Mei ZhongTai has an excellently researched post evaluating China’s ballistic missile capability and Taiwan’s missile defenses. One creepy point is that the Mainland’s battery isn’t capable of an efficient debilitating strike on military targets and in the event of a conflict - which AsiaPundit sees as a very remote possibility - the People’s Liberation Army may choose to hit non-military targets.:

The above analysis assumes that China has a specific list of targets that it deems most important to destroying Taiwan’s will to defend itself, such as the Presidential Palace, the Ministry of Defense building, command and control facilities, and Taipei 101. This may not, however, be the case.

    That’s the lesson that Saddam taught us, that ballistic missiles may have little military value but do have great terror potential. [GEN Charles Horner]

If China were to target populated areas instead of specific targets, it would be able to create great destruction. No longer would China be launching 20 or more missiles at one target, and it could send all of its missiles toward Taiwan’s residential and commercial areas with the greatest population density. This would be a direct attack on national will–as would any missile attack. China could not take any ground with missiles, only boots on the ground can do that, but China may hope to convince Taiwan to surrender because of the vast destruction and threat of more destruction (see the importance of reserves).

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