Chinese Navy scientists have modelled a scenario of a “total war” with a hypothetical “alliance” to test and evaluate the performance of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s new weapons. The scenario was published on a Chinese defense news website.
The researchers explained that the “total war” means that all available resources and efforts of the country are mobilized towards prevailing over an enemy. The resources include not only the military but also the civilian population and the economy.
Evaluating the warships in the survey, the authors designated the above-mentioned doomsday scenario with Z, arguing that “there is a clash of strategic willpower [as] the regional conflict [around Taiwan or in the South China Sea] escalates to a total war."
The PLA Navy scientists stressed that the scenario stipulates that diverse kinds of warships during different levels of tensions can demonstrate varying degrees of combat efficiency.
The authors suggested that there would be five levels of intensity regarding an all-out war. The fifth level may see a “clash of strategic interests”, in which PLA Navy ships could be attacked by more than 11 types of missiles and three types of torpedoes.
US-Chinese Row Over Taiwan
Beijing-Washington tensions over Taiwan escalated again after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen met with US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April, with China launching massive three-day military drills near the island in what it called a "warning" to Taipei and foreign powers.
In early August 2022, then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, which was slammed by China as a gesture of support for separatism. Beijing held large-scale military exercises in the vicinity of the island in a retaliatory move at the time.
Although the US does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Washington has a representative office in Taipei and remains the island's biggest supplier of military hardware. The US also often sends its warships and surveillance planes to the Taiwan Strait, with Beijing slamming such missions as provocations and dubbing Washington "a security risk creator in the region."