China would carefully weigh its military capabilities and costs of an attack before launching an amphibious assault against Taiwan, former acting US secretary of the army John Whitley said yesterday.
He made the remarks during a speech in Taipei, entitled “An Economist goes to the Army.” The economist-turned-military official is visiting Taiwan for the first time at the invitation of National Taiwan University’s Department of Economics.
During a question-and-answer session, he was asked about the factors the Chinese Communist Party might take into account before launching an invasion of Taiwan.
Photo: AP
“The first and foremost question is whether you have the military equipment and specialized training force to succeed. A cross-strait invasion would be one of the hardest military maneuvers ever — you have a lot of water, and a lot of things could go wrong. You also have beaches and land that is not ideal for landing,” Whitley said.
“My understanding is that China relatively understood that they did not have sufficient training and stockpile of ammunition to do that for many years. That has been the focus of their defense buildup, which has led to a dramatic increase in defense spending,” he added.
Beijing also needs to calculate the costs of launching a war against Taiwan and ask itself if an amphibious operation is worth it, Whitley said.
“And if the operation does not succeed, you are looking at existential threat to the Chinese Communist Party. China is very cognizant that this is going to be a high-risk, high-cost operation, and that they would not like to do it unless they have to. They would try politically and economically coercive means first before taking military actions,” he said.
Despite the costs, China might still attack Taiwan as the US government shifts its focus from the Middle East to conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region, which presents Beijing with an opportunity, he said.
Last year, the Taiwanese government announced that defense spending for this year would jump 13.9 percent to NT$58.63 billion (US$1.9 billion), or about 2.4 percent of GDP.
Although it was the largest defense budget increase in recent years, it pales in comparison with China’s military spending, which reached 1.56 trillion yuan (US$220.7 billion) this year.
Defense spending is a “measure of affordability, not a measure of demand,” Whitley said, adding that the demand side of the equation depends on strategic plans.
“The US can grow significantly while maintaining 3 to 4 percent for defense spending. During the Cold War, US defense spending was about 8 percent. That is the calibration range of what tends to be affordable in a vibrant democracy. If you need to spend it, spend it in the way you can afford,” Whitley said.
Whitely also identified three levels of problems in modernizing Taiwanese troops.
“It would be nice if we have the luxury of time that we can get a year or two to get our concept of defense right, and take a couple more years to get strategic plans right before figuring out what our training is,” he said.
“The challenge is we are doing all of this at the same time because you cannot stop military training, and have to make decisions for acquisitions now without the benefit of perfectly developing an analytic framework,” he added.
Whitley said that it should not be difficult to convince the public to increase defense spending.
“After the crackdown on dissidents in Hong Kong and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, my sense is that there are very few people who do not think [the Chinese military threat] is a serious problem,” he said.
ANOTHER EMERGES: The CWA yesterday said this year’s fourth storm of the typhoon season had formed in the South China Sea, but was not expected to affect Taiwan Tropical Storm Gaemi has intensified slightly as it heads toward Taiwan, where it is expected to affect the country in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 8am yesterday, the 120km-radius storm was 800km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving at 9kph northwest, the agency said. A sea warning for Gaemi could be issued tonight at the earliest, it said, adding that the storm is projected to be closest to Taiwan on Wednesday or Thursday. Gaemi’s potential effect on Taiwan remains unclear, as that would depend on its direction, radius and intensity, forecasters said. Former Weather Forecast
As COVID-19 cases in Japan have been increasing for 10 consecutive weeks, people should get vaccinated before visiting the nation, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. The centers reported 773 hospitalizations and 124 deaths related to COVID-19 in Taiwan last week. CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) on Tuesday said the number of weekly COVID-19 cases reported in Japan has been increasing since mid-May and surpassed 55,000 cases from July 8 to July 14. The average number of COVID-19 patients at Japan’s healthcare facilities that week was also 1.39 times that of the week before and KP.3 is the dominant
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) working group for Taiwan-related policies is likely to be upgraded to a committee-level body, a report commissioned by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said. As Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is increasingly likely to upgrade the CCP’s Central Leading Group for Taiwan Affairs, Taiwanese authorities should prepare by researching Xi and the CCP, the report said. At the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the CCP, which ended on Thursday last week, the party set a target of 2029 for the completion of some tasks, meaning that Xi is likely preparing to
US-CHINA TRADE DISPUTE: Despite Beijing’s offer of preferential treatment, the lure of China has dimmed as Taiwanese and international investors move out Japan and the US have become the favored destinations for Taiwanese graduates as China’s attraction has waned over the years, the Ministry of Labor said. According to the ministry’s latest income and employment advisory published this month, 3,215 Taiwanese university graduates from the class of 2020 went to Japan, surpassing for the first time the 2,881 graduates who went to China. A total of 2,300 graduates from the class of 2021 went to the US, compared with the 2,262 who went to China, the document showed. The trend continued for the class of 2023, of whom 1,460 went to Japan, 1,334 went to