Is there anything realistically preventing Xi from: Step 1) Organising a naval blockade of Taiwan. Step 2) After making a passable legal techinality of an excuse, stopping mainland's own trade with Taiwan until a "constitutional order" is "restored" there. Step 3) Unofficially making an ultimatum to the Taiwanese "submit to CCP or starve" ?
only the question of whether this would spiral into a shooting war or whether it would be easier to do it later, I think
a naval blockade of taiwan…
so if something tries to come through the blockade… attack it?
like, fire the first shot, when the US navy has already arrived and is hanging out nearby?
this is directly opposite to conventional wisdom of how china would take over taiwan, which is occupying it faster than the US navy can show up
this is like, saying, “hey US navy, get over here, watch this”, waiting for them to show up, and then starting an attack. Not on Taiwan’s defenses, but on a cargo ship.
it might be similar to what happened last year: announce military exercises in the waters completely surrounding the island, ban commercial shipping from entering, then periodically fire off missiles into those empty waters; technically not declaring war or attacking any cargo ships, just coincidentally cutting off the island.
that would require the US to essentially send in a military convoy to supply the island, which would be expensive and awkward even if China let it through, and then they could wait a month and do it again: is the US willing to repeat it indefinitely?
“not attacking any cargo ships” only works if no cargo ships approach. It’s not a blockade if you won’t attack cargo ships.
commercial cargo ships generally don’t sail into waters that people are shooting into, right? given the insurance considerations?
and the Chinese navy doesn’t need to sink the cargo ships, just sail in front of them and tell them to fuck off, or land pilots on them via helicopter and forcibly redirect them, if it comes to that, which I don’t think it would (or ram them with the “fishing boat” militia).
I think a blockade of the island is quite feasible if no other nation’s military is willing to get involved.