Taiwan to mass-produce anti-ship missiles (雄風三型)

Taiwan plans to mass-produce ship-to-ship missiles to boost its naval defences against China, the United Evening News reported Friday.

The defence ministry has set aside more than US 71.75 million to manufacture the locally-designed Supersonic Hsiung-feng 3, the United Evening News said. The defence ministry declined to comment on the report. Analysts say the Hsiung-feng 3 can be fitted with a variety of guidance systems and can function as a ship-to-ship, land-attack or anti-radar missile. With a range of at least 130 kilometres, the missile has been designed to counter China’s Russia-made equivalent, analysts say.

Great idea! A sufficient (read: large) supply of anti-shipping missiles (be it the American style hi-tech approach shown in the latest version of the sub-sonic Harpoon; or the relatively lo-tech but high-Mach supersonic mass-swarm approach used by the Russians) would be a great way of making the Chinese think twice about invading, and at least making them pay even if they do. Since it is obviously totally defensive, there is nothing that the Chinese can say against it. Also, with sufficient numbers and clever placement, it can make any sea attack by China to be quite costly.

I'd say a very good move by Taiwan. Very good, and very clever. A prudent step when compared to what some people on FR were saying ....that Taiwan should bomb the 3 Gorges dam (the reason that is imprudent is that such a failure of the 3 Gorges would kill well over a million Chinese downstream, maybe more, and the only reprisal to that would be a nuclear attack by China. Attacking the 3 Gorges would qualify as a WMD attack, even if Taiwan simply used conventional missiles or special forces sappers. Having 1-3 million people killed would make any nation resort to nuclear weapons, consequences be damned).

However, hundreds of supersonic anti-ship missiles should make the Chinese think hard. It doesn't matter even if China could get more missiles than Taiwan ....as long as the Taiwanese have more than one missile for every Chinese ship (hopefully more), then it doesn't matter much how many missiles China has.

Good for Taiwan, and clever too.

In order to conduct a succesful amphibious operation, the Chinese would need complete air superiority over the Taiwan straits. Even contested airspace would result in most of their invasion fleet going to the bottom of the ocean in short order. A large number land based anti-ship missiles with a 100+ mile range makes this an almost impossible proposition.

The chinese are then left only with a surprise ballistic missile strike hoping to knock out most of Taiwan’s air force on the ground and conducting a massive airborne operation. This is all assuming a US carrier battle group does *not* interfere.

I wouldn’t be taking those odds if I were the ChiComs. However, I find them internally unstable enough to be able to put together and support such an operation.

When all is said and done, I expect — as others far more qualified than me have opined — that China and Taiwan will leave “the west” shaking its collective head in disbelief as they quietly (and quickly, with little if any warning) come to terms, peacefully, and unite against the rest of the world.

China no more wants to destroy Taiwan than a parent wants to destroy an unruly child (which is pretty much how China perceives Taiwan). They may issue all sorts of threats, and rattle the saber with great drama, but in the final analysis, their goal is unification, not destruction.

Taiwan knows this, which is why they’re not all that much worried about being destroyed.

Personally I am more concerned with China getting their hands on those missles in the post-unification era, arming them with small nukes (using designs stolen from our national labs), and aiming them at OUR ships.

BTW, I think it no coincidence that over the course of a relatively VERY few years, China has in effect become a “Super-Taiwan” having embraced the Taiwan model (success through commerce).

Speaking as a Caucasion, I am fully cognizant of the fact that the Chinese “as a race” (meaning “Han” Asians in general) tend to beat the hell out of the rest of the world in th I.Q. department. This places us at a disadvantage, especially as we persist in elevating idiots to positions of power and authority in our governments.

In that regard, I hold out great hope that Palin (what a great Monty Pythonesque name!) is the wave of the future. I was NOT going to vote in this coming election (or else, cast a “protest vote” for C or L party), but now I am seriously considering making a big yard sign that says “Vote Palin-McCain!” :)

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