this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025

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China has debuted its new landing barges – what does this mean for Taiwan? (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 days ago by geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml to c/worldnews@lemmy.ml

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The short video is shot from a public beach in China’s Guangdong province, the unidentified filmer standing quietly by some fishing boats and a few tourists out for a walk.

Just to their right, a line of strange looking ships loom in the mist. The enormous ships are unmoving, raised above the waves by thick pylons. Drop-down bridges connect them to each other, the front one extending down to the sand.

The original video reportedly disappeared from WeChat shortly after it was uploaded, but copies circulated widely among watchers of China-Taiwan hostilities. The 19-second clip was their first clear look at what many believe are China’s newest tool for its Taiwan invasion plans.

The barge-like Shuqiao ships were first seen during the construction phase in January, and reported by Naval News. The Zhanjiang beach test showed how together they can create a loading dock from almost a kilometre out to sea – exactly what China needs to overcome one of the key challenges of any land invasion of Taiwan.

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[–] wurzelgummidge@lemmy.ml 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

at what many believe

Straight from the Fox News school of journalism 🤣🤣

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

Actually if it were Fox, they'd have called them nuclear powered autonomous flying boats designed exclusively to fly up only the Potomac river to launch a nuke at the Whitehouse.

[–] yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

China builds some cool infrastructure/construction tools

The West: Them Chinese are go'n take our chip fabs and war with the world

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean, they were loading tanks on transporters, that seem pretty invadey.

[–] yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Something heavy, slow, tread based, with easily controlled variable weight, that's cheap enough to replace if anything goes wrong and something that's been rendered useless on modern battlefields so has no further original use?

I wonder why they would use that to test barges that are far more valuable as overwater construction and resupply; rather than the absolutely silly idea of static targets for artillery, which is their only actual military function.

I mean I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. How do you people think this would function as a 'war bridge'? You'd need hundreds. If one can touch shore then just use a normal barge, not this Wylie e coyote nonsense. If one can't touch the shore, a hundred of them in an in movable chain that takes hours to align won't be able to.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It was a converted car transport. They already knew it floated with a load of cars.

[–] yunxiaoli@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

And a load of cars is far less heavy and less dynamically loaded than say, a crane. Or a group of construction equipment.

Again, if this worked, any single barge in existence would work better. A Wylie e coyote bridge made of hundreds of barges is too ridiculous even for the most westoid brain version of China. This is 'dem Chinese eat Muslim babies to take our jobs' level of silly.

[–] JackLSauce@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I like these kinds of articles because of Betteridge's Law:

What does this mean for Taiwan?

[–] Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago

Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the principle is much older.

[+] carpelbridgesyndrome@sh.itjust.works -9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

.ml will insist that the Chinese aren't planning to invade right up until the tanks land. Then they'll switch to "Taiwan attacked first" or some shit.

[–] lorty@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago

Actually the plan is to peacefully reunite, but the US would never allow that

[–] Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 day ago

It is explicitly the policy of the chinese government to not try to take Taiwan by force unless some red line is crossed and the one china 2 systems policy is irreversibly violated.

Since the policy hasn't been irreversibly violated, the mainland hasn't invaded. This has been the system for the past 70 years and has been maintained by every Chinese administration, including the current one which has run for 10 years already and has still maintained the same 1 china 2 systems policy.

Of course, due to many factors, such as the fact that an invasion is still possible, the military build up along the first island chain by the west in an attempt to encircle china, and the ability of western powers to cut off oil imports to China by blocking off the straits of malacca, the mainland builds up naval power as quickly as it can.

However! As other commentesr have pointed out, these barges are actually useless as military equipment, as can even be seen in the photo that is presented. Why would a country with aircraft carriers and a virtually unlimited supply of drones/missiles rely on such comically sinkable bridges to roll in tanks into Taiwan?

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

Do you believe an invasion is well-supported by very slow, large, connected barges? Militarily this would only make sense for slightly more efficiently supplying an occupation.