China is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan, as defeat would mean the collapse of the Chinese Communist Party, a former Japanese defense official said on Sunday.
China is also facing food security problems and its military strength remains insufficient for an invasion of Taiwan, Tokuichiro Tamazawa, who formerly served as director-general of the Japan Defense Agency, said during a speech at an event held by the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in Taipei.
In a Facebook post, political commentator Akio Yaita quoted 85-year-old Tamazawa as saying that this week’s visit to Taiwan was aimed at “uniting Taiwanese in the face of Chinese projections of strength.”
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
If Taiwanese show determination to defend themselves, democracies worldwide would come to their aid, Tamazawa was quoted as saying.
Tamazawa said that as China imports 5 percent of its food, and since its Belt and Road Initiative has failed to boost its food security as Beijing had hoped, 70 million Chinese face food security problems.
Those food imports are also being threatened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as China previously had obtained 27 percent of its imported grains from the two nations, he said.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that 60 percent of China’s population eats pork and 1kg of pork requires 30kg of grain to produce, he said, adding that China is also struggling to catch enough fish to meet demand, especially as Chinese fishers are banned from fishing within 200 nautical miles (370km) of Japanese waters.
“Launching a war requires an abundant food supply. If China were to start a war now, it would immediately face food shortages,” Tamazawa said. “You can’t fight a war on an empty stomach.”
He said that the US invasion of Japan in World War II could be used as a reference for how an attempted invasion of Taiwan might unfold.
“The US military had roughly 700,000 troops, 30 aircraft carriers and 300 warships when it initially attempted to take Kyushu, which had a garrison of 200,000 troops,” he said. “Despite its greater numbers, the US was unable to take Kyushu at that time.”
China would need at least 1.3 million to 1.6 million troops to invade Taiwan and it is currently not capable of transporting that number to Taiwan in the timeframe required, he said.
Beijing realizes that an invasion would fail, which is the reason it uses aggressive cognitive warfare tactics against Taiwan, Tamazawa said.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS