In response to the increasing competition and confrontation between the US and China, the US military has been strengthening its deterrence against its Asian rival.
Notably, to strengthen the defense of the western Pacific first island chain, the US has quietly allowed Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to develop their indigenous cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of more than 1,000km.
As well as strengthening these three countries’ defense capabilities, this development shows how their geographical location allows them to work closely with the US’ national security agencies.
For example, South Korea has long been threatened by North Korea’s nuclear weapons. In recent years, with the assistance of the US as well as its own diligent research and development efforts, South Korea has developed the Hyunmoo missile series.
Among the four types of missile in the series, the Hyunmoo-3 has a range of up to 3,000km, which is more than enough to reach anywhere in the Korean Peninsula. As for the Hyunmoo-4, its ability to carry an earth-penetrating warhead gives it a strong deterrent effect against North Korea’s underground missile and nuclear weapons facilities.
Taiwan has for decades been under military threat from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA). In the early years, due to its own technical limitations as well as restrictions imposed by the US, Taiwan did not have the military hardware needed to carry out attacks at source — pre-emptive strikes.
However, times have changed. Thanks to years of effort by Taiwan’s armed forces, plus the intensified strategic rivalry between the US and China, the armed forces are reportedly in possession of the Hsiung Feng IIE cruise missile, whose 1,000km range is a deterrent against the PLA.
Japan is the US’ most important ally in the Asia-Pacific region, but it has in recent years suffered increasingly frequent harassment by the PLA.
To maintain its basic power of national defense, Japan plans to modify its existing Type 12 surface-to-ship missile by extending its range from 200km to 1,500km.
This would not only defend its southwestern islands, but also help lessen the US’ burden of defending the first island chain.
Faced with China’s increasing military threat and its continued challenge to the longstanding US-dominated order in the first and second island chains, the US is not only striving to widen its lead over the PLA in military technology, but has also tacitly allowed Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to possess or develop cruise or ballistic missiles with a range of more than 1,000km.
The geostrategic position of these three countries has risen amid the intensified rivalry between the US and China.
Ray Song is a doctoral student at Tamkang University’s Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
Translated by Julian Clegg
A failure by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respond to Israel’s brilliant 12-day (June 12-23) bombing and special operations war against Iran, topped by US President Donald Trump’s ordering the June 21 bombing of Iranian deep underground nuclear weapons fuel processing sites, has been noted by some as demonstrating a profound lack of resolve, even “impotence,” by China. However, this would be a dangerous underestimation of CCP ambitions and its broader and more profound military response to the Trump Administration — a challenge that includes an acceleration of its strategies to assist nuclear proxy states, and developing a wide array
Jaw Shaw-kong (趙少康), former chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China and leader of the “blue fighters,” recently announced that he had canned his trip to east Africa, and he would stay in Taiwan for the recall vote on Saturday. He added that he hoped “his friends in the blue camp would follow his lead.” His statement is quite interesting for a few reasons. Jaw had been criticized following media reports that he would be traveling in east Africa during the recall vote. While he decided to stay in Taiwan after drawing a lot of flak, his hesitation says it all: If
Twenty-four Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are facing recall votes on Saturday, prompting nearly all KMT officials and lawmakers to rally their supporters over the past weekend, urging them to vote “no” in a bid to retain their seats and preserve the KMT’s majority in the Legislative Yuan. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which had largely kept its distance from the civic recall campaigns, earlier this month instructed its officials and staff to support the recall groups in a final push to protect the nation. The justification for the recalls has increasingly been framed as a “resistance” movement against China and
Owing to the combined majority of the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), the legislature last week voted to further extend the current session to the end of next month, prolonging the session twice for a total of 211 days, the longest in Taiwan’s democratic history. Legally, the legislature holds two regular sessions annually: from February to May, and from September to December. The extensions pushed by the opposition in May and last week mean there would be no break between the first and second sessions this year. While the opposition parties said the extensions were needed to
RSS