Something in the Water Just Killed China’s Taiwan Invasion Plan

The Military Show

China’s plans to invade Taiwan may look unstoppable on paper, but geography, logistics, military corruption, and Taiwan’s strategic advantages tell a very different story. From the treacherous Taiwan Strait to the world’s semiconductor supply, this video explores why Beijing’s biggest military gamble could fail before it even begins. Can Taiwan really stop a superpower without firing the first shot? The answer reveals a weakness in China’s strategy that changes everything.  ⏱️ CHAPTERS: 00:00 - China Taiwan Invasion Plans For 2027 01:55 - Why China Lacks D-Day Military Experience 03:56 - Taiwan Strait Weather Limits Chinese Navy 08:52 - PLA Military Corruption And Water Filled Missiles 13:15 - Taiwan Supplies 90 Percent Of Advanced Chips 15:28 - Will China Housing Crash Stop Taiwan Invasion  Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join  #militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis #themilitaryshow  SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/QBT1W6u6

Transcript

00:002027 is drawing near. The year that some believe will be pivotal in Chinese President Xi Jinping's

00:06invasion plans for Taiwan is mere months away. China's resources will be in place.

00:12Its military will be strong enough for what Xi wants to do. But China has a problem. There is

00:18something in the water that has killed China's Taiwan invasion plans before they've even gotten

00:22off the ground. Taiwan has a brilliant plan for halting China, and it involves something that

00:28nobody saw coming doing nothing. Why? Because China doesn't have the military strength that it needs

00:34to take Taiwan, and it all comes down to the water that China needs to cross. Now, we know this

00:40sounds

00:41crazy, especially when you look at the raw numbers. There is no area in which Taiwan has the advantage

00:46if we simply stack up its military against China's to see who comes out on top. China's 2.035 million

00:54active military personnel absolutely dwarf Taiwan's 230,000. And even if you throw

01:00Taiwan's 1.657 million reserves into the mix, China has 510,000 reserves to bring to the fight,

01:07maintaining a clear manpower advantage. China spends 10 times the amount that Taiwan does on

01:12its military each year. It has over 3,529 aircraft versus Taiwan's 720, a naval fleet that is varying

01:20close to 10 times the size of Taiwan's and, of course, plenty of missiles. It looks like China

01:26holds all of the cards, but it doesn't. Now, you might think that we're about to say that the U

01:30.S.

01:31getting involved, along with other major Indo-Pacific powers, would signal the death of Xi's plans,

01:35but we aren't going to say that. All of those factors may come into play, especially if China

01:40threatens the key piece of leverage that Taiwan has over the rest of the world. However, even without the

01:45involvement of other nations, China's plan for Taiwan isn't going to work. Taiwan can defend

01:51itself on its own, and there's a clear reason why. To conquer Taiwan, China has to pull off the

01:56single largest amphibious assault in modern military history, and it doesn't have the experience to do

02:02it. Let's take a trip back in time to Operation Overlord during World War II. Launched in 1944,

02:09and often known as D-Day, Operation Overlord was, and still is, the largest amphibious invasion

02:15in the history of warfare. The statistics tell the full story. The Allies used well over 5,000 ships

02:21to conduct landings on five beaches in Normandy. Over 150,000 troops landed, and there were 1.4 million

02:29American servicemen stationed in the UK, ready to provide logistics and a continuous flow of troops

02:35into France once the landings were completed. Add all other Allies into the mix, and the UK was to

02:41host 2 million troops from 12 countries, all ready to take the fight back to Germany. The Allies already

02:47had air supremacy ahead of the landings, allowing the Allies to fly around 14,000 sorties to support

02:53the amphibious operation. And still, these landings were incredibly bloody, costing the Allies around

02:5910,500 casualties when it was all said and done. Why are we telling you all of this? Well, the

03:05whole

03:05point is that Operation Overlord was conducted from a position of relative strength by the Allies.

03:10China doesn't have that position as it gears up for its amphibious invasion of Taiwan. The numbers may

03:16be in favor of the People's Liberation Army, but the Chinese Navy, in particular, doesn't have what it

03:21needs to conduct a similar sort of operation that would be required to move soldiers into Taiwan.

03:26For a start, the 2 million man army isn't what it seems. Sure, we could pretend that China would

03:31focus all 2 million of its soldiers on Taiwan, but the reality is that it won't. China needs to keep

03:36soldiers stationed on the border with India to maintain its position there. Around 25,000 soldiers

03:42are in that region right now. Throughout China itself, soldiers are stationed to protect Xi and his

03:47domestic interests. The point here is that the manpower advantage isn't all that it seems to be

03:52from the start. But China's much larger problem isn't the number of men it can dedicate. It's getting

03:57those soldiers into Taiwan. That's where the water comes in. Operation Overlord saw hundreds of thousands

04:04of troops sail across the relatively calm English Channel into France. That channel separates England

04:10and France by around 35 kilometers at its narrowest point. And Operation Overlord didn't have to concern itself

04:16too much with difficult weather conditions. But China? It has to cross the Taiwan Strait just to stand a chance

04:23of landing troops on the territory of its enemy. And that's a difficult prospect for many reasons.

