According to an article that Deutsche Welle published, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will complete its operational preparations for a “full military attack against Taiwan” by 2020.” This is the main conclusion from the “Report on the Military Power of the Chinese Communist Party” that the Taiwan Defense Ministry recently submitted. The report pointed out that “unifying Taiwan” remains a constant mission for Beijing. If any of the following possibilities becomes a reality, it will trigger China’s attack of Taiwan: Taiwan explicitly declares independence, Taiwan has internal turmoil, Taiwan’s acquires nuclear weapons, a delay occurs in the peaceful cross-strait dialogue, foreign forces’ get involved in Taiwan affairs, or foreign troops are stationed in Taiwan. However, the report also mentioned that, currently, the mainland is still limited by Taiwan’s geographic environment, landing vehicles, and insufficient logistical capabilities and does not have the full combat capability to carry out the military action.
According to the Deutsche Welle article, in April of this year, the Taiwan Democracy Foundation announced its annual poll. The data showed that, if the mainland military force attacked Taiwan because Taiwan issued a declaration of independence, 55 percent of the people would be willing or very willing to defend Taiwan and 35.9 percent of the population would not. If the mainland unified Taiwan by force, 67.7 percent of the people would be willing to fight to defend Taiwan, and 24.9 percent would not be willing.
Source: Deutsche Welle, September 1, 2018
https://p.dw.com/p/348cI