I’m not even sure the US can bomb Taiwan, it’s so close to the shore that the PLA can defend it pretty efficiently I would think.
The US also officially recognises Taiwan as part of China, too, right? So if the US bombs Taiwan, that’s essentially declaring war on China. It’ll be gearing to get China to do the bombing but China won’t fall for it. All it has to do is wait it out. Meanwhile, the US is fighting itself, the planet, and most of the world for its own survival. Edward Gibbons’ History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire will be turned into a movie to be played around Hallowe’en in the US within the next few years.
They recognize that there can only be one united China yes, so if they attacked Taiwan it would be considered an attack on the PRC. They’re so slimy they would probably refuse the one china principle and declare the ROC something weird like “Non-administered territory” or something, like Bush did for “enemy combatant” which has become accepted in common discourse 20 years later it’s crazy.
But likewise the PRC considers Taiwan to be theirs and would defend it. They also consider the people living in Taiwan to be their citizens, so I assume they would organize evacuations of the island in case of war. They probably have plans drawn up already to make it efficient. As for the ROC army… they would disband in 48 hours tops lol.
It’s not really WW2, you can just have planes, subs, or ships launch missiles from 100km out. You can’t intercept them all, or many of them for that matter.
There are systems to intercept missiles in flight, the US has the Patriot for example. Taiwan also conveniently sits around 100 miles (160km) of the mainland, not far at all to be deploying ships, planes and other defense systems from the shore.
China has one major advantage too, hypersonic* missiles.
Everything you said is true, but still missile interception is a risky business, if not just a “pray to god you can shoot it down” event. Plus a high altitude bomber or sub can fire cruise missiles from a 1000 km away before quickly turning tail or slipping deep into the dark pacific, so interception would be difficult there are well.
Plus American interceptors out of Guam, Japan, Okinawa, Korea, or even Taiwan itself would complicate things significantly.
But you are right that Taiwan would be generally easier to defend.
However I doubt that the US has lagged behind in supersonic missile development, because if one thing, they absolutely love their weapons of war.
A war would be a shit show and Taiwan would probably be devastated either way. Either by a Chinese assault, or an American retaliation or counter assault.
It’s also concerning to think that it might just become a stalemate. The Chinese Navy would probably turn the US Navy to scrap, but at the same time how would a Chinese amphibious force fare against a city/mountainous terrain target that’s bristling every 3 meters with artillery, SAMS, tanks, anti ship launchers, AA, and Taiwanese/American soldiers?