04:28For a start, there's the distance. Chinese troops would have to travel about five times the distance

04:33by ship to reach Taiwan than the Allies did to storm the beaches of Normandy. That distance creates time,

04:39and that time can be used by Taiwan to launch surface-to-air missiles against Chinese aircraft,

04:44deploy submarines to cripple ships, and send anti-ship missiles and drones in the direction of

04:49anything that China sends. That's not to mention Taiwanese air power. Remember the Allies had air

04:55supremacy ahead of Operation Overlord? China doesn't have that over Taiwan. So it's not like China can

05:01batter the beaches and Taiwan's coastal defenses from the sky with impunity. But all of this requires

05:06Taiwan to actually do something. We told you that Taiwan wouldn't have to do anything. And the reason for

05:12that is that the Taiwan Strait is an absolutely merciless body of water. The English Channel is

05:17calm, but the lethal Taiwan Strait is incredibly difficult to navigate at the best of times due to

05:22the weather. Between June and August, and again between November and February, the Taiwan Strait

05:28has frequent monsoons and even typhoons, which make amphibious operations next to impossible. At best,

05:34China would have to accept sacrificing dozens of ships and thousands of soldiers if it attacked during any of

05:40these months. So China is limited in when it can attack. And that means Taiwan is able to prepare

05:45for the months when the Taiwan Strait is calm. Even if China does attack during the rain-logged

05:50summer months, the delays would just create more opportunities for Taiwan to hit Chinese ships

05:55before they ever get close to the coast. And let's say that China manages to weather these very

06:00literal storms. What then? In Operation Overlord, the Allies had their pick of the beaches in Normandy.

06:05Yes, those beaches were fortified, but the combination of all the factors we mentioned,

06:09especially the air supremacy, means that the Allies were in a great position for storming those beaches.

06:14Taiwan is a whole different story. Taiwan's mountainous geography massively complicates a

06:20Chinese amphibious landing. Around 60% of Taiwan is covered in mountains.

06:26Despite Taiwan having several dozen available beaches, Newsweek points out that China will be

06:30limited to attempting to land troops on fewer than 20 of what have been identified as red beaches.

06:36All of those beaches and their coastlines are being fortified, and China still faces the prospect of

06:41navigating near-impossible terrain to get to Taipei, where urban combat will be triggered,

06:46and the trickle of Chinese troops making it through will be at a severe disadvantage.

06:51That brings us back to manpower. We mentioned earlier that Taiwan's military doesn't have as much

06:56manpower as China's, even when taking reserves into account. But those are just the raw numbers. In reality,

07:02China needs to hold back hundreds of thousands of troops for domestic defense, and Taiwan has over

07:081.6 million reserves on top of its active military, who would all have the singular purpose of protecting

07:13their country. China has to try to match those numbers, and the conditions in the Taiwan Strait

07:19make that practically impossible. After all, it's not just landing troops that is an issue,

07:24it's keeping them supply. Building stable supply routes into Taiwan, even if China can establish itself on

07:30the few red beaches, is a logistical nightmare. Taiwan has anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles,

07:36very advanced missiles thanks to its relationship with the United States. Combine their usage to take

07:42out supply ships and cargo planes, with the fact that China can barely use the Taiwan Strait for six

07:47months out of the year, and you get a logistical catastrophe just waiting to happen.

07:52China may indeed be able to land 100,000 soldiers on Taiwan, but the odds are those soldiers will be

07:57cut

07:58off from supplies, base almost impossible geography, and have to deal with a fully mobilized Taiwanese

08:03army that is far larger than what China can actually bring to bear, despite its on-paper manpower advantage.

08:11Admiral Li Xi-min, who was the Chief of the General Staff of Taiwan's armed forces until 2019,

08:17sums it up perfectly when speaking to The Economist in 2023.

