September 11, 2026: Taiwanese economists and trade experts are anxiously seeking ways to keep Taiwan supplied if China imposes an informal, unannounced naval blockade. Taiwanese economic assets are spread all over the island, most of them within range of the hundreds of Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan. Fortunately, Taiwan has more defensive assets than China can deal with in wartime.

China knows this because it conducted its most elaborate live wargames around Taiwan. These included live-fire exercises in international waters near Taiwan. This was a Chinese demonstration of its ability to cut Taiwan off from American, South Korean, and Japanese support. China declared that the recent exercises were meant to discourage outside support. This comes less than two weeks after the United States revealed another arms sale to Taiwan, this one for $11 billion.

Taiwan has been relatively quiet about its long-range missile programs. Taiwan has missiles that can reach targets deep inside China. Also mentioned was a recent wargame, where Taiwanese used these missiles to defeat a Chinese attempt to invade Taiwan.

Two years ago, Taiwan tested a cruise missile version of its Hsiung Feng anti-ship missile. With a range of over 500 kilometers and a highly accurate guidance system, the missile could do significant damage to many Chinese military targets near the coast. Taiwan held off on mass production to avoid alarming China and the enormous expense of building up a Hsiung Feng stockpile. The missiles cost over $300,000 each. There are already over 700 Chinese medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles sitting across the 160-kilometer-wide Taiwan Strait. The Hsiung Feng can hit land targets along the Chinese coast and deep inland via a GPS guidance system.

Taiwan also revealed that it had developed yet another version of its Hsiung Feng II anti-ship missile. This version is launched from trucks or fixed launchers, has a range of at least 600 kilometers, and is intended to target targets on the Chinese mainland. Only if China attempts to invade Taiwan, of course. Three prototypes have been built, and production has apparently already begun. So far, 500 of these one-ton Hsiung Feng IIE cruise missiles are in service. They use GPS guidance and some stealth features, making them less likely to be shot down. Using a more efficient engine, range could be extended to 1,000 kilometers or more. The Hsiung Feng IIE is cheap, about $300,000 each, and carries a 228 kg warhead. The Hsiung Feng IIE project was kept quiet, with few official details released. Apparently, this was done to avoid alarming the Chinese, at least in public.

Taiwan also built its own version of the American AGM-154A JSOW (Joint Standoff Weapon). The Taiwanese version is called the Wan Chien. JSOW is basically a smart bomb with wings. This lets it glide up to 70 kilometers from the aircraft that drops it to a ground target. Its range is about 25 kilometers when dropped from low altitude. JSOW also has more elaborate fins and software that lets it follow a specific route. Like the wingless JDAM smart bomb, JSOW uses GPS and inertial guidance as a backup to find its target. Like JDAM, JSOW hits within ten meters of its aiming point. The U.S. pays about $250,000 for each JSOW. Taiwan could use its Wan Chien. JSOW is a form of HARM/Homing Anti-Radar Missile to take out the latest Chinese air defense radars. Taiwan is also building its own version of HARM, called Tien Chien 2A. JDAM technology is much simpler than these two projects, and Taiwan could easily design and build its own. Refusing to sell them just costs the U.S. export sales. On the other hand, it lets the United States tell China it didn't sell JDAM to Taiwan, defusing tensions over Taiwan. In reality, of course, Taiwan can just go build its own JDAM, which it can do and apparently has, but has kept quiet about it.

The United States has no formal agreement to defend Taiwan if China attacks. At the same time, Taiwan has been a major purchaser of American weapons. Since 1950, Taiwan has received or has on order over $70 billion worth of weapons. Most of these purchases are recent, as if both the United States and Taiwan expect an imminent Chinese attack.

This is despite the United States making peace with China in 1979 and establishing diplomatic and trade relations. While China believed that the Americans recognized Chinese ownership of Taiwan, the Americans also pledged to aid the Taiwanese in defending their island from a Chinese attack.

If China wants to reclaim Taiwan, it will have to fight for it, and the Americans have agreements with Taiwan to help defend the island nation. How the Americans would assist in Taiwan's defense is unclear. The 1979 agreement with China included the Americans withdrawing all their forces from Taiwan. This meant that any American help for protecting Taiwan would have to be flown in from Guam, Japan, South Korea, or the American mainland. This takes time, and the Taiwanese believe that it would be enough time for a Chinese invasion to put troops on portions of Taiwan.

