Well, it’s a big unknown. Let me lay out briefly why that’s the case at least in my mind.

Let’s say you are China and you’ve decided to use your military forces to take Taiwan. You know if you are just facing Taiwan alone you’ll suffer losses and ships will get blown up, but you are ok with that. Glory to the CCP and all. Sorry about those semiconductors planet Earth. Those facilities will be obliterated.

But… the United States and Japan (the two most important partners here in my view) are allies and they aren’t officially allied with Taiwan but are happy to sell weapons and, maybe, and you’re unsure about this, just maybe if China invades Taiwan they may say that this isn’t acceptable to our national security and we will take action to intervene, but let’s say there’s nothing in the cards to attack the Chinese mainland (frankly neither the US or Japan really have an interest in doing that).

So now you are thinking ok, if it’s just us versus Taiwan that’s a piece of cake. But if the US and Japanese militaries intervene and defend Taiwan, maybe your potential success rate drops considerably, maybe to 60% or lower. That’s a problem. What can you do about it?

Well you could… declare that war will take place just in the Taiwan Straight and surrounding area and everyone else’s country is “off limits”. Escalation means chaos. The CCP is all about stability, 100-year old plans within plans and all that.

But if the US and Japan enter the war, you could sink the entire US Navy but they’d have free rein to safely fly in missiles and planes and equipment to their permanent aircraft carrier: Japan.

How long do you think it takes for China to attack a US military installation on Japan? And at that point, what really is the escalation for the US or Japanese to, idk, conduct a limited military operation to attack a Chinese Air Force base in response?

The whole situation, at least in my mind, is so dangerous because the escalatory ladder is fast and steep. What happens if a Chinese missile misses the US base and kills Japanese citizens? How long would Japan put up with a blockade (because you (China) of course have to stop the flow of munitions coming to defend Taiwan), or harassing of Japanese trading ships? If the US had an airbase in Korea or Japan or the Philippines or Guam or Australia and the Chinese blew it up and killed hundreds of US airmen, how short is the escalatory ladder from that to the US and Allies returning the favor on any Chinese military installation?