08:20This is their soft spot, Li tells the outlet. If Taiwan doesn't surrender, once you've landed,

08:26you still have to fight for a period of time, maybe one week or two weeks or whatever. Where

08:30are your logistics? Your logistics support needs to come in across the strait, but ours don't have

08:34to. We fight in our own yard. Nothing has changed since 2023. And what this means for Xi and China

08:41is

08:41that the route to a Chinese victory is tiny, even if we disregard the likely involvement of other

08:46nations coming to Taiwan's defense. But it goes even deeper than that. Xi's Taiwan invasion wouldn't

08:52just be a story of something in the Taiwanese water ruining his plans. China's military is not what it

08:57seems. The country's economy is veering close to collapse, and not even a missile-laden strategy

09:03chosen ahead of an amphibious invasion would work. Why? Before we answer those questions,

09:08this is a quick reminder that you are watching The Military Show. This is why we make videos to show

09:13how

09:13power really moves. If you haven't subscribed yet, take a second to hit the button to see more like

09:18this. So, China's military. It doesn't just face the absolute nightmare that is crossing and

09:25maintaining supply routes through the Taiwan Strait. China also has to deal with all of that while having

09:30a military that, though massive on paper, doesn't have any real combat experience. Former US Defense

09:36Secretary and CIA Chief Robert Gates pointed that out in a May interview with CBS's Face the Nation,

09:42stating, There isn't one single Chinese general or admiral today that has one day of combat experience.

09:48The last time these guys fought was 1979, and the North Vietnamese, the Vietnamese, gave them a

09:53bloody nose. All those generals are long gone, having been purged by Xi. And that's another problem that

09:59China faces. The country's defense ministry is in shambles. Back in May, two former Chinese defense

10:06ministers Wei Fenggei and Li Xiangfu were given suspended death sentences, supposedly due to bribery,

10:13but just as likely because they didn't agree with Xi on certain issues. Both had been purged by China's

10:18president, and they now face the most severe punishment that China has handed out during the

10:22years-long purge of its military. And that mention of such a massive purge is an issue in its own

10:27run.

10:28Stability isn't a thing in the People's Liberation Army. For all of its size and the scale of China's

10:34investment, corruption and purges run roughshod through any serious strategic planning that

10:38China could have in place for Taiwan. Back in October 2025, the Chinese Communist Party

10:44expelled nine of the country's top generals in a sweeping crackdown on corruption. Not that it

10:49matters, China's military outside of the manpower machines is rotten to the very core. That's what

10:55the National Interest said in January 2026, as it pointed out that corruption is so endemic in the

11:01Chinese military that even some of the liquid-fueled missiles that China would want to use against

11:06Taiwan are actually filled with water. They won't be going anywhere when the launch orders are made,

11:12so we see China crippling itself from the inside when it comes to an invasion of Taiwan. Again,

11:17Taiwan doesn't have to do anything. This is a problem all of China's own making, and the destabilization

11:23that has resulted will only spell more issues for an amphibious invasion that is already fraught with

11:28danger. And the purges go even deeper than you think. The China Power Project at the Center for

11:34Strategic and International Studies points out that more than 100 senior officers from the People's

11:39Liberation Army have received their marching orders since 2022, which amounts to a complete

11:44restructuring of the upper echelons of the Chinese military in the five years up to the anticipated

11:492027 invasion. Again, corruption is often blamed for these purges, but there is a second layer of

11:56corruption beyond watering missiles and bribes. There are dual chains of command in the People's

12:01Liberation Army, military and political. On the latter side, reliability, which translates to a

12:07willingness to agree to anything that Xi says, is valued more heavily than acumen and strong

12:12decision-making. So, the Chinese military essentially has to deal with an internal power struggle

12:17that is the result of Xi trying to control everything. As for the soldiers, they aren't trusted to make

12:23decisions for themselves, meaning any invasion of Taiwan would have to deal with the issue of

12:28inexperienced automatons having no real idea of what they're supposed to be doing. It's a disaster

12:33waiting to happen. But what if China just cuts out the manpower aspect and goes with a missile-heavy

12:38stratum? Bombarding Taiwan from afar would solve some of the problems posed by corruption and the Taiwan

12:44Strait. And China certainly has enough missiles for such a strategy. As the US Army University Press notes,

12:50China's military has over 2,200 conventionally armed ballistic and cruise missiles, along with enough

12:57anti-ship missiles to launch an attack against the entire US Navy. Even if we take out the waterlogged

13:03missiles we mentioned earlier, that's still plenty of firepower to bring to bear against Taiwan.

13:08However, China can't really use those missiles to hit the heart of Taiwan. Why? Semiconductors. These

13:15chips are essential to the entire global economy, and more importantly, they're required for every

13:20modern missile and piece of military equipment in the world. And Taiwan is the heart of the global

13:26semiconductor industry. Global Taiwan Institute reports that the country's semiconductor testing

13:31and packaging industries alone captured 50% of the market in 2023. Right now, Taiwan produces 90% of the

13:39most advanced chips and accounts for 70% of the semiconductor foundry market. The technological

13:44lifeblood of the entire world beats through the Taiwanese chip heart, and China is just as beholden as

13:51anyone else. The Council on Foreign Relations highlights this, noting that China imports $400

13:56billion worth of semiconductors per year and has only reached 16% self-sufficiency in this area,

14:02despite having a goal of hitting 70% in 2025. And worse than that, China doesn't build the

14:08semiconductors used in advanced weaponry. Taiwan does. Of course, this is one of the reasons that

14:13China wants Taiwan. If you control semiconductors, you control the world in a way that many

14:18underestimate. That's what makes a missile-heavy strategy so dangerous for China. It could launch

14:24missiles at Taipei for weeks and weeks, sure, but it only takes one of those missiles going astray

14:29to take out the world's advanced semiconductor supply. Taiwan knows it, and it may even have a

14:35silicon shield plan that would cause it to destroy, or at least threaten to destroy, its own semiconductor

14:41industry if China threatens to invade. We mentioned other powers getting involved a few times already.

