An armed invasion of Taiwan would mean that Xi would have to hand over the most advanced weapons, as well as the command of the military. This is very dangerous for Xi because one wouldn’t know where these soldiers will point their guns once they get their hands on the weapons.
It’s widely known that the Tiananmen Square massacre happened on June 4, 1989. Deng Xiaoping used 300,000 field troops to suppress and attack students and citizens demanding democracy. In fact, there were not many students left in Tiananmen Square at that time. Deng only needed to mobilize 10,000 troops to finish the job, but why did he mobilize 300,000?
The reason was simple: Deng was unsure if the troops would carry out the order if he mobilized only 10,000 troops, or if they would even storm Zhongnanhai with the students. He had peace of mind when he mobilized 300,000 troops and divided them into different groups. In this case, because each group had no idea whether other troops would carry out orders, each commander would think that if he sided with the students, he would be surrounded and annihilated by other soldiers. In this way, the different armies acted as barrier troops for each other.
Deng was one of the founders of the CCP’s army. During the civil war between the CCP and the Kuomintang, the CCP had four field armies, and Deng was the political commissar of the Second Field Army. In other words, with Deng’s seniority and prestige in the military, he did not dare to just hand over his guns to the troops but had to consider the mutual constraints and balance between the armies.
In contrast, Xi, who has no prestige in the military, would be even more uneasy if he had to use more troops and give them more advanced weapons to attack Taiwan than Deng did in the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
Even if an invasion of Taiwan succeeds, the generals who lead the troops gain enormous prestige. At the same time, with troops at their disposal, these people will have enough political power to replace Xi as the top leader. Such examples are common in Chinese history. Xi should be familiar with such history, just as everyone in the West knows about Caesar’s Crossing the Rubicon.
As Carl von Clausewitz puts it, “War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.”
Let us leave aside the question of whether Xi can agree to an armed invasion of Taiwan. If the result of winning the war is to create a political rival for Xi himself, what is the point of an armed unification of Taiwan?
Xi can’t win the fight. This brings us to the fourth reason why he cannot unify Taiwan with the mainland by force. According to Bloomberg, the Center for Strategic and International Studies did a series of war games in August this year, showing that unless the United States does not intervene in the war and Japan remains neutral, the CCP cannot take over Taiwan.
These projections did not take into account the corruption of the CCP’s military. After Xi came to power in 2012, he purged a large number of military generals, including Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission Adm. Guo Boxiong, Adm. Xu Caihou, and Logistics Minister Lt. Gen. Gu Junshan.
It’s hard to imagine that corruption in the military would not affect its combat effectiveness and logistics. CCP commanders devote most of their energy to pleasing their superiors in order to advance their careers and gain wealth rather than mastering modern combat methods.
Even if Xi wants to turn a blind eye to these problems, officials at all levels of the military are aware of them. On Aug. 9, 2021, the South China Morning Post quoted a political insider as saying that the Chinese foreign and national defense ministries are fighting over the style of discourse. The defense ministry accused the foreign ministry of its “wolf warrior” diplomacy that angered democratic countries. The source also revealed that the fight between the foreign affairs and defense ministries accused each other in front of Xi.
If Xi’s armed reunification of Taiwan is for a political purpose, is it possible that he will fight a war that he will surely lose? If losing the war will bring him down, then why doesn’t he pretend to fight the war and rely on delaying tactics to extend his time in power?
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