China’s Invasion of Taiwan Would Be A Success. Its Occupation, A Failure.

A Chinese military parade in Beijing in 2019. The reader may recall someone else who demanded a military parade in America’s own capital city about the same time. (CGTN)

“‘140,000 Soldiers and 953 Ships’: Leaked Audio Clip Reveals China’s Plan To Invade Taiwan” reads the title of the story about a leaked recording of China’s military brass discussing a planned invasion of Taiwan on the International Business Times (IBTimes) website. Despite claims of authenticity by The Times of India and China-born human rights activist Jennifer Zeng, the IBTimes said it could not independently verify the recording. Seeing as how the story was picked up not by any of the major news networks in America or Europe, but was instead taken as gospel by such leading lights as The True Reporter, Corona Times News, and (gasp!) Glenn Beck, it appears the story will soon be relegated to a deep, dank, and unlit corner of the WayBack Machine.

Does that mean the story is untrue, that the recording is a fake? Of course not. It just means the story can’t be verified. Bearing in mind the possibility that the story is true, let’s consider the implications.

Russian tanks destroyed by Ukrainian defense forces. Do not count on this happening to China’s armed forces. The Chinese have transformed their military into a much more professional force. (RepublicNews24)

China is not Russia

The world assumed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be over in a matter of days. Not only did Ukraine’s heroic defense shock the world, but the Russian military was exposed as not much better than a Potemkin army: a facade on the grandest of scales, and the inevitable result of trusting what had been a proud military tradition to oligarchs more interested in building their own yachts than in providing, say, tires for military transport trucks.

But China is not Russia, and it would be a grave mistake to assume the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would allow itself to be shamed so before the international community. History shows that more than any other nation, China goes big, from the Great Wall to the Three Gorges Dam, from the Grand Canal to what is by far the world’s largest network of high-speed trains. The important thing to bear in mind is that despite a long (and well-earned) reputation for endemic corruption, China’s progress over the past forty years could not have been made if oligarchs were truly in charge. Humans being humans, there will always be a degree of…