A new study by Robert Kaplan — to be printed later this month in Foreign Affairs magazine — concludes that Washington and Taipei should work together to make the prospect of war seem “prohibitively costly” to Beijing.
“The United States could then maintain its credibility with its allies by keeping Taiwan functionally independent until China became a more liberal society,” Kaplan says.
According to RAND, a major Washington-based think tank, by the year 2020 the US will no longer be able to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack.
China, the RAND report says, will by that time be able to defeat the US in a war in the Taiwan Strait even if the US has F-22s, two carrier strike groups and continued access to the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan.
Kaplan, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, writes that in the 21st century, China will project hard power abroad primarily through its navy.
“The Chinese navy sees little but trouble in what it calls the ‘first island chain’: the Korean Peninsula, the Kuril Islands, Japan (including the Ryukyu Islands), Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia,” Kaplan says.
Aiming to block the US Navy from entering the East China Sea and other Chinese coastal waters, China has modernized its destroyer fleet and has plans to acquire one or two aircraft carriers and could field a submarine force larger than the US Navy’s — which has 75 submarines in commission — within 15 years.
“As part of its effort to control its offshore waters in the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea, China is also improving its mine-warfare capability, buying fourth-generation jet fighters from Russia and deploying 1,500 Russian surface-to-air missiles along its coast,” Kaplan says.
China’s aim, he says, is to dissuade the US Navy from getting between the first island chain and the Chinese coast whenever and wherever it wants.
“Since the ability to shape one’s adversary’s behavior is the essence of power, this is evidence that a Greater China is being realized at sea as on land,” he says.
And most important to the advent of a Greater China is the future of Taiwan.
“The issue of Taiwan is often discussed in moral terms: Beijing talks about the need to consolidate the national patrimony and unify China for the good of all ethnic Chinese; Washington talks about preserving this model democracy. But the real issue is something else. Taiwan is an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ midway up China’s seaboard,” he writes.
Kaplan says that if Taiwan returned “to the bosom” of China, the Chinese navy would not only be in an advantageous strategic position vis-a-vis the first island chain, but would be free to project power beyond it to an unprecedented degree.
“China’s strategy to deny the US Navy entry into certain waters is designed not only to keep US forces away generally, but also, specifically, to foster its dominance over Taiwan,” he says in the study.
Beijing, he adds, is preparing to envelop Taiwan not just militarily, but economically and socially.
“If the US simply abandons Taiwan to Beijing, then Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and other US allies in the Pacific Ocean, as well as India and even some African states, will begin to doubt the strength of Washington’s commitments,” Kaplan says.
Strengthening US air and sea power in Oceania would be a compromise approach.
“This approach would ensure that China paid a steep price for any military aggression against Taiwan. It would also allow the United States to scale back its so-called legacy bases on the first island chain but nonetheless allow US ships and planes to continue to patrol the area,” he writes.
“The very fact of China’s rising economic and military power will exacerbate US-Chinese tensions in the years ahead. The United States, the hegemon of the Western Hemisphere, will try to prevent China from becoming the hegemon of much of the Eastern Hemisphere. This could be the signal drama of the age,” he says.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
‘NARWHAL’: The indigenous submarine completed its harbor acceptance test recently and is now under heavy guard as it undergoes tests in open waters, a source said The Hai Kun (海鯤), the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, yesterday began sea trials, sailing out of the Port of Kaohsiung, a military source said. Also known as the “Narwhal,” the vessel departed from CSBC Corp, Taiwan’s (台灣國際造船) shipyard at about 8am, where it had been docked. More than 10 technicians and military personnel were on deck, with several others standing atop the sail. After recently completing its harbor acceptance test, the vessel has started a series of sea-based trials, including tests of its propulsion and navigational systems, while partially surfaced, the source said. The Hai Kun underwent tests in the port from
New Taipei City prosecutors yesterday indicted nine entertainers over their alleged connection to a fraud ring that produces falsified documents to help people evade military service, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and show host William Liao (廖威廉). Twenty-eight people were charged with contravening the Punishment for Violation of Military Service System Act (妨害兵役治罪條例) and Article 214 of the Criminal Code for “causing a public official to make a false entry in a public document.” Prosecutors alleged the fraud ring was ran by a man, Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), and his three assistants, and that they were paid to help people dodge compulsory
RSS