- oil pipelines, railroads, and other continental transport modes, in addition to being more expensive, slower, and limited in bandwidth, and extremely vulnerable to sabotage, political interference from countries they have to go through, etc.

- submarines

Higgins boats are CHEAP and move a lot of soldiers. Helicopters are EXPENSIVE and easily downed and move less soldiers and equipment.

The general tone of the dissenters is that mainland China is competent, and Taiwan is incompetent. If anything, it is likely to be the opposite. The CCP is a purged autocratic cult at this point with full communication and coordination breakdowns in basic government functions.

IMO, Xi and China are coasting on the Deng Xiaoping reform effects. Mainland China is an ossifying and crumbling state, they simply have so much momentum that it doesn't seem like it. Everyone with offshored manufacturing is attempting to move it from China. That's a multi-decade trend, but it's still the trend. Of the entire world.

I think it's far from clear that this isn't the case for the PLA -- nobody has any idea because they haven't seen any combat other than harassing fishermen or hitting Indians with sticks since they had to do a face-saving retreat from 'nam in the late 70s.

It's possible they've got Western-style NCOs and their rockets aren't full of water, but, who knows? They probably don't even know themselves, and if you're a Chinese general who's gotten fat off their position, are you really going to sound the alarm?

All this is of course also true of Japan and Taiwan, although one would hope that their allies have managed to iron out the kinks there.

EDIT: It's also entirely unclear how well any of these populations is going to deal with troops getting shot, which is important.

Sure, China's strategic reserve lasts 6 months. Then ... starvation.

South Korea, Japan, INDIA, and Southeast Asia will probably view China's assault on Taiwan as imperialism,

The US is not going to sell out TSMC production for soybeans. TSMC production loss alone would tank the US economy into a depression for probably 5-10 years.

And I always wonder if an "illegal" invasion happens if the US can cancel its debt to China.... Which I guess is "only" 750-900 billion, but it's still something that can probably be done.

Finally, wars are financed by debt. If China gets international sanctions from an invasion... who pays for it? Russia can't. India won't. China is a bigger house of financial cards than the US is if you believe some of the doom.

Never underestimate the incompetence of large organizations, but drone manufacture on that scale is not a big lift compared to say, tanks and fighter jet design and manufacturing. 50,000 drones fit in how many shipping containers? 20? And yes, drones are now unhackable with fiber optic line leads, certainly for defense of beach assaults. Naval drones are a different story.

China is always some form of warlord confederation. Launching a foolish invasion that fails quickly invites a total collapse of the Beijing power center of the CCP. Starvation from a blockade/sanctions ... invites a total collapse of the CCP. I would argue that Russia's population was tolerant of the Ukraine invasion because the Russian government was in a quid pro quo with the population: we keep the lights on, the oil cheap, and decent enough economy, and you let Putin do what he does.

The CCP does not have the same quid-pro-quo with the Chinese people AFAIK, and has a lot less leeway with them with the COVID lockdowns and general dislike of the CCP. A failed invasion and then catastrophic economic sanctions could topple the CCP very very very quickly.