The Ministry of National Defense yesterday estimated that there would be more than 20,000 military casualties in less than half a day were China to launch a full-scale missile attack on Taiwan.
"The military has plans to use 43,000 reservists to replace these casualties," said Deputy Minister of National Defense General Chu Kai-sheng (朱凱生) during a National Defense Committee meeting at the legislature yesterday.
Chu said the ministry had assessed that it would lose between 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers if Beijing launched a five-wave missile attack that continued for 10 hours aimed at Taiwan's airstrips, seaports, military units and economic and political nerve centers.
China's more than 800 missiles give it the capability to launch such attacks, Chu said.
He said the assessment was based on the results of computer-based war games.
The assessment of casualty numbers is updated annually taking into account the number of Chinese missiles and Taiwan's defense capabilities, Chu added.
He said at the beginning of any war, the number of casualties would be large, however, the number would decrease as the war continued.
Chu refused to comment on how many military personnel would be killed were a war to continue for two weeks.
He said that China wants to seize the nation with as few Taiwanese casualties as possible.
Ministry officials have said China's ballistic missiles are getting more precise. They used to have margin of error of around 600m, but that has now been reduced to 50m, giving Beijing the capability to hit Taiwan's power stations, radar bases, airstrips and military, economic and political nerve centers more accurately.
The main ballistic missiles that make up China's arsenal are DF-11 missiles that have a range of 600km, and DF-15 missiles that have a range of 800km.
Taiwan's military has begun moving from reliance on conscription to a volunteer basis.
By 2008, volunteers will comprise 60 percent of military manpower, while 40 percent will be conscripts.
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