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I think the risk of war is high (perhaps not within 12 months but within a few years). However, I think the chance of an immediate invasion like everyone is preparing for is much lower.
Amphibious invasions are very hard, especially against a prepared defender (they'll see it coming with modern satellites). The Chinese have specialized marine brigades that are tasked for this mission, they're definitely aiming for the capability to invade. They trained many more marines even as the army was downsized in manpower terms. But actually invading and landing are very challenging tasks.
China's great advantage is in industrial and attritional warfare. They have enormous industrial capacity, their manufacturing sector is roughly equal to the US, Germany and Japan combined. They want to wage war in such a way that leverages this capacity to the utmost. While China's been expanding its marine corps, they've also been putting a lot of effort into missiles. They tested more missiles in 2021 than the rest of the world IIRC. They don't want to fight the US in the skies and seas up close, they want to fling hundreds and thousands of missiles at US airbases, ports and ships before they can even reach the battlefield. They want to most efficiently turn their production advantage to a military advantage by turning this into a missile war. I think their strategy for Taiwan is to pound it with missiles, airstrikes and drones. They'll wait for months before landing, waiting for the defenders to get exhausted by the bombing.
At the same time, attrition will take its toll on Taiwan. Taiwan is about 30% food secure, China is 90-95% secure on grains with huge stockpiles. China takes food extremely seriously. Taiwan is innately crippled by geography, it's a tiny mountainous rock in the ocean that also has to import fertilizer by sea.
Taiwan has no energy production, in 2021 Taiwan relied on imports of fossil fuels for 97.7 percent of its total energy supply. China is about 80% energy sufficient (this is mostly coal) and they produce 25% of the oil they need. They can import another 10-15% from Russia. In addition, they have about 100 days worth of oil stockpiled. That's enough oil for military needs. I believe they have the state capacity to ration domestic civilian oil use and scramble up more supply from Russia. In WW2 the US quickly built pipelines to take oil from Texas to the industrial North, they used barges and trains and all kinds of tricks.
All the wargaming for Taiwan seems to focus on a period of a few weeks, a quick invasion. This is rosy, optimistic thinking for a great power war. This is WW3! It won't last for a few weeks, it will take years like all the other great power wars. Germany fought through famine in WW1, they fought through energy scarcity in WW2. Highly determined states will find a way, they'll synthesize oil and ration. I think we underestimate Chinese nationalism at our peril, there's a great deal of resentment of the West and hatred especially for Japan. It will be very hard for anyone to oppose the war given they'll be fighting Japan and the West in the world's most secured and propagandized police state.
The fait accompli quick-invasion strategy relies on a very high level of coordination and excellence from those forces in the field today. China probably doesn't have that confidence. Industrial warfare only requires that they have huge production capacity and the ability to learn. An industrial, attritional strategy doesn't require that Chinese marines seize enough ports without damaging them too much, that their airforce can defend the landing craft, that they can quickly resupply forces...
Attrition puts the onus on us. We have to resupply Taiwan with food and energy lest they capitulate. They will surely capitulate before China capitulates, even if you think my estimates for Chinese self-sufficiency are inaccurate, they can't be so far off that China is behind Taiwan. We have to penetrate the Chinese anti-access, area-denial grid, escorting supply ships and docking them in Taiwanese ports! We have to resupply South Korea and Japan too, who are in similar (but much better) positions to Taiwan. We have to endure a withering barrage of missiles before we even get to contest the airspace and sea. We will have to mobilize our economies and accept massive casualties to fight China over several years or accept defeat.
I thought China was extremely food insecure. The CCP has recently been pushing to make them less extremely food insecure, but with their relatively tiny amounts of arable land and fresh water, there's only so much they can accomplish. They are very reliant on imported food from the US and in recent years are increasingly reliant.
That's actually one of the successes of international trade and comparative advantage. The US has an excess of arable land, China has no where close to enough. So we sell them food. Chinese people really like pork. When a Chinese person eats a bite of pork, that pig was fed on American animal feed. When a Chinese person eats a local soy-based dish, those are probably American soy beans. They can't grow anywhere near enough soy to feed their people. That's okay, we'll sell them 100 million tons of soy beans per year.
If China attacked Taiwan and the US stopped shipping them food, how soon until mass starvation? Which I get won't be very comforting to Taiwanese people with no electricity and also no food.
I mean, ensuring that their entire population has at the bare minimum a subsistence diet of rice porridge and millet is pretty much rule #1 of any Chinese government so there's no way they haven't planned extensively for this, especially considering that every Chinese person I know thinks about food about 5 times as often as your typical white American and has a pantry filled floor to ceiling with non-perishable goods and a freezer that rains down ziploc bags of frozen meat and seafood when you open it.
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What they import from the US is mainly soybeans for animal feed, not grain. The US is the cheapest producer of soybeans but not the only producer. If they go to war and seabound trade is cut off, China can still trade with Russia and Central Asia to partially make up for seabound imports.
Food prices will rise, they'll have to eat much less meat and ration but I expect they can manage that. Britain and Germany did in WW2. It's possible to rationalize food production, cut waste, convert parks to vegetables and so on. But the key thing is grain, rice, corn, the staple crops. Everything else is a luxury. As long as there is sufficient production and distribution of grain, nobody will starve. China is nearly self-sufficient in grain without rationing and they still have options to import by land. Thus I conclude they can withstand a long war.
The insecure countries are the ones with very low ratios of self-sufficiency, the ones that can't meet their own grain requirements. Taiwan actually will starve, there's nothing they can do to catch up from a starting point in the 20% range on grains. Especially without fertilizer (where China is a net exporter) and electricity.
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Last I checked, China supplies ~100% of the calories necessary for their people, albeit mostly in cereals that they then put to other purposes. Of course they import enormous amounts of luxuries, but no one ever fought a total war and fed every family pork for dinner.
Some other sites claim something comparable. But I didn't look very hard.
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