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A team of US researchers has simulated a multitude of scenarios for a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026. Whatever Beijing’s envisioned strategy, the result would be more or less the same: a human and economic catastrophe for all countries involved.
By Romain Mielcarek
It took only a few days for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to seize control of several major cities in Taiwan. Despite the volume of fire coming from the besieged island, the number of ships sunk, and the thousands of men killed in action, Beijing’s forces even managed to gain a foothold in the strategic port of Tainan, in the heart of the island, on the day 21. A crucial bridgehead, if it hadn’t been rendered useless by US Army bombing.
But the losses were colossal. If Taiwan has been devastated and its army on its knees, the Chinese troops can no longer advance. They only control 7% of the territory and their supplies are cut off. The die was cast: it was a failure. It occurs in almost all of the 24 scenarios tested by a team of researchers from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an American think tank, to study in the form of a war game the possible course of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
a disastrous conflict
“That was the first surprise for us,” says Mark Cancian, one of the study authors, a researcher, and a former Marine Corps officer. We thought the US would lose. But in reality, they almost always win. But at what? price? On average, in the worst case scenarios, Washington loses 484 planes and 14 ships, including two aircraft carriers. But the Chinese have to sacrifice 161 planes and, above all, 113 ships. In human terms, it would be a disaster: 10,000 Chinese and 3,500 Taiwanese, 3,200 Americans dead in less than a month.
All this to ensure that Beijing does not gain enough influence to ensure its conquest of the archipelago. The report is also a message to Beijing: “We hope that the Chinese will read our findings and that this will help discourage them from engaging in such a war.”
However, China is unlikely to give up on Taiwan. For its leaders, the conquest of this territory, considered rebellious, is strategic. Without Washington’s help, the small archipelago of 23 million people has no chance of resisting. There is also a message here: “We want to arouse the interest of political leaders, but also of American public opinion,” explains Mark Cancian. “If the United States wants to defend Taiwan, important decisions have to be made. We explain what those options are, without taking sides, ”he says.
The war game as a research tool
The “wargame”, war or strategy game, is an increasingly fashionable tool in many armies. The idea is to sharpen the mind of the commanders by testing different devices. “It is useful for the military, but also for politicians, who can identify blind spots,” explains Antoine Bondaz, a researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS), specializing in the Indo-Pacific. “They are lessons learned, although In reality, things will develop differently”, he adds.
CSIS investigators have tested all sorts of hypotheses in their various scenarios. What happens if the US does not come to the aid of Taiwan against China? This is the only case where the Chinese army wins in a landslide. What if the latest generation of anti-ship missiles doesn’t perform as well as expected, or if Japan, which is home to most of the US military bases in the region, refuses to allow Washington to deploy troops from its soil?
Almost nothing is known about the results of work of this type carried out by the US military. Except that the military in Washington is pessimistic, to say the least, about the possibility of confronting China in defense of Taiwan. The CSIS conclusions are somewhat more optimistic: despite the colossal losses, they suggest that Beijing could not win by force of arms. If the army has more precise information about the Chinese army, researchers sometimes have atypical solutions: “They can bring new ideas,” says Antoine Bondaz. “Today, we cannot take a purely military view of a conflict,” he says.
In their conclusions, the authors of the report on this “wargame” propose various concrete paths for US officials: strengthen political ties with Japan, not attack Chinese territory to avoid escalation, reinforce anti-ship ammunition stocks or even bomber bases. installed in Australia, Hawaii or Alaska. It is desirable that all this be read with great attention in the Pentagon… as in Beijing.
