A Non-Kinetic Blockade?

What advanced strategery is this?

Does blockading Taiwan provide China with a clean means of subduing Taiwan without risk of war with America? I think it just gives America valuable time to prepare to intervene.

Nice work if you can get it:

A blockade and quarantine would be devastating for Taiwan. I wrote about this contingency extensively in my last book, and it would be a highly effective form of non-kinetic warfare directed at punishing Taiwan until its people cry for mercy – which includes giving into Chinese annexation efforts.

In what way is a blockade a non-kinetic form of warfare? A blockade needs to be enforced to be legal. PLAN and/or China Coast Guard ships need to surround Taiwan. If merchant ships and tankers proceed through the line, the Chinese must stop them. Will China board and seize every one of them? Will China sink them?

And is Taiwan's navy and air force going to just watch? Taiwan's conventional navy may not be able to last long in the Taiwan Strait during an invasion, but east of Taiwan their fleet and air force have options:

Taiwan's bigger ships are too vulnerable in the narrow straits exposed to Chinese fast attack boats, submarines, and aircraft. The bigger Taiwanese ships with air defense and anti-submarine capabilities are safer east of Taiwan where they can keep Taiwan's sea lines of communication open. Together with mine countermeasures vessels and helicopters, that's where these ships belong. Also, operating at the northern and southern tips of Taiwan, the bigger ships could use anti-ship missiles to strike into the strait area before retiring behind the shield of the home island.

Taiwan has some capable warships and is building its own submarines to replace its two aging boats. Taiwan has updated 4th generation fighters. And Taiwan has land-based missiles. Taiwan will use them rather than quietly die.

Will China attack Taiwan's assets on land, too, then? Now it's really kinetic.

And what if America sends in its nuclear attack submarines but only uses weapons the Taiwanese subs possess:

As I've said before, I'm a fan of having Taiwan in possession of subs that use our weapons.

If the Chinese try to invade Taiwan and at least one Taiwanese sub makes it to sea, then if Harpoons start smashing into Chinese ships, we can openly marvel at the storage capacity of the Dutch-built boat. I mean, some people might speculate that American subs are launching them, too, but that would be idle speculation best left for historians to examine decades after the Taiwanese fend off the invasion attempt.

The world might stand in awe of the plucky outnumbered Taiwanese sub commanders punching above their weight.

I think a Chinese blockade of Taiwan just grants America and its allies time—that most valuable wartime commodity—to intervene. Maybe directly. Maybe with their own "non-kinetic" counter-blockade of China.

Unless this is all China thinks it can do against a tiny neighbor after three decades of massive military modernization, I don't see a blockade as being China's Plan A for subduing Taiwan.

NOTE: I made the image with the Substack capability.