1/ There's a bit to unpack here but China's intended outcome for Taiwan is not annexation and elimination of local independence or even 1c2s

2/ Most serious Chinese planners acknowledge that ROC people see themselves as culturally distinct and morally superior to mainland Chinese

3/ That makes a full on post-op reconstruction difficult in terms of hearts and minds

4/ Instead many Chinese discussions on Taiwan have three main objectives, none of which have much to do with the hearts and minds of ROC citizens at all

5/ First, China wants the fabs to stop sanctioning Chinese companies or favoring Western IC design cos like Apple QCOM or Nvidia over Chinese ones

6/ Second, China wants to flip the SIGINT equipment to face in the opposite direction, ie watch transpacific traffic for the MSS instead of the NSA and radar tracks for the PLAAF instead of the USAF

7/ Third, China wants the ROCAF and ROCN facilities for hosting of Chinese subs, carriers, naval aviation, and IRBMs, to exert control over JP sea lanes

8/ The cultural or political stuff doesn't matter much. China could care less about what TV shows TW wants to watch or which political party gets to feed at the trough

9/ China might even entertain TW participation in international fora once those three objectives are established

10/ This position might seem very strange given the NSL in HK, but that's because HK is a financial entrepot with many links to Xis anti corruption campaign, not a military and technology outpost, so China's required level of control of HK is much higher

11/ For the average TW person the Chinese presence would be about as visible as the US military presence in Turkey - that is to say, invisible to 99% of the population

12/ But wait, you might say, Xi hasn't offered anything close to this on Taiwan. You're right. This is because TW was not a problem for China from 2000 through 2016 so why would China change tack?

13/ But now, Taiwan has China's full attention, and China is going to put its full effort to solving the TW problem once and for all. Step one in that process is assessing ends and means, especially day 2 once the Tsai regime is removed from power.

14/ The simplest day 2 China will do is to likely have an independent or even DPP politician take over after a quick lightweight operation, let the protests play out, quietly get rid of US/JP agents on the island, and lock down the strategic assets

End/ Operation Taiwan won't resemble an annexation at all. For the average TW person, their life will remain the same. Hence concern over a Chinese invasion is unwarranted imo, not because it is unlikely, but because it would be mostly harmless for the average TWnese

@timeswang @BadChinaTake