Before 2000, Taiwan's top defense strategy against China was "effective deterrence and resolute defense." In case of war, the plan was to "detain the enemy on the opposite shore, fight the enemy at sea, and destroy the enemy if they land." The Taiwan Strait and the coast of Taiwan itself were considered the main battlefield. This was a passive attitude to defense. In the event of conflict, the battlefield would be the Taiwan Strait, and the fight would extend to Taiwan's coast and into the hinterland.
During the presidential elections in 2000, Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) favored the idea of "offshore engagement" as part of defense strategy. He hoped this would ensure that any armed conflict would not ravage the country. At the time, a lot of people laughed: How could Taiwan be powerful enough to engage China "offshore?"
Around 2004, the Southern Taiwan Society invited an expert working in the US to discuss the military situation in Taiwan and China. During the meeting, a member of the society asked if Taiwan had the power to launch a counterattack against China. The expert replied that it did not.
After Chen became president, the budget for the military-run Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology -- which is in charge of weapons research and development -- was immediately increased from NT$7 billion (US$216 million) to NT$9 billion. Information about three new missiles -- the Hsiung Feng III, Hsiung Feng IIE and Tien Kung III -- was released in both national and foreign media. Recently, the US put pressure on Taiwan not to display the Hsiung Feng IIE cruise missile in the military parade on Double Ten National Day, and made it clear it did not want Taiwan to deploy the missile on its outlying islands.
The missile's range is 600km, which means Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and the Three Gorges Dam would be within its reach. The Hsiung Feng IIE gives Taiwan the power needed for "offshore engagement." The US, wanting to halt further research by Taiwan that might enable it to build a missile with a range of 1,000km, is now said to be considering selling Tomahawk missiles to Taiwan.
The Hsiung Feng III anti-ship missile has a range of 130km, and perhaps even as much as 300km. It is a more powerful anti-ship weapon than the Sunburn anti-ship missiles that China has bought from Russia. In 2002, Chen ordered that a budget of more than NT$20 billion be allotted to research and development on this advanced weapon. If US and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators do not create further obstacles, the Hsiung Feng III might serve as a tool for attacking Chinese aircraft carriers.
Between 2001 and last year, Chen has given instructions for the allocation of NT$19 billion to research and development of the Tien Kung III missile. Combined with US-supplied Patriot and Hawk missiles, this has equipped Taiwan with a potent arsenal of anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems. There is also speculation that because its research and development system was joined with that of missiles with a range of 1,000km, the Tien Kung III might become the first of more Taiwanese medium-range missiles.
Chen has done everything in his power to protect research and development of Taiwanese missiles, and offshore engagement capabilities have been realized. It is now one of the considerations that Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) points out in his internal directives: If a military conflict broke out in the Taiwan Strait, China's coast could be a seriously affected, halting economic development.
If Chen's missile plans curb Beijing's bellicosity, it will be a blessing for everyone.
Cheng Cheng-iok is the president of the Southern Taiwan Society.
Translated by Anna Stiggelbout
In late January, Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), completed its first submerged dive, reaching a depth of roughly 50m during trials in the waters off Kaohsiung. By March, it had managed a fifth dive, still well short of the deep-water and endurance tests required before the navy could accept the vessel. The original delivery deadline of November last year passed months ago. CSBC Corp, Taiwan, the lead contractor, now targets June and the Ministry of National Defense is levying daily penalties for every day the submarine remains unfinished. The Hai Kun was supposed to be
Reports about Elon Musk planning his own semiconductor fab have sparked anxiety, with some warning that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) could lose key customers to vertical integration. A closer reading suggests a more measured conclusion: Musk is advancing a strategic vision of in-house chip manufacturing, but remains far from replacing the existing foundry ecosystem. For TSMC, the short-term impact is limited; the medium-term challenge lies in supply diversification and pricing pressure, only in the long term could it evolve into a structural threat. The clearest signal is Musk’s announcement that Tesla and SpaceX plan to develop a fab project dubbed “Terafab”
Most schoolchildren learn that the circumference of the Earth is about 40,000km. They do not learn that the global economy depends on just 160 of those kilometers. Blocking two narrow waterways — the Strait of Hormuz and the Taiwan Strait — could send the economy back in time, if not to the Stone Age that US President Donald Trump has been threatening to bomb Iran back to, then at least to the mid-20th century, before the Rolling Stones first hit the airwaves. Over the past month and a half, Iran has turned the Strait of Hormuz, which is about 39km wide at
The ongoing Middle East crisis has reinforced an uncomfortable truth for Taiwan: In an increasingly interconnected and volatile world, distant wars rarely remain distant. What began as a regional confrontation between the US, Israel and Iran has evolved into a strategic shock wave reverberating far beyond the Persian Gulf. For Taiwan, the consequences are immediate, material and deeply unsettling. From Taipei’s perspective, the conflict has exposed two vulnerabilities — Taiwan’s dependence on imported energy and the risks created when Washington’s military attention is diverted. Together, they offer a preview of the pressures Taiwan might increasingly face in an era of overlapping geopolitical
RSS