Taiwan Goes On High Alert Against Possible Chinese Invasion

Taiwan News ^ | 2/14/03

[dmcg_98]

Taiwan on alert against any Chinese invasion

2003-02-14 / Agence France-Presse / Defense Minister Tang Yiau-min (´öÂ`©ú) said yesterday the military had been put on a state of alert for fear China could take advantage of any war in Iraq to launch an invasion of the island.

Tang warned that Beijing's hostility towards Taipei was as strong as ever despite the unprecedented civilian flights between Taipei and Shanghai over the Lunar New Year holiday period.

"They have yet to give up their attempt to take over Taiwan by force. This was clearly stated by (President) Jiang Zemin (¦¿¿A¥Á) in the Chinese Communist Party's 16th Party Congress documents," Tang told a press conference here.

China could decide to attack its arch rival when the world's attention was preoccupied with war in the Gulf.

"The Chinese communists could cash in on such an occasion," said Tang.

"They could sabotage and attack our banking systems, democracy and other social institutions which are superior to those on the mainland."

The defense ministry has also stepped up security and its monitoring of Chinese troop movements and improved its crisis management capability.

While ruling out any possibility of Taiwan's involvement in a U.S.-led war against Iraq, the minister said President Chen Shui-bian's (³¯¤ô«ó) government would provide humanitarian aid to refugees.

Tang also defended Chen's recent announcement in which he ruled out the possibility of direct cross-strait flights even after the resumption of air links with China following a half century hiatus.

Civilian planes would instead be required to fly on a detour for national security reasons even after direct cross-strait transport links are opened up, Chen insisted.

"The Taiwan Strait is a shield (for Taiwan). Wouldn't it be just what the Chinese communists wanted if the shield was removed?" Tang said.

Six Taiwan airlines operated a total of eight chartered flights to and from China for the first time during the Lunar New Year period from January 26 to February 10, but they had to transit Hong Kong or Macau.

Local business and industrial leaders have pushed for direct links between the Taiwan and China, insisting they would help lower shipping costs and facilitate economic ties across the Taiwan Strait.

Taiwanese businesses are estimated to have invested some US$70 billion in China since 1987.

Commenting on China's growing missile threat, Tang said Taiwan had been working to build its missile shield.

"Research and development efforts have got underway to build a missile defense system. Hopefully the target could be arrived at within the next 10 years," he said, without going into details.

[Bogey78O]

Why don't they wait till 2008 so they can see the worlds reaction and impotent response during the Olympics?

[HighRoadToChina]

They'll do it 2006. Enough time to build up their SRBMs to 800-1000. Enough time for the world community to get over it. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan model.

[Dog Gone]

China doesn't have the amphibious capability to invade.

Yet.

[Steel Wolf]

Sounds more like a friendly reminder to the boys in Beijing that Taiwan won't be caught napping. The scenario is very auspicious; the U.S. is watching Iraq, with North Korea ready for the second act.

They still won't risk attacking Taiwan, but it must be very tempting.

[HighRoadToChina]

Let me quote myself from another threat:

What's holding the Communists is not a lack of a navy but the US 7th Fleet. Once they think they can neutralize the US 7th Fleet, they will move to unite their "Motherland".

How? Junkers, 747s, COSCO ships, anything. It's only 100 miles between the infested mainland and free Taiwan. Those 500-600 missiles (and growing at least 50-60 per year) are meant to take out the key military and governmental structures in Taiwan in a blitzkrieg. Once Taiwan airfields are made of cheese, it becomes much easier for the Reds to gain air superiority over the Straits. Once they have that, what is going to prevent them from arriving on junkers?

What will neutralize the US 7th fleet? A conflict in Korea. Sunburn cruise missiles. Skuval rocket torpedoes.

[Congressman Billybob]

No, the Chinese will not attack Taiwan under the cover, and distraction, of the coming (1 March) war against Iraq. It is not because they do not want to, but because they cannot.

Only one small section of the entire Taiwan coast is physically capable of being the target of a sea-based invasion. It is, of course, heavily defended. And China does not presently have a sufficient number of landing craft, either sea-going or launchable from larger craft, to mount such aninvasion. In short, it has the troops, but not the transport.

Similar limitations apply to an airborne invasion. China lacks the paratroopers and the jump planes to mount that kind of attack either, even presuming that the lumbering transports for such an assault could survive the trip across the Taiwan Strait in the face of Taiwanese and American defenses.

Taiwan should be on high alert for the possibilities of sabotage and/or terrorism. However, it should have no fear of actual invasion, at this time. China is the problem for the day after tomorrow. First, Iraq. Then, North Korea. Then we begin in earnest on China.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Using the Old Noodle," now up on UPI, and FR.

Latest book(let), "to Restore Trust in America."

[MLedeen]

concerning that small bit of coastline, did somebody cut holes in all the Chinese parachutes?

[elfman2]

"China doesn't have the amphibious capability to invade. Yet."

They also don't have the experience to pull it off. Ever.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

When they decide it's time, it will be time.

Seems to be getting close though, why else the air raid drills on the mainland?

[hchutch]

The only threat I see the PRC posing to Taiwan is that of a submarine blockade, similar to what the Germans attempted in World War I and World War II. In a sense, it is really the only way they can seize Taiwan while maintaining the infrastructure in Taiwan.

