Taiwan should develop offensive capabilities to counter military threats from China, Lieutenant General Fu Wei-ku (
Such offensive capabilities, called "counter operations" by Fu to avoid controversy, would be a cost-effective way for Taiwan to neutralize the threat from China, Fu said.
"Counter operations are the only way to totally remove the source of threat from the enemy. We aim to effectively deter the Chinese military. We do not intend to challenge them," he said.
"According to calculations by the US military, the cost-effectiveness of offensive operations against defensive ones is one to nine. It means that if the enemy spends US$100 million on developing missiles to attack us, we have to spend nine times the money on building defensive measures," he said.
"The actual cost that the defensive side might have to spend could be more than 180 times that of the enemy. To defend against the enemy's missiles, we have to build defensive systems ranging from early warning aircraft, early warning satellites, ground-based early warning radar, C4I [command, control, communication, computers and intelligence] systems, as well as low-tier, high-tier and sea-based missile defense systems," he said.
"All these systems would cost more than US$18 billion. Furthermore, they are not enough to help us escape from the missile threat from China.
"Give these conditions, I suggest that the military should develop the capability of launching counter operations against the enemy," he said.
Fu made the remarks yesterday at a conference on "Taiwan Security and Air Power," which was organized by Taiwan's deputy representative to the US, Tsai Ming-hsien (蔡明憲). Fu spoke as a moderator at the afternoon session of the one-day conference.
The remarks were made as a response to calls from a number of scholars, who participated in the conference either as paper presenters or audience members, for the military to develop active defense or offensive capabilities.
A retired Japanese general, who was invited as a commentator at the conference, agreed on the defensive benefits of developing offensive capabilities.
Retired Lieutenant General Tomohiro Okamoto, now a military advisor to the Nippon Electric Co, suggested that the Taiwan military could develop surface-to-surface missiles.
Some US scholars at the conference, though not voicing support for the idea, said the US government might not accept it at first but that Taiwan could try to convince them of the need.
Fu said the main reason the military had been unable to develop offensive capabilities was influence from some foreign countries.
The US has been unwilling to support Taiwan's plan to develop offensive capabilities for fear of affecting the military balance in the Taiwan Strait.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods