While China might not launch an all-out invasion of Taiwan this year, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could scale up attacks on Taiwan’s outlying islands, the Independent said on Tuesday.
The UK-based newspaper cited the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s latest Worldwide Threat Assessment report, which was released earlier this month.
China possesses a variety of military options to coerce Taiwan, including “seizure of Taiwan’s smaller outlying islands, joint firepower strikes, and a full-scale amphibious invasion of Taiwan,” the US Department of Defense agency said in the report.
Photo courtesy of the Coast Guard Administration
However, “China appears willing to defer seizing Taiwan by force as long as it calculates unification ultimately can be negotiated, the costs of forcing unification continue to outweigh the benefits, and its stated redlines have not been crossed by Taiwan or its partners and allies,” the report said.
“China is likely to continue its campaign of diplomatic, information, military and economic pressure on Taiwan to advance its long-term objective of unification with Taiwan,” it said.
Such strategies would also “deter any move by Taiwan toward independence, and test the United States’ commitment to Taiwan’s defense,” it said.
Political observers have long warned that Kinmen and Matsu are the most vulnerable among Taiwan’s territories, the Independent said.
While Taiwan and the US do not have diplomatic relations, Washington would be expected to respond to any Chinese attack against Taiwan and use Guam as a staging point for such operations, the article said.
“Beijing’s contemporary efforts to annex Kinmen and Matsu blend economic enticements, nonviolent coercion, legal warfare, information operations, infrastructure construction, and miscellaneous ‘gray zone’ lines of effort to manipulate public opinion on the islands and erode Taiwan’s control of its territories,” the Independent quoted an assessment made by the Institute for the Study of War last year.
The Washington-based think tank added that China could “escalate current lines of effort (LOEs) to erode Taiwan’s sovereignty over its outlying territory of Kinmen in a short-of-war coercion campaign to seize control of the island group in the near term.”
In related news, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) yesterday said that the equipment and identity of 27 Chinese crossing the Taiwan Strait in rubber dinghies over the past two years suggest “a systematic operation.”
Kuan said they originated from 15 provinces in China, including inland regions, with at least one from each province.
“It is difficult to explain this distribution in terms of political, economic and social conditions,” she said.
The government “has not ruled out” that these cases might be part of a systematic operation in China, given the nature of their claims and equipment, she said, adding that prosecutors and the coast guard are investigating.
Precautionary measures must be taken against Chinese “gray zone” tactics, she added.
“China is preparing to invade Taiwan,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an exclusive interview with British media channel Sky News for a special report titled, “Is Taiwan ready for a Chinese invasion?” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today in a statement. The 25-minute-long special report by Helen Ann-Smith released yesterday saw Sky News travel to Penghu, Taoyuan and Taipei to discuss the possibility of a Chinese invasion and how Taiwan is preparing for an attack. The film observed emergency response drills, interviewed baseball fans at the Taipei Dome on their views of US President
ECONOMIC BENEFITS: The imports from Belize would replace those from Honduras, whose shrimp exports have dropped 67 percent since cutting ties in 2023 Maintaining ties with Taiwan has economic benefits, Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials said yesterday, citing the approval of frozen whiteleg shrimp imports from Belize by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as an example. The FDA on Wednesday approved the tariff-free imports from Belize after the whiteleg shrimp passed the Systematic Inspection of Imported Food, which would continue to boost mutual trade, the ministry said. Taiwan’s annual consumption of whiteleg shrimps stands at 30,000 tonnes, far exceeding domestic production, the ministry said. Taiwan used to fill the gap by importing shrimps from Honduras, but purchases slumped after Tegucigalpa severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a southwestern extension of the Sanying MRT Line from New Taipei to Bade District (八德) in Taoyuan, with a goal of starting construction by late 2026. The 4.03-kilometer extension, featuring three new stations, will run from the current terminus at Yingtao Fude Station (LB12) in New Taipei City to Dannan Station (LB14), where it will connect with Taoyuan’s Green Line, New Taipei City Metro Corp said in a statement. This extension will follow the completion of core Sanying Line, a 14.29-kilometer medium-capacity system linking Tucheng (土城), Sansia (三峽)
CARGO LOSS: About 50 containers at the stern of the ‘Ever Lunar’ cargo ship went overboard, prompting the temporary closure of the port and disrupting operations Evergreen Marine Corp, Taiwan’s largest container shipper, yesterday said that all crew members aboard the Ever Lunar (長月) were safe after dozens of containers fell overboard off the coast of Peru the previous day. The incident occurred at 9:40am on Friday as the Ever Lunar was anchored and waiting to enter the Port of Callao when it suddenly experienced severe rolling, Evergreen said in a statement. The rolling, which caused the containers to fall, might have been caused by factors including a tsunami triggered by an earthquake in Russia, poor winter sea conditions in South America or a sudden influx of waves,
RSS