China seems to be preparing to quarantine or blockade Taiwan
- sciart0
- Mar 24
- 1 min read
Excerpt: "Most military experts agree that China’s armed forces aren’t ready for an amphibious invasion across the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait. The seas are often rough and Taiwan’s cliffs, mud flats and built-up coastlines make it hard for ships to land. Taiwan’s antiship missile systems, some of them acquired from the U.S., also represent a deterrent.
The U.S. president’s stance on Taiwan likely plays the most crucial role in Beijing’s calculation about whether to take action, said Huang Chung-ting, a Taipei-based defense analyst at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a think tank backed by the Taiwanese military.
The prospect of a U.S. military response remains a wild card. Trump’s commitment to defending the island is uncertain, and his recent suspension of U.S. support for Ukraine caused a rupture with Europe, diminishing the threat of unity on sanctions.
“Our worst nightmare scenario involving a blockade actually comes from American isolationism—where the U.S. decides to completely step away from Taiwan Strait issues,” said Huang.
In the short term, a quarantine would be more likely than a blockade or invasion, according to Lin and her CSIS colleagues. Such a step would test the will of the U.S. and others to respond, while potentially allowing China to establish a new normal at sea."