Taiwan Prepares for War with China as Tensions Rise

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Companion Thread:

• Report: China Was Testing For EMP Attack On Taiwan

Taiwan tests 'China invasion' scenario


AFP – Thu, Apr 19, 2012



Taiwan Thursday tested its ability to defend one of it largest air bases against Chinese invasion, a scenario experts insisted remained relevant in an age of missile and cyber attacks.

About 1,500 soldiers took part in the drill, part of the island's biggest annual war game "Han Kuang (Han Glory) No 28", at Hsinchu Air Base in the north of the island, home to dozens of French-made Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets.

"Radars have detected enemy aircraft approaching from across the Taiwan Strait," an officer told foreign and local journalists invited to report on the event.

As high-pitched sirens filled the air, Tien Chien I (Sky Sword) missiles were deployed and fighter jets were scrambled, as around 200 fully armed "enemy" paratroopers dropped from transport aircraft.

AH-1W Super Cobra attack helicopters, tanks, and armoured vehicles were also ordered to take part in a coordinated, and eventually successful, counter-attack against the invaders.

Some military analysts have argued that a D-Day style invasion of Taiwan is becoming obsolete, and China is more likely to use blockade or some of its 1,600 missiles to defeat the island in case of war.

But local experts said it remained important to prepare for an actual physical invasion, which they said remained a likely scenario.

"Military experts generally agree the Chinese military would try to paralyse the island's command and communications facilities with intensive bombing," said Alexander Huang, a defence expert at Taipei's Tamkang University.

"Then it might block Taiwan's lifelines, airports and harbours before actually invading the island.

Ties between Taiwan and its former rival China have improved drastically since Ma Ying-jeou of the China-friendly Kuomintang party became president in 2008 promising to boost trade and tourism links.

But China still claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which has governed itself since 1949, and has vowed to get it back -- by force if necessary -- even though the island has ruled itself for more than 60 years.

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Taiwan Watching Crimea with Nervous Eye Toward Beijing

| More

J. Michael Cole

| March 14, 2014





Days ahead of a referendum that could result in the loss of the southern territory of Crimea to Russia, Taiwan, which like Ukraine lives in the shadow of a great power, is watching closely to see whether Moscow’s gambit could embolden Beijing to adopt similar strategies toward the island democracy.

While Crimea serves as an imperfect analogy for Taiwan’s situation, there are enough parallels to warrant an exploration of the current crisis and its denouement to determine if they can possibly create a precedent for Chinese behavior. Key to this effort is the fact that both Moscow and Beijing have notions of the “Near Abroad”—that is, territories that, while foreign and sovereign, their governments regard as fair game.

Sunday’s referendum, which will occur under the shadow of the Russian military,only presents two options: “Are you in favor of the reunification of Crimea with Russia as a part of the Russian Federation?” and “Are you in favor of restoring the 1992 Constitution and the status of Crimea as a part of Ukraine?”—a Constitution that for all intents and purposes would give rise to an independent, albeit pro-Moscow, state within Ukraine.

The situation in Taiwan, which according to Beijing’s version of history was “stolen” from China at the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, is vaguely similar, though the proportion of citizens who identify as ethnically Chinese is substantially lower than that of Crimeans who identify as Russians.

Support for unification with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), which has dropped steadily over the years, now stands in the single digits, while desire for independence has gradually risen, with a preference for maintaining the status quo remaining the preferred option—at least as long as China threatens force should the island declare de jure independence, a not insignificant factor in poll responses.

While circumstantial, it is interesting to note that both Crimea and Taiwan are haunted by the year 1992—the “1992 Constitution” and the “1992 Consensus”—under arrangements that are meant to curtail the choices of the peoples involved (under the so-called 1992 consensus, both sides agree that there is only one China, though both agree to disagree on what “one China” means).

Ultimately, support figures on unification do not matter much to the undemocratic regimes who claim the territories. As long as there are groups within the regions that identify as ethnically Russian or Chinese—hence Beijing’s emphasis on the shared ancestry of Chinese “compatriots” across the Taiwan Strait and claims that independence supporters are a “small group of extremists”—their governments will be able to justify taking military action as a defensive, if not humanitarian, measure. As journalist Edward Lucas writes in The New Cold War, “It is always possible that the Kremlin will start provocations in Crimea or the Baltic states, and then claim the right to intervene to protect compatriots from the depredations of ‘extremists.’” This is exactly what Moscow has articulated in recent weeks, arguing that the troop deployments were in response to the Ukrainian ultranationalists who took over in Kiev following the revolution.

Western inaction is being noted by Beijing, which has sided with Russia in the present crisis. Those are issues where, bluntly put, perceived weakness invites aggression, and where a lack of self-confidence among the alliance of democratic nations is resulting in the dismemberment of free countries.

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China moving military ships near Taiwanese coast may spark US confrontation

By Mark Moore


May 26, 2020 | 1:04pm


China's aircraft carrier, the Liaoning AFP via Getty Images

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The Chinese Communist Party is readying two new aircraft carriers for deployment off the coast of Taiwan that could lead to a military confrontation with the US ships in the region, as the relationship between the two global powers has become strained by trade issues and the coronavirus pandemic, according to a report.

The ships Liaoning and Shandong, part of the People’s Liberation Army navy, are conducting military readiness drills in the Yellow Sea but are expected to move into the South China Sea to Pratas Island for invasion mock battles, CCP-controlled Global Times reported.

Noting Chinese President Xi Jinping’s assertions of territorial control over most of the waterway and lack of respect for the sovereignty of countries in the region, like Taiwan, the “risk of a military confrontation in the South China Sea involving the United States and China could rise significantly in the next eighteen months,” the Council on Foreign Relations said in a report issued last week.

The think tank said the US has a “strong interest” in stopping China from taking control over the South China Sea to keep the waterway open for navigation and secure international supply chains.

“The United States is also at risk of being drawn into a military conflict with China in this region as a result of U.S. defense treaty obligations to at least one of the claimants to the contested territory, the Philippines,” the council said.

President Trump, who has accused Beijing of misleading the world on the coronavirus pandemic, has been sparring with Xi over China’s trade policies, which he said are stacked against US corporations.
“We could cut off the whole relationship” with China, Trump told “Fox Business” earlier this month.

Those comments led to Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi accusing the US of pushing the two countries to the “brink of a new Cold War.”

“China has no intention to change, still less replace, the United States,” Wang said. “It’s time for the United States to give up its wishful thinking of changing China and stopping 1.4 billion people in their historic march toward modernization.”

A pair of U.S. B-1 supersonic bombers fly over South China Sea Tuesday days after senior Pentagon official says Chinese fighter jets harassed U.S. aircraft 'at least 9 times' in the area since March pic.twitter.com/ekrj9X5kXf

— Lucas Tomlinson (@LucasFoxNews) May 26, 2020