On Tuesday, the Ministry of National Defense published the 2021 People’s Liberation Army [PLA] Capability Report, its annual assessment of the Chinese military’s capabilities. This year’s report struck a notably more alarming tone than in previous years and included the stark warning that the PLA possesses the ability to paralyze Taiwan’s anti-air and anti-surface systems, as well as to neutralize its ability to launch countermeasures by means of “soft and hard electronic attacks.”
The report anticipates that the PLA would in 2025 receive delivery of its third aircraft carrier, the Type 003, which would further bolster its area-denial capabilities, hindering foreign intervention, and enhancing its ability to project naval and air power beyond the first and second island chains.
As in previous years, this year’s report said that the PLA lacks sufficient transport assets and the logistical capability to launch an amphibious assault against Taiwan, but added that China is making progress toward rectifying these deficiencies. Additionally, the report stated that the PLA is no longer focused primarily on beach landings and is developing the capability to air drop troops.
The report’s downbeat assessment has drawn criticism in some quarters. Former National Assembly member Huang Peng-hsiao (黃澎孝) criticized the outlook and wording of the report, labeling it “terrifying.”
Huang added that, at first glance, it reads like a propaganda piece by Hu Xijin (胡錫進), editor-in-chief of China’s state-run Global Times tabloid, who is known for his nationalistic rhetoric.
Huang’s criticisms are wide of the mark. The function of the annual report is not to paper over deficiencies in Taiwan’s defenses or to boost the morale of service personnel and the wider public, but to present an unvarnished analysis of the threat posed by China and honestly appraise the nation’s capabilities. A cursory look at recent operations by the PLA demonstrates the vital importance of transparent analysis given the constantly evolving threat from China.
Last week, the PLA conducted the first-ever incursion of Chinese military helicopters into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. It was the first recorded incident of intrusions by Chinese helicopters since the defense ministry began reporting Chinese aerial incursions in September last year. Taiwanese military analysts believe the PLA could be probing the capabilities of Taiwan’s defense system to study how it responds to different aircraft types.
Japanese media on Monday reported that a PLA warship has been stationed 24 hours a day in waters between northeast Taiwan and Yonaguni Island, the westernmost of Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. The waterway is a strategic chokepoint, and China is attempting to limit the movements of Taiwanese and Japanese naval vessels in the area.
Russian state broadcaster RT published an opinion article on Wednesday claiming that Taiwan had cynically overstated the threat of “paralysis” posed by a Chinese cyberattack for the purposes of increasing support from foreign nations. While this possibility cannot be completely ruled out, Japan’s annual defense white paper, published in July, painted a similarly stark picture of the threat posed by China’s rapid military buildup.
Moreover, it is well documented that the PLA has already developed, or is in the process of developing, sophisticated electronic and cyberwarfare capabilities, including the ability to launch electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks. The PLA’s EMP capability was detailed by former CIA officer and US Task Force on National and Homeland Security Executive Director Peter Pry, in a report published in June last year.
In reality, nobody knows how a modern state-on-state war would play out in the digital age; how well military systems can hold up under the onslaught of an EMP attack.
We are in uncharted waters. The military is right to take the threat seriously.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, most headlines referred to her as the leader of the opposition in Taiwan. Is she really, though? Being the chairwoman of the KMT does not automatically translate into being the leader of the opposition in the sense that most foreign readers would understand it. “Leader of the opposition” is a very British term. It applies to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, and to some extent, to other democracies. If you look at the UK right now, Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch is
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
RSS