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.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS