WI: the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis Escalates

raharris1973

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By then the ROC Army had not been downsized like they were afterwards.

What...the....eff. They've been downsizing since 1996?

Is that "moral hazard", the lesson they took was US will bail us out, so it's up to them to work on military protection, not us?
 
What...the....eff. They've been downsizing since 1996?

Is that "moral hazard", the lesson they took was US will bail us out, so it's up to them to work on military protection, not us?

The series of downsizing campaigns have their own Wikipedia entries so I'm not sure why the surprise.

Across the straits, since the start of the Cold War, both sides have been downsizing constantly. In 1949 there were 20 armies (57 divisions + 1 armored brigade). By 1956 there were already only 6 armies. From 1997 to 2001, there was a division-to-brigade reform. Today there're 3 army corps and a few regional garrison commands.

Similarly, the PLA has also been downsizing. There were 67 armies in 1952, 18 before the recent reform, and now 13.

Basically the main considerations have been control of human budget, enhancing the quality of units, transition to more tech-intensive doctrines, and in the case of the ROC Army, demographic decrease. Of course they've always counted on the US intervention, but even if the US hegemony does not exist in our world, they would still have to trim their formation. Everyone does that post-Cold War.
 
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The former, did China even have a presents in the Spratly Islands in the 1990s?

Yes to both the islands:

Paracel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Paracel_Islands

Spratly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_South_Reef_Skirmish

Note these two skirmishes were against different Vietnamese governments.

Still Vietnam's presence on the Spratly Islands (not the Paracel Islands though) is much more significant even as of today. So if you're wondering will and can they seize the opportunity if China's navy is badly hit elsewhere, the answer is most likely yes.
 
So assuming one of the missile tests strikes a ship, or an island leading to a border conflict that escalates what would be the outcome?

A small scale war between the PLA and RCOM with the latter being backed by the United States would result in the Chinese loosing.

The main question however is what ramifactions would China being sanctioned in 1996 have on the rest of the world, especially if this leads to China developing characteristics of a rouge state.

This would possibly lead to a delay in things such as China joining the World trade organization, which means China is significantly poorer.

Yes, from what people are saying here PRC would get wrecked by US air power, so they lose.

It would likely end only with a cease fire, rather then peace treaty, as that would require the PRC to acknowledge RCOM as an independent state.

Yeah PRC being seen as a rouge state has a lot of knock ons, first of all they are poorer. Second they likely do not receive HK or Macau. Third they may even for closer links with other rouge state, like NK, Iraq. As well as Russia and Iran.
 
Unless it deals with magic, don’t call something ASB. It’s extremly discouraging, this is an alternate history forum. There were reasons why every scenario on here didn’t happen, you wouldn’t enjoy it if your scenarios were all referred to as ASB.

How about we come up with a response rather then simply shouting impossible.

I said 'Almost ASB' and I explain very simply why the proposed scenario does not make sense.

I would not put forward any scenario without doing research, perferablly with a trip to an university library, a search using Google Scholar, or at the very worst, using the Wikipedia. I deserved to be called out if my scenario indicates a lack of understanding of and research into international politics, logistics or history.

In 2008, some veteran members did the Landshark Offensive in order to raise the quality of posts in the ASB sub-forum.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/wiki/doku.php?id=offtopic:landshark_offensive
Why should we do something similar here?

Furthermore, I have been participating in and contributing to the discussions in the first 4 pages.
 
Almost ASB. Iraq was sanctioned seriously after the Gulf War including arms trade restrictions and was never able to rebuilt its army by arms acquisitons. Any shipment from a lost PRC to a lost Iraq is going to monitored closely and intercepted if anything suspicous is detected. Moreover, PRC is likely to be sancationed too after a failed attack and the sanction regime may also include restrictions on arms trading too.

But they could do it illegally

A lot of shady stuff happened with general 'aid' to Iraq post Gulf War.
 
But they could do it illegally

A lot of shady stuff happened with general 'aid' to Iraq post Gulf War.

Most of the shady stuff are connected to the "Oil for Food programme", the arms embargo were quite effective as admitted by Saddam himself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil-for-Food_Programme

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070104217.html

Hussein noted that Iran's weapons capabilities had increased dramatically while Iraq's weapons "had been eliminated by the UN sanctions," and that eventually Iraq would have to reconstitute its weapons to deal with that threat if it could not reach a security agreement with the United States.

If it is the OTL, it would be relatively easier to smuggle arms to Iraq as not all PRC shipping were not closely monitored, only those that went to Iraq were watched together with other countries' ships. However, the US is willing to intercept PRC ships with military force suspect to be carrying chemical weapon materials to Iran in OTL 1993 without UN mandate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinhe_incident That tells one how ineffective the PLAN was and how assertive the US was even during a period of relatively normal Sino-US relationship.

In this TL, it is likely that the PRC would be sanctioned similar to Iraq (i.e. arms embargo), thus PRC shipping would monitored and intercepted if suspected to be violating the arms embargo. So there would two layers of monitoring, making any arms sale to Iraq by sea difficult.

A possible land route would be to go through Pakistan and then transship with non-PRC vessel, but ships going to Iraq were still likely to monitored. Selling stuff to DPRK or Pakistan would be easier.
 
Ok. So while weapons from PRC could make it to Iraq via third parties they are unlikely to be in any large number or from the PRC government
 

RousseauX

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I don't think China could take the main island (lack of sea lift) I think they can take some of the smaller and closer islands (and maybe HK as well)

I picture air war, what was Chinas air power like at the time? Could they strike US bases in the region (SK, Japan)? Would thy strike them?
No 1996 era PLN/PLAAF have absolutely no chance against the US

They still don't today, but in 1996 it would have being an even worse wipeout
 
No 1996 era PLN/PLAAF have absolutely no chance against the US

They still don't today, but in 1996 it would have being an even worse wipeout

Yep that is what people have been saying, and it seems like it would look a lot like the Gulf War
 
Would an American victory encourage the US to attack North Korea over its nuclear program

it might, but a more isolated PRC is also much more likely to tighten up with NK and other rouge states

Although I think a successful conflict with PRC would give the US more confidence in millitary intervention.
 
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