China is preparing an armada of ferries and civilian vessels to invade Taiwan, foreign experts warned, but a Taiwanese defense expert said that the nation has contingencies to handle the threat.
The Daily Telegraph on Sunday quoted experts as saying that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) lacks the number of amphibious landing craft needed to launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan, but it could bridge the gap with civilian vessels, including “gigantic roll-on, roll-off ferries that can each carry hundreds of armored vehicles.”
China’s civilian vessels could “dramatically increase the tonnage of military material that can be moved by its existing military amphibious assault craft,” Tom Shugart, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security, told the newspaper.
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That could give it “capacity to transport about 300,000 troops and their vehicles across the Taiwan Strait in about 10 days,” Shugart said.
Chieh Chung (揭仲), a researcher at the Taipei-based Association of Strategic Foresight, agreed that the PLA lacks military vessels to transport enough assets in a hypothetical invasion and has regularly involved large roll-on, roll-off (ro-ro) ferries in military exercises over the past four years.
Each 36,000 tonne ro-ro vessel is estimated to be able to transport four PLA combined arms battalions, meaning that two could transport a brigade, which generally involves thousands of soldiers, Chieh said.
However, despite their capacity, the civilian vessels are not designed to transport military assets such as landing vessels and rely on docking facilities, he said.
In the event of an invasion of Taiwan, the first wave of PLA troops would exclusively use military landing craft, helicopters and transport aircraft, he said.
Only after the first wave of troops has successfully landed in Taiwan and constructed unloading facilities could civilian vessels start transporting more troops to Taiwan, Chieh said.
Even if that were to happen, Taiwan’s long-range anti-ship missile systems, naval mines and suicide speedboats would be sufficient to destroy the relatively slow-moving civilian ships, he said.
The Ministry of National Defense said it closely monitors Chinese activities around Taiwan including military-civilian coordinated landing exercises.
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