A leading US expert on the Chinese military says that by 2020, Beijing could have 2,000 or more missiles, nearly 1,000 modern combat aircraft, 60 modern submarines and a potential invasion force of many hundreds of thousands of troops “pointed at Taiwan.”
Richard Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center near Washington, warned in an article in the Wall Street Journal that the US “should be under no illusion about Beijing’s motives.”
He says that while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has made historic progress in defusing tensions with China, Beijing has signaled that it wants to end Taiwan’s democratic era.
“China’s Communist Party has made the conquest of Taiwan a key measure to justify both the legitimacy of its political -dictatorship and its now-galloping military buildup,” Fisher adds. “The Communists also want to exploit Taiwan’s strategic position to gain control of Japan’s maritime lifelines, while simultaneously deepening their reach into the South China Sea.”
Fisher cites the recent report in Defense News that the administration of US President Barack Obama has quietly informed Taiwanese officials that Washington will not supply Taipei with the 66 new F-16C/D aircraft it wants, but will only equip the nation’s older F-16A/Bs with better radar.
If the report turns out to be true — and both sides deny it — Fisher says that pleasing China on this issue will have come at the cost of weakening the US’ longstanding commitment to Taiwan’s autonomy.
Fisher says that “on a purely military score,” Taipei not only needs the advanced F-16C/Ds, but also requires asymmetrical -weapons, such as surface-to--surface missiles and electromagnetic launch or “rail gun” weapons.
A refusal to sell the new F-16s would prove to China that it can limit Washington’s strategic freedom, Fisher says, and at the same time it would embolden Beijing.
“As a start,” he says, “it will encourage Beijing to become more active in the Taiwan Strait. More worryingly, China’s military leadership could start to believe that it would have a chance at succeeding in a war with Taiwan, not least by discouraging US intervention. Such a belief, whether mistaken or not, would be the first step to such a war becoming a reality.”
Fisher concludes that if China were to succeed against Taipei, US leadership in Asia “could evaporate.”
“That will push a region already wary of China’s not-so-peaceful rise well beyond its recent -double-digit arms buildup and into an even riskier age of strategic nuclear competition,” he says. “Given these stakes, the Obama administration’s failure to assist in Taiwan’s defense and, in turn, that of Asia’s, is a massive gamble. Ensuring the survival of a free Taiwan is perhaps the most effective means the US has to reassure the region it is serious about curtailing Chinese aggression and defending peace and prosperity in Asia.”
In an editorial, the Wall Street Journal said that refusing to sell the F-16C/Ds would endanger Taiwan’s democracy.
“Taiwan doesn’t need the most advanced weaponry on the market to defend itself,” the editorial said. “It needs reasonably capable weapons in sufficient quantities. New F-16s are a crucial part of its defense in depth. By hesitating to provide Taiwan with the arms it needs, Obama is setting up a future US president for a crisis.”
The Wall Street Journal said that when the Chinese military enjoys a decisive advantage in the Taiwan Strait, the threats against Taiwan could begin in earnest.
“If the Obama administration fails to honor America’s commitments to Taiwan, Beijing’s threats could turn to war sooner than anyone anticipates,” it said.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
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