According to Japan’s Kyodo news agency, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is to hold military exercises in August centering on an attack on the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea.
Taiwan’s military leaders have let it be known that, should the islands be invaded by a hostile force, the nation would respond in one of three ways: a complete withdrawal, a fight to the death or surrender.
The islands became a hot topic in Taiwan overnight, but any discussion of the Pratas Islands should factor in the ignominy on Taiwan’s loss of Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島).
Thitu Island is the second-largest natural island in the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) and lies to the west of the Tiezhi Shuidao (Thitu trough).
On July 29, 1971, the Republic of China (ROC) army withdrew from the island to avoid a typhoon, and the Philippines took advantage of the situation to send its troops to the island, which it named Pagasa Island.
After this incident, surrounding nations concluded that Taiwan was not resolved to operate in the South China Sea.
The reality is that the Pratas Islands are vulnerable to attack and not easily defended, but at the same time they could act as an unsinkable aircraft carrier protecting Taiwan proper to the south.
The crux of this dilemma is that the islands have comprehensive airport and runway facilities, but lack a standing military presence.
With the islands located in a remote position far out in the South China Sea, the F-16s and Phantom 2000s that are Taiwan’s main first-line aircraft would have burned up much of their fuel by the time they arrive from Taiwan proper, making protecting the islands extremely problematic.
This is why Richard Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center in the US, has since 2017 been calling on the US government to sell Taiwan low-cost used KC-135 or KC-130J tanker aircraft, a position this author wholeheartedly agrees with.
Singapore brought in US-made KC-46 tanker aircraft to effectively control the airspace over the Strait of Malacca. If Taiwan is to effectively control the airspace over the Bashi Channel and the islands in the South China Sea, it absolutely needs to bring in tanker aircraft for mid-air refueling.
Also, if US aircraft encounter a serious incident around the first island chain and require mid-air refueling, Taiwan would be able to provide support.
An evaluation of the C-130H transport plane, made by the US company Lockheed Martin and which has been in active service in the ROC Air Force for 30 years, said that their airframe had corroded because of Taiwan’s island climate, and would need to be replaced or given a mid-life update.
The government should consider using KC-130J tanker aircraft or the new version of the C-130J to reinforce the military’s ability to defend the Pratas Islands, as abandoning them would be tantamount to abandoning Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島), which would be unthinkable.
The reason that surrounding nations are looking covetously at Taiwan’s outlying islands is that its main fighters have limited range, curtailing its ability to defend distant territories.
The Ministry of National Defense should seek to obtain new-generation transport planes and tanker aircraft.
Improved military capabilities would broaden the nation’s options, and surrounding countries would no longer doubt Taiwan’s resolve to defend that which is its own.
Chang Feng-lin is a university lecturer.
Translated by Paul Cooper
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS