China is increasingly confident in the accuracy and capability of its strategic missile force — much of it positioned within range of Taiwan, a new study by two associate professors at the US Naval War College said.
The People’s Liberation Army Second Artillery Force (PLASAF) has demonstrated that it can win in a regional conflict, “preventing US intervention therein,” they said.
The artillery force, which controls China’s land-based nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles and ground-launched cruise missiles “is an increasingly formidable force,” said the study, published this week by The Jamestown Foundation.
The study was written by Andrew Erickson and Michael Chase, associate professors at the War College.
“Substantial, rapid improvements have yielded not only a sophisticated, survivable arsenal of nuclear missiles capable of putting regional and continental US targets at risk, but also the world’s most numerous, diverse and comprehensive conventional, ballistic and cruise missile force,” they said.
As a result, the force has become “an increasingly dynamic and important component of the PLA,” they said.
In addition to increasing the numbers of its short-range ballistic missiles — more than 1,000 of them pointed at Taiwan — China has also improved their capabilities in range, accuracy and types of warhead.
“While cross-strait relations have reached a new zenith, Beijing still fears Taiwanese opposition to integration and strives to maximize related deterrent and coercive capabilities, while increasingly insisting that missiles are targeted principally at outside parties that might seek to intervene,” they said.
Potential targets for conventional missile strikes include command centers, communications facilities, radar stations, guided missile positions, air force bases, naval facilities and railway stations, the authors wrote.
Bridges, logistical facilities and energy production facilities could also be considered likely targets, they added.
“Beijing’s emphasis on deterring rival claimants in ‘Near Seas’ disputes and other potential adversaries from harming its homeland security and regional interests, and the US from intervening in such disputes, imposes new requirements on PLASAF,” the study said.
The study comes as author and China analyst Gordon Chang (章家敦) has published an article in The National Interest magazine saying that the recent visit to Taiwan of Chinese official Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) showed that Beijing was further away than ever from peaceful “unification.”
Chang said that Zhang’s visit and unfavorable reception could force China to make a “final push” to absorb Taiwan.
“It seems that the harder China tries to promote political union, the less the people on Taiwan want it,” Chang said.
“Beijing leaders evidently think their window for peaceful political integration with Taiwan is closing,” he said.
“Taiwan’s President Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)], who looks like he wants to stitch up a political deal with Beijing, has an approval rating hovering around 10 percent, about the same percentage who want unification with China,” says Chang.
He concludes that central Chinese leadership is worried that the incumbent’s plunging popularity will lead the KMT to lose its hold on power in the nation’s next presidential election in 2016.
“Therefore, China’s officials apparently think they will have to act while Ma remains in office, their last chance to grab sovereignty,” Chang said.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS