attacking force, etc, then the cost is that much less.

Beach heads, as you know, are critical for a defender to hit with as much as soon as possible. Chaing was not the worst, but very distant from the best.

On the other hand, Taiwan was pacified in the sense of spies and trouble in the population. All educated Taiwanese, save a few half and full mountains (the locals who emmigrated to the mainland during the Japanese rule) were controlled, in jail, off island, or dead. Chinese, some
million strong, included a third of the top rungs in the Mainland, highly educated. For every ten generalships, only one was needed. So petty favoritism was not so big an issue and it was easy to shuffle around people. And it is a fairly small island at a maximum of 90 miles wide (150 km), unlike the mainland.

A wild card, yet historians, which tend to be liberal, underestimate Chaing's chances, saying he would have lost. Also, Chaing could have had a stroke, which might have improved the situation or lessened it.

The battle of Taiwan, an air war of bombs for ten years. If the PRC were smart, it would use some of the top effectiveness in the Korean conflict were Field Marshall Paulus type Nationalist Generals who had switched sides and were itching for a fight so to prove themselves, settle scores. Unfortunately for that side, paratroopers in either side were next to non existant in 1950. If they could land in an interior area, such as some Aborigine farm fields up on the mountain which are nearly perfectly flat, or parachuted down, the fate of the ROC will be a matter of time, set between two forces and divided.

It is not clear, and all water invasions are tricky things. Water was not an area of expertise of the PRC communist forces and the rate of switching sides for ships was only about 65%. The odds are not that perfect for the PRC, and just look at The Great Leap Forward. Or as Ayn Rand said, it would not be so worrying if you only knew how incompetent people in communism quickly become. She left in 1925, I think.

I am not sure. Lots of variables here.
 
In the early 50s when KMT forces were disorganized and demoralized, there was a chance. That changed when North Korea invaded the south and the US Navy were ordered to protect Taiwan.
 
Well Acheson made an speech in 1950 that says the US is more than willing to defend Taiwan. Even if the Communists are able to land Truman will rush supplies to the Nationalists and might even perform a blockade of the Taiwan Straits so that the Communists on the island are cut off.
 
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