President-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) best strategy to stop China from seizing Taiwan would likely be to bolster an agile defensive “porcupine” approach by spending more on missiles and drones, analysts said.
Lessons learned from Russia’s war in Ukraine about how rapidly developing drones can outfox traditional heavy weaponry show that Lai would boost Taiwan’s production of modern military technology after he takes over as president tomorrow.
“Taiwan is taking the Chinese military threat more seriously,” RAND Corporation Taiwan Policy Initiative director Raymond Kuo said.
Photo: Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters
“It has ramped up its production of anti-ship missiles, tested new anti-air missiles, and is on track to manufacture several thousand military drones,” he said.
“I would expect those efforts to continue [under Lai] alongside purchases of US equipment and development of large platforms like the indigenous submarine.”
Washington switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, but it has remained Taiwan’s most important partner and biggest arms supplier.
Beijing maintains a near-daily presence of fighter jets, drones and naval ships around Taiwan in what experts call “gray zone” actions — tactics that fall short of an act of war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Beijing during a visit to China last month to avoid “provocative” measures during Lai’s inauguration tomorrow.
Taiwan authorities have detected dozens of Chinese aircraft near the nation in recent days. Beijing, which calls Lai a “dangerous separatist,” is expected to intensify military pressure in the coming years, underscoring the security challenges facing his administration.
“This reality means that a key measure of success of the Lai administration will be how far he can push forward the necessary reforms to improve Taiwan’s ability to defend itself and deter Chinese aggression,” International Crisis Group senior analyst Amanda Hsiao (蕭嫣然) said.
Washington approved a huge military aid package for Taipei last month in the face of an increasingly assertive China, including US$1.9 billion for replenishing its military equipment and training.
Another US$2 billion would be used for “foreign military financing” for countries in the region.
Taiwan is under pressure to increase its defence spending and adopt a “porcupine” strategy to deter an attack from China, National Chengchi University Taiwan Center for Security Studies Director Richard Hu (胡瑞舟) said.
“With lessons learned from the Russian-Ukraine war, the defence ministry will try to switch from buying expensive and heavy weapons systems to some light, agile and lethal arms and equipment, such as battle-tested UAVs (drones) and Javelin missiles,” Hu said.
Lai has appointed National Security Council chief Wellington Koo, a lawyer with no military rank, to head the defence ministry and oversee the transformation, but there has been pushback, Hsiao said.
“Not everyone in the relevant government agencies is convinced of this strategy,” Hsiao added.
Chinese military pressure on Taiwan escalated during Tsai’s presidency, with Beijing holding its largest military drills around the nation last year.
However, Taiwan has seen a shift in China’s actions in recent months. Aerial incursions have decreased, but the outlying island of Kinmen has seen a pick-up in regular patrols by the China Coast Guard and other vessels.
“China’s use of ‘gray zone’ tactics is shifting from military brinkmanship to more law enforcement,” political scientist Sung Wen-ti (宋文笛) said.
That might “involve more direct contact between civilian personnel from both sides and carry more complicated potential for political escalation.”
China’s goal of eventually seizing Taiwan remains the same, SOAS China Institute Director Steve Tsang (曾銳生) said.
“Taipei, the US and others concerned must use the time to work to pre-empt or deter a Chinese attack.”
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS