Mon, Feb 10, 2025 page3

• Anti-ship missiles are key to defense

  INVASION THREAT: Defense planners cannot discard the possibility that Beijing is using legal facades to cover up military preparations or intelligence gathering, an expert said

  • By Chen Yu-fu and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer
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  The military should deploy a large number of anti-ship missiles to counter China’s landing vessels and aircraft carriers in the event of an attempted invasion of Taiwan, a defense researcher said.

  Drones could also be launched from patrol vessels to conduct reconnaissance and speed up responses whenever the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) makes air or sea incursions around Taiwan, National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥) said.

  China engages in such incursions with great regularity, and its construction of new landing vessels should be seen as a warning sign that the PLA is preparing to annex Taiwan, said Liao, who once served as a representative in Taiwan for non-defunct US military contractor McDonnell Douglas Corp.

  

  A Taiwan-made Anti-ship Brave Wind III, or Hsiung Feng III, medium range supersonic missile is launched during a joint operation on missile enhancement drill with the navy and air force in Pingtung County on May 24, 2022.

  Photo: EPA-EFE

  Taiwan cannot compete with China in shipbuilding due to its limited resources, and naval warfare of the sort that was conducted in World War I and II is no longer a likely scenario, he said.

  “Instead, the most direct way to deal with PLA landing ships or aircraft carriers is to deploy a large number of anti-ship missiles. A few anti-ship missiles can sink a warship,” he said.

  Taiwan must also have the ability to detect and photograph Chinese warships using satellite imagery, he said, adding that this could be done through services provided by commercial satellite companies.

  In the event of a conflict, China’s navy would incorporate its “maritime militia,” which it defines as “an armed mass organization composed of civilians retaining their regular jobs,” and an “auxiliary and reserve force” of the PLA. The US has said that such vessels would also be considered military targets in a conflict, and would not be treated as civilian ships, he said.

  “The Chinese Communist Party [CCP] in 2020 had already begun to consider various options for invading Taiwan by force,” Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Shen Ming-shih (沈明室) said.

  “It has been actively engaging in infiltration against Taiwan in an attempt to gain access to Taiwan’s national defense and security information, as a reference for making decisions on whether to use force to invade Taiwan,” he said.

  However, such efforts are being discovered more frequently by Taiwan’s national security agencies, he said, citing the prosecution of members of the Rehabilitation Alliance Party as an example.

  “Retired high-ranking military personnel traveled to China where they were allegedly recruited to develop organizations for the CCP, and to produce a list of other military retirees who could be recruited,” he said.

  The purpose of that recruitment was to create a fifth column in Taiwan that would sabotage defense efforts in the event of an invasion by the PLA, which would pose a serious threat to national security, he said.

  “For example, they could be tasked with sabotaging military radar stations, missile positions, command posts and so on,” he said.

  The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) also became a target of the CCP after it moved to its new location in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), he said.

  The CCP likely felt that the new, larger facility was serving as a base of liaison operations between Taiwan and the US, he added.

  “In December last year, a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship that had previously taken part in Chinese military exercises docked at Taichung Port,” he said.

  “We cannot rule out the possibility of a subsidiary mission. It might have been there to collect information that could facilitate the transportation of PLA troops in the future,” he said.

  Taiwan cannot rule out the possibility that the CCP is using a legal facade to cover up military preparations or illegal actions as part of intelligence gathering, he said.
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