They have a LOT of diesel-electric subs, and even an old diesel-electric sub can put a merchant vessel on the bottom, while they are acquiring Kilos from the Russians and they are still building the Song-class SSKs. This is in addition to anywhere from 38 (World Navies Today at http://hazegray.org/worldnav/china/submar.htm has that figure) to 70 Romeo-class subs (according to my copy - 1995 - of "Combat Fleets of the World") and close to 20 Ming-class subs (essentially a copy of the Rome).

The sheer numbers would make breaking such a blockade difficult. We'd be badly outnumbered, and possibly fighting these battles within range of hostile air forces. It could be a very nasty re-fighting of the Battle of the Atlantic around Formosa and the Phillipines.

[HighRoadToChina]

It's getting very close. Pray to God that we don't get "bogged down" in Iraq.

Interesting to know if this is true of not:

1. US President George W. Bush reportedly told a leading Taiwanese academic that 'Taiwan will never become a part of China'.

Instead, 'China may become a part of Taiwan', he allegedly told Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh at the Apec summit in Mexico 2002, said the United Daily News.

[Libertina]

Thought I'd find you here. My prayers for that gutsy little island and it's people. I would like to see the mainland have as many advantages as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Taiwanese have tasted and known freedom (more business freedom that we have here currently in the US) and they will NOT do what HK did. They will fight. And I hope we stand with them. No thanks to the jerk Jimmy Carter who changed our recognition to COMMUNIST china. And too bad that Chiang Kai Shek didn't join the UN when he could have...

[Congressman Billybob]

A colleague of mine, who was a jump master and later an officer of the 82nd Airborne, had as part of his assignments the assessment of the capacities of similar units in the armies of other nations. It is his conclusion which I relay.

The Chinese do not now have either sufficient paratroopers or sufficient planes to take the airports and other key facillities on Taiwan in a lightning strike, and then hold them while tens of thousands of troops pour in on standard transport planes. China does not have that capacity now, even with the very bad assumption that all its paratrooper planes would get across the Taiwan Strait unmolested.

China is prepared to attack Taiwan with missiles, which would guarantee an American counterattack with conventional warhead missiles. But China does not have the capacity to put a winning number of boots on the ground in Taiwan, either by air or sea. In short, China could play out its version of a Bay of Pigs humiliation, but that's it.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "Using the Old Noodle," now up on UPI, and FR.

Latest book(let), "to Restore Trust in America."

[hchutch]

Furthermore, it would damage the economic infrastructure of Taiwan - I don't think the PRC wants to do that.

They want Taiwan, and they want it as intact as possible. That's why I think invasion is not what the PRC has in mind. It leads instead to a submarine blockade, which would be VERY hard for us to break, in my opinion.

[HighRoadToChina]

Thanks, Libertina--I love that name!

Actually, the Republic of China was one of the original founders of the UN. CKS and ROC had a seat on the Security Council of the UN, until the likes of Canada and other Communist leaning nations demanded that ROC be removed from the UN and in its place seat the PRC.

Can you believe this travesty of travesties?

Carter should be sentenced as a traitor of the US and of Freedom for his singular act of switching ties from a free people to a dictatorship worse than Nazi Germany. Along with Nixon--that liar, and with Clinton who gave away all of America's most important and latest nuclear technology to the Communist Chinese.

ROC will fight. I only hope that the US will help.

Please send your prayers for our FReepers and Americans going to the Freedom Rally in front of SF City Hall starting around 1PM. Some will be there much earlier to stake out our terrority and draw that line in the sand.

Never ever give up an inch or millimeter!

[Steel Wolf]

The Chinese do not now have either sufficient paratroopers or sufficient planes to take the airports and other key facillities on Taiwan in a lightning strike, and then hold them while tens of thousands of troops pour in on standard transport planes.

Actually, China has just over three times as many paratroopers as the U.S. does. They jump very rarely by U.S. standards, if at all. (We had people make their first jumps on D-Day, so it can be done.) You are correct about their air transport capability, however. At their very best, they could try and put out a tiny fraction of their troops, perhaps a few battalions at a time.

This is assuming that a single transport plane makes it across the strait. It would likely turn into a slaughter, and an expensive one at that. China's air mobility is very very limited, and any planes they lose will mean no resupply, or reinforcements later on. Same with transport helicopters. They'd be eating SAMs and AAMs long before they touch down on Taiwanese soil, and China would be out precious war machinery.

For the ones lucky enough to make it on the ground, they'd better be ready to fight. Being stranded on Taiwan is going to be like being locked in a closet with hungry pit bulls. The Taiwanese army has very little land to defend, and they've been practicing for 50+ years.

[dark_lord]

I suspect, however, that if the US fleet was "neutralized" that in fact the PRC could do it. It is a fact that their official planning documents entail using fishing boats for transport. Thousands and thousands of them. So they have hundreds and hundreds sunk. They can still get ashore. Torpedos and anti-ship missles are pretty worthless against "junks".

They can't transport armor in fishing boats. But they can transport light artillary pieces.

[hchutch]

I don't see the PRC going for an invasion - too much damage would be done to Taiwan's economic infrastructure, making the victory Phyrric.

My take is a naval-air blockade, centered primarily around the PRC's submarine force. The result? The PRC would have to airlife the troops, but to an island that had been starved into submission.

[Libertina]

Hi D. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had heard that the ROC did indeed have the choice to accept a seat on the UN as ROC. But Chiang Kai Shek, sadly, in his determination to regain control of the mailand, refused. After that, Taiwan was not represented in the UN, the general died, and Taiwan was S-O-O-L. (If you know that rather indelicate expression :) Taiwan could have continued to sit on the UN as the ROC and been assured of autonomy, but the general made a terrible error.