The Economist yesterday said that “promises to fight for Taiwan” are an ineffective deterrent and could instead lead to a diplomatic fallout with Beijing, something that could be avoided by taking practical action to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities.
The 180km-wide Taiwan Strait and the US military stand as the two main components deterring Beijing from attacking Taiwan, but Beijing is working to overcome both obstacles, the weekly said, adding that some US generals have said that Beijing could attack Taiwan by 2030.
The article, titled “How to deter China from attacking Taiwan,” says Taiwan, the US and its allies must learn the lessons of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — the most important of which is that “the threat is real.”
Photo: CNA
Instead of brainstorming for strategies during battle, it behooves the US and Taiwan to prepare now, the article said, adding: “The more prepared Taiwan is for the attack, the lesser the chances that China will take the risk.”
Taiwan has made the right decision in cutting down on its reliance on conscripts and moving to increase the capabilities of a professional standing military, the article said.
Nonetheless, Taiwan should continue to provide its eligible men — and perhaps women — with military training to create a capable homeland defense force, it added.
Taiwan should increase its defense spending, as its current expenditure of 2 percent of GDP is still on the low side, the article said, citing that Israel’s defense spending amounts to 5.6 percent of GDP.
Taiwan should not expect to match Beijing in defense expenditure or the scale of available forces to be committed and should, instead, make itself a “thorny problem” for its enemies, it said.
The overall defense concept proposed by the nation’s generals in 2017 is the right path, but unfortunately, it has yet to become widely accepted by Taiwan’s military, the article said.
The concept adopts large numbers of scattered and highly mobile defense weapon platforms that are easily covered, especially anti-surface and anti-air missiles, the article said.
However, this would mean that the military would have to give up fighter jets, ships and submarines, all of which are more expensive, it added.
While being an island means it is more difficult for an enemy force to mount a successful attack, it also exposes Taiwan to the risk of being difficult to provision for, which would mean that it must fight on its own for weeks, or even months, before US military aid — which is not guaranteed — could arrive.
The longer Taiwan can hold out in the event of an assault, the more help it stands to receive, just like Ukraine, the article said.
The US should consider elevating the level of political and military interactions with Taiwan, push for more arms deal packages and step up mutual exercises, an area in which Taiwan is sorely lacking, it said.
The US should also work with Japan and other regional allies to come up with plans and conduct exercises on how to react should Taiwan be cut off or is invaded.
Such actions would inevitably anger Beijing, and US President Joe Biden should cautiously maintain a degree of “strategic ambiguity,” the article said.
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
DETERMINATION: Beijing’s actions toward Tokyo have drawn international attention, but would likely bolster regional coordination and defense networks, the report said Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s administration is likely to prioritize security reforms and deterrence in the face of recent “hybrid” threats from China, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said. The bureau made the assessment in a written report to the Legislative Yuan ahead of an oral report and questions-and-answers session at the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The key points of Japan’s security reforms would be to reinforce security cooperation with the US, including enhancing defense deployment in the first island chain, pushing forward the integrated command and operations of the Japan Self-Defense Forces and US Forces Japan, as
IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST: Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu said the strengthening of military facilities would help to maintain security in the Taiwan Strait Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi, visiting a military base close to Taiwan, said plans to deploy missiles to the post would move forward as tensions smolder between Tokyo and Beijing. “The deployment can help lower the chance of an armed attack on our country,” Koizumi told reporters on Sunday as he wrapped up his first trip to the base on the southern Japanese island of Yonaguni. “The view that it will heighten regional tensions is not accurate.” Former Japanese minister of defense Gen Nakatani in January said that Tokyo wanted to base Type 03 Chu-SAM missiles on Yonaguni, but little progress
IN THE MIDDLE: Some of the lawmakers defended the trip as an opportunity for investment, cooperation and to see models that could help modernize Panama A planned trip by some Panamanian lawmakers to Taiwan has unleashed the latest diplomatic spat with China as the Central American country tries to navigate the turbulent waters between the Asian superpower and the US. The Panamanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US ambassador to the country on Wednesday criticized China’s diplomats in Panama for asking the lawmakers to cancel their trip to Taiwan, with the ministry accusing the Chinese embassy of “meddling” in its internal affairs. That followed comments from Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino a week earlier saying that the planned Taiwan trip did not have the approval of
RSS