The planned purchase by China of S-400 surface-to-air missiles (SAM) from Russia, which this newspaper first reported in March last year, is one of many reminders that despite warmer relations in the Taiwan Strait, China is relentless in its efforts to achieve complete military dominance over Taiwan.
As Defense News reported this week, Beijing is in talks with Moscow for the acquisition of the S-400, which has a range of 400km. If everything goes as planned, the missiles could be deployed as early as 2017. At present, China’s air defenses in its Fujian Province rely primarily on the S-300 PMU2 and the HQ9, a local variant of the S-300. Both have a range of about 200km, which puts parts of northwestern Taiwan within range, while ensuring complete coverage within China’s side of the median line in the Taiwan Strait.
With the deployment of the S-400, all of Taiwan would fall within range of Chinese missiles, which would put Taiwan’s aircraft at great risk from the moment they take off. Because negotiations are ongoing, it is not yet known how many systems the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) intends to purchase and whether this would be sufficient to threaten Taiwan’s airspace. Furthermore, Taiwan cannot rule out the possibility that the S-400 will not be deployed in Fujian Province, but rather near major cities or critical military installations further inland.
Despite those unknowns, China’s efforts to achieve full dominance over Taiwan’s airspace are cause for concern. As Ian Easton, a researcher at the Washington-based Project 2049 Institute, told Defense News, rumors of an S-400 acquisition may have deflated interest within the Taiwanese air force in procuring F-16C/Ds from the US, and could explain the seeming interest in acquiring F-35 Joint Strike Fighters instead, which are designed to counter such air defenses.
As Taiwan assesses its changing security environment, one option would be to break its commitments to the Missile Technology Control Regime by embarking on a full-blown program to develop and deploy cruise missiles in sufficient numbers and range as to threaten SAM sites in China’s Fujian Province and elsewhere.
Intensifying research and development of anti-radiation missiles, acquiring AGM-88 high-speed anti-radiation missiles from the US, or fielding unmanned aerial vehicles capable of operating inside Chinese airspace are possible alternatives, as is the creation of special forces units that can infiltrate China to conduct sabotage operations against SAM bases. However, in the end, such countermeasures are high-risk and can only lead to further escalation.
What is clear is that something will have to be done to remedy the growing imbalance of power in the Taiwan Strait, which in large part is the result of Russia’s continued willingness to sell highly advanced military technology to the PLA. As the weaker party in the dispute, Taiwan enjoys no such largesse from its main military benefactor, the US, which imposes serious limits on the type of defense articles that Taiwan can procure to secure its self-defense.
Another way to address the matter would be to use diplomacy to increase pressure on Moscow to cease providing the PLA with its latest defense technology, of which the S-400 is but the latest in a long shopping list that also includes highly advanced Su-35 aircraft. Russian arms transfers have played no small role in creating a PLA that is now strong enough to threaten not just Taiwan, but every other country in the region and beyond.
Washington, along with the international community, should impress upon Moscow that continued sale of advanced weaponry to an increasingly assertive — and nationalistic — China is a destabilizing factor and that it must cease. It should be reminded, if only for its own interest, that whatever technology it passes on to China will eventually be reverse-engineered, copied and turned into cheaper export versions that risk undermining the competitiveness of Russian defense export articles.
And, if necessary, Russia should be threatened with sanctions if it fails to comply.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
RSS