Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to have the capability to successfully invade Taiwan by 2027, National Security Council (NSC) Secretary-General Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said yesterday, casting doubt on the progress of Beijing’s military modernization plans.
Taiwan would continue to delay the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) invasion timetable by strengthening its defense capabilities, Koo said.
“I don’t think it will happen in the near future or at least within one to two years,” Koo said of a Chinese invasion.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“If China needs to carry out amphibious landing operations to take Taiwan, I don’t think it will have such capabilities by 2027,” he said.
Koo declined to pinpoint when an attack could happen, saying only that Taiwan does not see Beijing making invasion preparations.
Beijing is already facing uncertainty next year from its own economic downturn, while the world must also deal with the US election, and wars in Europe and the Middle East, he said.
Xi is seeking to build a “world-class force” by 2027, a deadline that coincides with the 100th anniversary of the PLA.
Then-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley last year said that Beijing’s military would not be ready to invade Taiwan for “some time.”
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown Jr last week said he doubts Beijing plans to take Taiwan militarily.
Koo said Taiwan would use mobile weapons such as anti-ship missiles, HIMARS, drones and Javelin anti-tank systems to make China’s landing operations more difficult in the event of an invasion.
The US plans to accelerate a HIMARS shipment by one year to 2026.
Earlier this month, Koo said the US government is taking steps to speed up the delivery of US weapons systems to Taiwan that have been delayed by factors including shipments to Ukraine.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS