In 1955, US general Benjamin Davis Jr, then-commander of the US’ 13th Air Force, drew a maritime demarcation line in the middle of the Taiwan Strait, known as the median line. Under pressure from the US, Taiwan and China entered into a tacit agreement not to cross the line.
On July 9, 1999, then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) described cross-strait relations as a “special state-to-state” relationship.
In response, Beijing dispatched People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft into the Taiwan Strait, crossing the median line for the first time since 1955.
The PLA has begun to regularly traverse the line. On Sept. 18 and 19, it dispatched multiple waves of aircraft from different directions and flying at different altitudes. The aircraft crossed the median line in a harassing attack. It was a signal that China no longer recognizes the median line.
The Ministry of National Defense earlier this month specified the definition of a “first strike” in its rules of engagement as “the right to self-defense.” This means that Taiwanese fighter pilots must wait for their PLA adversaries to fire the first shot, then request permission to return fire, which must be granted at the ministerial level.
Under the new rules of engagement, even if PLA aircraft enter the nation’s airspace, Taiwanese pilots have been deprived of the right to exercise their independent judgement and carry out a legitimate, pre-emptive strike in self-defense.
Once PLA pilots become aware that Taiwanese pilots are no longer allowed to independently return fire, they might gain a taste for harassing them and further push the boundaries: Give a knave an inch and he will take a mile.
The PLA might adopt this salami-slicing strategy to erode the airspace for Taiwanese pilots to conduct contingency training.
Under the combat readiness regulations, a first strike outside the nation’s airspace requires authorization at the ministerial level. However, inside Taiwan’s 12 nautical mile (22.2km) territorial airspace, the combat commander can authorize a first strike at their discretion.
A few seconds is a lifetime in modern combat. Under the updated regulations, the air battle for the Taiwan Strait would be over before the authorization is received — and many Taiwanese pilots’ lives would be needlessly sacrificed. This change to the rules of engagement might have a serious impact on the morale of Taiwan’s frontline fighter pilots.
Worse still, pre-emptive self-defense is entirely legitimate under customary international law. Following the Caroline affair of 1837, the “Caroline test” established the concept of “anticipatory self-defense.” It states that the use of pre-emptive force is justified if four tests are satisfied: First, the threat must be imminent; second, no other options are available; third, there is an instant and overwhelming necessity to act, and; fourth, the response must be proportionate to the threat.
The National Security Council’s adoption of a “no first strike” rule is a strategic political decision, not a military one. Since Taiwan is faced with the threat of an attack from a substantially more powerful enemy, this is understandable. As the military is at its core a political instrument, political objectives must sometimes override military considerations.
However, with PLA airplanes and ships conducting near-constant encirclement drills around Taiwan, a responsible government would not restrict its military from the self-defense option of conducting a legitimate pre-emptive strike. After all, the use of force to resist invasion and maintain peace is the purist definition of a “just war.”
Lin Tai-ho is a professor at National Chung Cheng University’s Institute of Strategic and International Affairs.
Translated by Edward Jones
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
On May 13, the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to Article 6 of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of nuclear reactors from 40 to 60 years, thereby providing a legal basis for the extension or reactivation of nuclear power plants. On May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators used their numerical advantage to pass the TPP caucus’ proposal for a public referendum that would determine whether the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant should resume operations, provided it is deemed safe by the authorities. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has