Military exercises are a means to ensure troop readiness and improve coordination. They are theory put into practice and a mechanism to see where improvement is needed. For many soldiers, exercises are the closest they will ever get to actual combat.
Given the high costs involved in large-scale exercises and the amount of planning that goes into them, military strategists take into consideration two variables: threat and risk assessments. A threat assessment determines the nature of a threat to national security — from cyber-attacks to terrorism. Risk assessments, on the other hand, determine the likelihood of a potential attack and how detrimental it would be to the well-being of the nation.
Through these, a matrix can be created to isolate the likeliest threats and those that would be most damaging, which also helps governments allocate resources to where they are needed most.
It is therefore puzzling that on Sunday the government would choose to hold an anti-terror exercise at sea in Kaohsiung in lieu of the traditional live-fire drills simulating a Chinese attack.
The threat of terrorism in the waters off Taiwan is quite low. The motivation to target Taiwanese shipping isn’t there; the Taiwan Strait is not the Strait of Malacca. Furthermore, in terms of potential damage to the national interest, the hijacking of an oil tanker — the scenario in this weekend’s exercise — ranks rather low.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said after the exercise that “reconciliation” in the Taiwan Strait meant that Taiwanese “no longer need to spend time worrying about war” with China, which ostensibly translated into the military no longer having to prepare for that contingency. The problem with this, however, is that in spite of warming ties between Taiwan and China, a military attack by China remains the likeliest threat to Taiwanese security and the one that would have the most serious consequences for the survival of the nation. It is the responsibility of the military to prepare and train for the likeliest scenario.
Sunday’s exercise, which was preceded by an equally risible computer war game last week, was not a serious affair. It was theater, turning a necessary tool through which soldiers develop important skills into a political signal to two audiences. It was meant to tell Taiwanese that Ma’s cross-strait policy is working — so quickly, in fact, that a mere year after he stepped into office, Taiwan no longer needed to prepare for war with China. It was also a signal to Beijing that Ma doesn’t take the threat of invasion seriously. Given that China has yet to reciprocate Taiwan’s military drawdown and has shown no sign that it will abandon its own military exercises simulating an invasion of Taiwan, Ma’s message could be interpreted as capitulation.
This is not to say that the Taiwanese military should not prepare for contingencies other than a Chinese invasion, and in that regard Sunday’s exercise is valid. But a military that constantly complains about budget constraints should allocate its precious resources to prepare for the likeliest threats.
Ma has no crystal ball. He doesn’t know what will happen. Given the problematic relationship between Taiwan and China, there are bound to be phases of deterioration in cross-strait relations. It’s even possible that in 2012 the Ma government will be replaced by a pro-independence party. As such, any president who takes national defense seriously would ensure that, regardless of future developments, the nation will retain the capability to defend itself.
That means planning and training for an invasion by China, live fire and all.
As China’s economy was meant to drive global economic growth this year, its dramatic slowdown is sounding alarm bells across the world, with economists and experts criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for his unwillingness or inability to respond to the nation’s myriad mounting crises. The Wall Street Journal reported that investors have been calling on Beijing to take bolder steps to boost output — especially by promoting consumer spending — but Xi has deep-rooted philosophical objections to Western-style consumption-driven growth, seeing it as wasteful and at odds with his goal of making China a world-leading industrial and technological powerhouse, and
For Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the military conquest of Taiwan is an absolute requirement for the CCP’s much more fantastic ambition: control over our solar system. Controlling Taiwan will allow the CCP to dominate the First Island Chain and to better neutralize the Philippines, decreasing the threat to the most important People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force (SSF) space base, the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island. Satellite and manned space launches from the Jiuquan and Xichang Satellite Launch Centers regularly pass close to Taiwan, which is also a very serious threat to the PLA,
During a news conference in Vietnam on Sept. 10, a reporter asked US President Joe Biden about the possibility of China invading Taiwan. Biden replied that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is too busy handling major domestic economic problems to launch an invasion of Taiwan. On Wednesday last week, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office published a document outlining 21 measures to make the Chinese-controlled Fujian Province into a demonstration zone for relations with Taiwan. The planned measures would expand favorable treatment for Taiwanese people and companies, and seek to attract people from Taiwan to buy property and seek employment in Fujian.
More than 100 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) vessels and aircraft were detected making incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on Sunday and Monday, the Ministry of National Defense reported on Monday. The ministry responded to the incursions by calling on China to “immediately stop such destructive unilateral actions,” saying that Beijing’s actions could “easily lead to a sharp escalation in tensions and worsen regional security.” Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said that the unusually high number of incursions over such a short time was likely Beijing’s response to efforts
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