They have an enormous civilian shipping fleet, some of which has been designed to meet military requirements. For example, China has a good number of RoRo car ferries which also incorporate military requirements, and even participate in military exercises [1]
Yes. The US does the same with commercial ships[1] and aircraft[2]. Interestingly, in the case of the US, part of the payment for providing this service is priority access to government contracts during peacetime. Which is doubly great for the government - no extra cost beyond operating cost, and the capability is regularly exercised even in peacetime.
Yup! That's how the Allies won WWII - the British Empire had an amazing civilian naval logistics machine. The US had insane industrial capacity (which got juiced by the war!). Over the course of the War the US basically took over that logistics capacity and by the end of it replaced the British Empire.
China have a similarly amazing capacity - the likes of aliexpress are more capable than anything I've seen in Europe. For consumers it's only Amazon who come close.
In a total war situation all of that capacity and - importantly - the deep knowledge - are used for the war effort.
China could use these ships as described, but they’d first have to disable Taiwanese defenses and keep the US out of the area, in which case the war is already over. If China were to just send boats like these across the straight without the prior conditions being settled, they’d be sunk and sunk easily since they’re defenseless. Seems like fear mongering to me.
Or to use the infrastructure for a landwar. The "boats" are extremely important part of the logistics chain but there are also rail, road, warehouses etc etc.
In a land war the boats would be moving raw resources to feed their industrial machine, just as they are now.
What do you base this on? And how does it translate to potential military engagements?