From China's perspective, the threat to Taiwan is less impressive. Chinese military corruption continues to be a major factor in how the Chinese military operates or, more frequently, is prevented from operating effectively or at all. In 2023, Chinese leader President Xi Jinping made the awful discovery that his navy and air force had minuscule stocks of spare parts. This alone made an invasion of Taiwan impossible. In addition, the lack of spare parts made it impossible to sustain months of combat against Taiwanese holdouts and American reinforcements that would follow landings on Taiwan. China also discovered that corrupt officials in the Rocket Forces had allowed the loss of readiness for the hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles China has assembled in coastal areas opposite Taiwan. Only 180 kilometers of sea separates the Chinese mainland from Taiwan, and these missiles are supposed to deliver the first, and hopefully crippling, blow of an invasion. That is not possible because corruption in the Chinese Rocket Forces had led to maintenance lapses that rendered nearly all those missiles useless. The most recent awful corruption discovery, earlier this year, was that much of China’s strategic oil reserves, for use in the event of a US Navy blockade of China, had been stolen.

China and everyone else know that a Taiwan invasion is impossible because of the deplorable state of these weapons and forces. China would try to fix its invasion-force problems and build a force that could take Taiwan. That is not going to happen for several years, if ever. If the Chinese admit all their problems and actually raise the cash and other resources needed to build a credible invasion force, that would be different. Optimistic Chinese and American planners believe forces could be ready by the 2030s. Given the many current economic problems China faces, devoting significant leadership and economic resources to solving military problems is unlikely.

For example, China struggles to find reliable, capable Chinese officers to replace corrupt ones. The Chinese leader also has to deal with the bad publicity the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) has earned because of its key role in recent corruption scandals. The Chinese military swears allegiance not to China, but to the CCP.

Xi Jinping leads the CCP and the government, so this corruption scandal could force him out of power. Xi is already in trouble because the economy has been performing poorly. A failed Taiwan invasion would likely lead the CCP Central Committee to replace Xi quickly.

Things could be worse for China and the rest of the world. A successful invasion of Taiwan would trigger an economic disaster because the Americans and their local allies, South Korea and Japan, would enforce an American-led blockade of Chinese ports.

Worse, President Xi and China’s senior Communist Party officials know that China’s senior military leaders lying to them about military readiness could be one scandal too many. The Chinese people are increasingly unhappy and angry with the government for letting economic problems develop. The missteps, mistakes, and failures of Xi have already demonstrated that China is not a great power, which is enough for most Chinese to back replacing Xi.

Meanwhile, the Americans have confirmed that they will not merely initially oppose a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, but that they will blockade Chinese ports for as long as it takes to force China to free Taiwan if an invasion succeeds. China has believed that it could prevent that by offering peace talks to the United States after a successful invasion of Taiwan. The Americans responded that a blockade of Chinese ports would remain in place until China withdrew from Taiwan. Sustained massive imports and exports are essential for the Chinese economy. China does not produce enough food to feed everyone at present levels and must import a lot of oil to keep the economy going. China imports 35 percent of its food and over 40 percent of its fuel. All of this comes by ship because the only alternative, the Russian Trans-Siberian railroad, can replace only a few percent of the goods coming in by sea. American economic sanctions alone would halt exports because most of them go to the United States and American European allies.

A blockade would be felt within days and become critical within weeks. Even if the Chinese could deal with American surface and air forces, the US Navy has enough nuclear submarines to keep Chinese ports closed. After a few weeks, the blockade would trigger massive unemployment.

Previously, China believed that an American blockade would last only a few months before ending at an international peace conference following China’s short victorious suppression of dissidents in Taiwan. That fantasy ignores the extensive defensive measures Taiwan has taken or is implementing.