14:47This is why those powers would want to get involved. If Taiwanese chip boundaries go down,

14:52by China's hand or Taiwan's own, it would spark a catastrophe that would cripple military supply and

14:58arguably the entire world. This is what leverage looks like. Taiwan only has to threaten to blow it all

15:05up, and it takes the entire world's electronics down with it. That threat alone would be enough to

15:10turn the world's attention toward China, leading to intense pressure that would force Xi to back off.

15:15But Taiwan might not even have to go so far. Take water, military incompetence, corruption, and chips,

15:22and you get a poisonous recipe for Xi and his Taiwan plans. But adding to all of this is another

15:27problem

15:27that would hamper any long-term military engagement that China looks to launch. China's economy is in

15:33trouble. A housing bubble is on the verge of popping, and it would cripple China's ability

15:38to sustain a Taiwan invasion. The Atlantic Council said in January that China's housing market had

15:44entered its fifth year of being in a slump. There are 80 million unsold homes on the Chinese market,

15:50the think tank says, and it says that one Chinese economist even believes that 80% of developers and

15:55construction firms in China are going to exit the market in the coming years. China has entire ghost

16:01cities that have been built up but remain mostly unpopulated, slowly turning into rotting carcasses

16:07of investment excess into an industry that China wanted to believe would never stop growing.

16:12DW adds that China's housing bubble had already pushed property prices to over 17 times the average

16:18salary, which is simply unaffordable for most, and it demonstrates why the ghost cities exist in the

16:24first place. The Chinese housing bubble is about as large as it can get. Soon it's going to go pop.

16:29And when it does, China's entire economy will follow. You could argue that the bubble has

16:34already burst as China is already in a slump and shows little sign of recovering. But as things get

16:40worse, China's economic weaknesses will come to the forefront. Beyond housing, China's economy relies

16:45heavily on exports. Japan, the US, South Korea, and Taiwan account for 21.31% of China's exports. If China

16:54invades Taiwan, all four could stop buying and China would have serious problems. The European Union

16:59as a collective is another major customer. It could stop buying, putting even more pressure on China.

17:04And in the Indo-Pacific and surrounding regions, countries like the Philippines and Vietnam might

17:09also stop buying, as they are already contesting mineral rights and the control of small islands in

17:14the South China Sea. Meaning a moment of economic weakness for China will be pounced upon. And China can't

17:20do much about any of this. It has a product-based economy and barely any natural resources such as

17:25oil and gas that it can rely on to prop things up the same way that Russia has been able

17:30to do to

17:31establish a shadow economy to keep its war in Ukraine going. The money would simply stop coming in.

17:36And as more is pushed into military spending once the Taiwan invasion is launched,

17:41that problem gets worse. The housing crisis expands and China sends itself down the same road to economic

17:47ruin that we see in Russia right now. We are going to state the obvious here. China needs money to

17:52keep an invasion of Taiwan going. If its economy crumbles, aided by other powers putting trade

17:57pressure on China, that would be the death knell for an invasion that already carries so much risk

18:02from the very start. And again, Taiwan would have little to do except stop buying and selling to

18:07China and then lean on its chip industry and the importance of that to convince allies to pile on

18:12the pressure. And so Taiwan's plan for a Chinese invasion is simple. Let them come. Taiwan's

18:19combination of geography, modern military tech, and geopolitical importance means it can weather the

18:24storm. China can't, quite literally in terms of the Taiwan Strait, but also economically, militarily,

18:30and when it comes to the geopolitical hellscape that China would find itself in if Xi follows

18:35through on his plans. The invasion is over before it even starts. Taiwan holds all of the cards.

18:42Now imagine this, what if Ukraine gets involved? Having established itself as the world's drone

18:47experts, it's no stretch to imagine that Ukraine would offer Taiwan maritime drones that would make

18:52the Taiwan Strait even more dangerous. Euromiden Press reports that Ukraine is already making drone

18:57overtures to Taiwan, and those drones, maritime or aerial, are more than dangerous enough to cause

19:03even more problems for China in the Taiwan Strait. You want to see why? Check out our video, where we

19:09cover Ukraine's world-first attack against the Russian Navy. And if you like this video, remember

19:14to subscribe to see more from The Military Show, and thank you as always for watching.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended