If the US does not pay more attention to the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait, it will be “inviting a war,” an expert on Asian military affairs said on Monday.
“One side is already preparing for such a war,” International Assessment and Strategy Center (IASC) senior fellow Richard Fisher said.
He was addressing a Capitol Hill forum — attended by US Congressional staffers — on growing Chinese military threats to Taiwan.
Fisher said that a central part of the “China dream” was to become the world’s dominant military power.
He said that for Taiwan to deter a Chinese attack on the nation, the US would have to do much more than it is.
A new generation of capability has to be made available, Fisher said.
He said that China wants to exploit Taiwan and use it as a military base.
According to Fisher “the pressure is going to be on” by the early 2020s and Taipei’s need for submarines was “without argument.”
He said that Washington should provide fighters to replace Taiwan’s aging French Dassault Mirage 2000s.
“If they can’t afford new F-16s, let us offer them used F-16s, or even a small number of F-35s, which are very expensive, but at least we could start training and building up capacity to a fifth-generation level,” he said.
Fisher said that energy weapons could be key to Taiwan’s needs and that 100 railguns could probably “take down” the bulk of a Chinese missile attack.
“If the Chinese understood that, they wouldn’t launch those missiles in the first place,” he said.
A Chinese invasion could look like “the reverse of Dunkirk” Fisher said, referring to a major World War II evacuation of Allied troops from France.
Beijing could probably transport eight to 12 divisions across the Taiwan Strait, he said.
He said that China would use thousands of civilian-owned barges and ships.
“Instead of rescuing people, this ‘Dunkirk’ fleet is going to be the invasion force,” he said.
Arthur Waldron, a professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, said that since 2009, China had become overbearing and militaristic.
“In other words, she is dangerous,” Waldron said.
He said that China is threatening Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Indonesia, Vietnam and India.
“That’s an awful lot of countries to be threatening at one time,” Waldron said.
He added: “China fully intends to achieve her goal. She believes that in 10 years time, she is going to own the South China Sea; she is going to be the harbormaster.”
“The US has done nothing that actually slows progress towards this goal,” he said. “No one has done anything to throw sand in the wheels.”
However, the nations under threat are not “potted plants” he said.
“They are reacting and they are beginning to rearm,” Waldron said.
He said that India is already a nuclear power and that others might also go nuclear to stop China.
Waldron said the US needed to tell China that if it attacked Taiwan, there would be a strong reaction.
Using an old gangster line, he said that Washington might tell Beijing: “You touch my daughter, I will break your legs.”
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