The nation’s indigenously produced submarine, the Hai-kun (“Narwhal”), was recently unveiled in a public ceremony.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is attempting to combine the Taiwan Strait and the South China and East China seas into one body of water, to extend the boundaries of its defensive sphere to the western Pacific Ocean.
This is being done to deny the US a strategic solution in case of a limited war between China and the US, particularly as the US military possesses superior underwater warfare capabilities, the US-based think tank RAND Corp said.
If Taiwan has a formidable submarine fleet, it could significantly increase the odds of successfully deterring an invasion.
In September 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the median line of the Taiwan Strait did not exist.
PLA Navy (PLAN) ships and planes traversing the median line, and even encircling Taiwan itself, have become a common occurrence.
In late January this year, the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration abruptly announced changes to the M503 flight path, which almost entirely overlaps with the median line.
In August last year, China’s official maps included a “10-dash line” skirting around Taiwan’s eastern coast.
Combining this 10-dash line with the “nine-dash line” around the South China Sea, it seems that Beijing sees these two bodies of water as a Chinese lake, and has deployed naval ships around four areas surrounding Taiwan.
In the northern part of China’s 10-dash line, plus the East China Sea, China has created its East China Sea Air Defense Zone. It often deploys three warships outside of this zone and demands that foreign vessels and aircraft leave the area.
It has also frequently deployed warships to the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台列嶼), also known in Japan as the Senkaku Islands.
Beijing is attempting to stitch together the littoral areas of the Taiwan Strait, East China Sea and South China Sea to create a peripheral defense sphere that makes direct contact with the Pacific Ocean.
The PLA possesses nuclear armaments and there is only room for limited warfare between China and the US.
In theory, there are only three responses that could be made: Deterrence, raising the stakes and a combination of deterrence and raising stakes.
An example of deterrence would be wrecking the aerial and maritime transportation units the PLA uses to ferry military units to Taiwan, preventing them from landing on its shores.
Increasing the stakes would include long-distance deterrence or strategic bombing of targets that would not incur a major PLA retaliation.
The US military is also capable of fighting via deterrence. There are a few key reasons for this:
First, an amphibious landing would be a highly treacherous undertaking. The US military would only need to break China’s aerial and maritime support of an amphibious assault to thwart a PLA invasion of Taiwan.
Second, the US military enjoys superiority in underwater warfare, long-range precision strikes and aircraft and warships. It also has superior numbers of fourth and fifth-generation fighter jets, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers.
If Taiwan’s and Japan’s navies were added to the US’ numbers, the superiority would be even more evident.
Third, the US and its allies are making defense preparations. Taiwan’s military conscription period has been extended to a full year, and Japan’s self-defense budget is set to double within the next five years.
Fourth, the US and its allies’ military budgets, GDP, purchasing power and per capita GDP are all greater than China’s.
Ukraine — which has almost no warships — has used anti-ship missiles along with uncrewed aerial vehicles and watercraft to effectively fend off Russia’s Black Sea fleet and halt the capture of the Ukrainian port of Odesa.
Submarines are the greatest weapon for denying enemy advantages.
Taiwan has a submarine fleet and if allies were to accompany this fleet, it would maintain underwater superiority.
This would wear down the PLAN’s abilities to turn the Taiwan Strait and the two adjacent seas into China’s private lake. It would also effectively deter an amphibious air and naval invasion of Taiwan.
Ou Si-fu is a research fellow at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
Translated by Tim Smith
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