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I used to believe China could easily swallow Taiwan in military conflict, but the actual numbers are surprising considering their relative landmasses. Taiwan is not such an easy target to overthrow, and I doubt they'd lay down without a fight.

I found this article to be particularly enlightening:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-wi...

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Assuming it's a traditional war. They might be able to create the right conditions for Taiwan to request annexation.

There are a lot of mainland Chinese in Taiwan and probably a lot of PRC supporters, some sort of coup, insurrection or civil war could be possible.

It's also possible for China to cripple Taiwan economically, take out some power stations and maybe other infrastructure and their industry collapses. This could even be done by foreign agents, they might not have to fire a shot directly.

Then there's the various cyber-warfare possibilities.

Tangent: 'lay' is transitive and requires an object e.g. 'lay themselves down'

Otherwise use intransitive 'lie' e.g. lie down without a fight.

Thanks, IntelliSense!

/s of course, I actually learned from the parent comment lol

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