The Taiwan scenario often is regarded as the most dangerous military contingency in the world, as it could spark direct conflict between two nuclear-armed superpowers.1 It likely would include a significant amphibious component, so U.S. military strategists today are refocusing on amphibious warfare—a warfare domain their grandfathers understood well. Hard-earned lessons from Tarawa and Anzio made for extraordinary successes at Normandy, Okinawa, and Inchon. But the U.S. military has not conducted a large-scale amphibious invasion for nearly three-quarters of a century and logically has concentrated its efforts elsewhere.2 The same cannot be said of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA).
To understand China’s military objectives and methods with respect to Taiwan and amphibious warfare, it is essential to examine PLA writings, history, doctrinal development, and culture. Last November, I visited what may be China’s only museum devoted exclusively to amphibious warfare. Located in Taizhou, about 120 miles southeast of Shanghai, the museum commemorates the January 1955 Battle of Yijiangshan Island. Seventy years later, the battle appears to have become a point of careful study by the PLA, as a new generation of Chinese soldiers grapples with the complexities of amphibious warfare.
Apart from lessons in coordinating joint amphibious assault operations, Yijiangshan offers key strategic lessons for U.S. strategists today, as well as suggests the situation in the Taiwan Strait is more dangerous now than it was in the 1950s.
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