Several years ago, the Chinese government began a public relations campaign about its purported effort to prepare China for an American blockade lasting several years. The timing of this was odd, as it started 6-9 months after the 2023 discovery of China’s military inability to even attempt to invade Taiwan. Perhaps the PR campaign was an attempt to cover up the latter by providing an alternate explanation for further delay. Or it might have been to educate the Communist Party and Chinese people about the fatal consequences of an American naval blockade before calling off the Taiwan invasion.

A US Navy blockade of China lasting several years would be fatal for the CCP and for China’s unity. China’s Ponzi-scheme economy exists primarily to create full employment to keep the CCP in power. Some 40 to 50 percent of China’s GDP and employment depend on exports; 40 percent of its fuel and 35 percent of its food are imported. Worse, 99 percent of it goes by sea.

China’s loss of the imported 35 percent of its food supply would not be immediately calamitous, as most of that is used to improve its people’s diets, not to keep them alive. But loss of their entire meat supply, especially their treasured pork, will make them very unhappy. It’s also possible that there won’t be enough fuel to supply the wholly extravagant amounts of fertilizer China uses to increase food production to the maximum.

Food rationing will be necessary within a month of the invasion of Taiwan and will start no later than three months afterward. Such a rationing program is very problematic because of the Communist Party’s size (8-9% of the total population) and corruption. They’ll immediately steal more than their fair share and, worse, not merely to eat more themselves, but to sell on the black market to offset the loss of their normal peacetime corruption income. That will be both obvious and create real hunger among ordinary Chinese, who are exceptionally fearful of mass starvation due to China’s history. National food rationing systems require public acquiescence to work. That won’t be present in China within a year of the onset of rationing, and the food rationing system will quickly collapse as just about everyone tries to grab more just to survive. This is THE most likely scenario for the collapse and end of the Chinese Communist Party.

China’s most critical problems in the event of a US blockade will be unemployment, food, and potash, especially the latter, as it is a critical fertilizer with China lacking most of what it needs. The Russians can produce and deliver all the potash China needs by the Trans-Siberian Railroad, provided the two governments are on good terms. If the Russians don’t send China any potash, mass hunger will begin after a year, and there will be multiple starving Chinas, none of them controlled by the CCP, within two years at most. Even if the Russians do sell potash to China, they will likely demand most of China’s gold and hard-currency reserves in payment. This is a no-win problem for China.

China will have a direct conflict between fuel needs and keeping employment up. If they accept 40-50 percent unemployment, they’ll have enough fuel because fuel needs will drop that much due to idle factories, mines, and construction. But they won’t have the fuel to shift production of export goods to other products, even useless ones, to keep almost half their labor force employed.

A US blockade means the Chinese Communist Party will suffer its most feared calamity – mass unemployment for the duration of the blockade. The CCP has acted as though that would be a regime-ending event, and most Chinese and their foreign trading partners believe that is how this calamity would unfold.

The CCP appears to concede that a US blockade would be effective. The US Navy could conduct it from several thousand miles away if it wished, well beyond the range of Chinese medium-range ballistic missiles. China’s navy and air force just don’t have the range to project power that far, and its navy couldn’t survive American submarines and aircraft if they tried. Chinese unemployment would soon reach 40 percent. Disrupting Chinese trade would trigger an economic recession in the United States and Europe. Compared with China's economic disasters, the problems in America and Europe are easier to handle.

Another consideration for China is that Taiwan is currently the main, and often sole, source of key electronic components, including the machines used to design and manufacture them. China, the United States, and European coalitions have tried to copy Taiwan's electronics success and have failed. Taiwan remains the most prolific producer of these components and sells them at competitive prices. A Chinese invasion, even one that failed, would wreck the Taiwan electronics industry. The Taiwanese also promise that they’ll destroy those electronic assets themselves if there is a Chinese invasion.

This would have dire consequences for the Chinese and other major economies. Other nations would be better positioned to replace the loss of Taiwan as a source, partly because many Taiwanese electronics experts and managers have contingency plans to leave Taiwan quickly if China attacks and resume operations elsewhere. China would no longer be a valued customer, at least until after Chinese forces left Taiwan and paid for some or all the damage they did.

All of this makes it obvious that China has more to lose by invading Taiwan than anyone else. That is why, for decades, the Chinese have threatened to invade but have never acted on those threats.