US Naval War College professor James Holmes has some advice for Taiwan on how to avoid a Chinese takeover.
“I reject the idea that a free people is doomed to fall to foreign conquerors,” he said.
Writing on Web site RealClearDefense, the strategy expert said that Taiwan can “master its destiny” if it does a few basic things.
First, Taiwan must not be taken in by “hooplah” over cordial cross-strait relations, he said.
“Much has been made of the supposed thaw in cross-strait relations during the [President] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) years,” Holmes said. “This will last precisely as long as Beijing sees the trendlines going its way toward unification.”
Taiwan must be realistic about US help in the case of an invasion, he added.
“Taiwan must ready itself to hold out as long as possible while the US political process sorts itself out, orders are given and US relief forces try to pry open the region,” he said.
“Self-help” should be the watchword for Taipei’s defense preparations, he wrote.
“Threaten credibly to make things hard and drawn-out for Chinese forces and Bejing’s success doubtful and you may balk its plans — or deter aggression altogether,” he said.
Taipei needs to be “pessimistic” about allied support.
“Events will either prove you right and you’ll be ready, or you will be pleasantly surprised when American planes appear overhead and gray hulls come over the horizon,” Holmes said.
“Savvy defenders” can make a cross-strait amphibious assault “hell” for the invaders, he added.
“Taiwan’s topography is extraordinarily mountainous, offering numerous emplacements for anti-ship and anti-air missiles and long-range gunnery,” Holmes said.
“Dug-in forces armed with such weaponry can withstand serious punishment from air and missile strikes, China’s chief methods of softening up the island’s defenses,” the professor said.
Holmes said that thinking ahead about the worst case of Chinese forces getting ashore, Taiwan should prepare an insurgency that could help dissuade Beijing from ordering an invasion in the first place.
“Visibly preparing for protracted resistance would telegraph Taipei’s seriousness and could bolster deterrence,” he said.
He advised the Taiwanese navy to deploy “swarms” of lethal, missile-armed small craft around the island’s periphery.
The professor said that guerrilla war at sea can work for Taiwan’s defenders the way it worked for Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) irregular forces against Japan and Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Nationalists.
“The weak can win if they deploy scarce assets cunningly,” he said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS