Information that the Ministry of National Defense released on Monday last week about the movements of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) vessels and planes in and around the Taiwan Strait showed that during three days of military maneuvers, J-15 carrier-based fighters encroached on the eastern part of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone.
Furthermore, surveillance photographs taken by Taiwanese navy vessels of the PLA Navy’s Shandong carrier strike group, which the ministry released two days previously, suggest that China wanted to show off the newly built Shandong’s ability to conduct fighter takeoff and landing operations. It also shows that the PLA Navy has begun to develop its anti-intervention capability aimed at blocking reinforcements and conducting pinpoint strikes.
This means that, if war were to break out, Taiwan would have to face multiple strikes from different directions within a short period. It would also mean that the previous method employed by the Republic of China Air Force to conserve its fighting strength by dispersing warplanes to air bases in eastern Taiwan would be challenged not only by land-based ballistic missiles launched from China, but also by the ballistic missiles and other ground-attack weapons deployed on the PLA Navy’s carrier strike groups.
On Jan. 9, Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies published a report on its war game simulating a PLA attack on Taiwan in 2026, in which it said that if the US were to send its forces to defend Taiwan, most of the US and Taiwanese fighter planes that would be lost would be destroyed on the ground by PLA missiles, with Taiwan losing at least half of its combat aircraft.
Report coauthor Mark Cancian said that the US should reduce potential losses by reinforcing the bunkers that protect key assets at its air bases in the first island chain and by building additional runways.
Separately, US National Security Council Director for China Rush Doshi raised the same issue and made similar recommendations in his 2021 book The Long Game. In view of this, Taiwan’s air force needs to do more to ensure its fighting strength would be conserved.
With regard to air base bunkers, the “one hangar for each aircraft” policy that the air force adopted in 1999 was delayed for many years and eventually came to nothing. In 2021, to complement Taiwan’s purchase of F-16 Block 70 planes, the air force planned to build 36 bunkers strong enough to resist 3,300-pound (1.5 tonne) bombs, but because tenders for the plan failed twice, not a single such bunker has been built.
Contingency runways are another important means of dispersing the PLA’s offensive firepower.
However, most of Taiwan’s five contingency runways only have a few access points and have only been used in takeoff and landing tests seven times.
An attack on contingency runways would cause them to fail because logistics vehicles would not be able to service and resupply aircraft. The number of roads that connect to contingency runways must be increased, along with the air force’s capability to deploy field services and supplies.
The air force and heavy defense units should hold joint drills to test service and supply operations under hostile threat conditions, which would boost the wartime value of contingency runways by giving the air force more flexible ways to conserve its fighting strength.
Additionally, the air force should aim to build more contingency runways such as one that is planned on the edge of Taitung County’s Guanshan Township (關山).
Modes of warfare are rapidly evolving. The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine shows that the use of drones on the battlefield will rise. With their characteristics of stealth and loitering munitions, small and medium-sized drones can hover in the vicinity of air bases for long periods, continuously assessing damage and calling in long-range precision strikes when they detect that a runway has been repaired, or indeed attacking it with their onboard munitions.
The PLA has not yet been shown to possess any such equipment, but it is developing a wide range of uncrewed vehicle applications, so threats of this kind can be expected.
Anti-drone capabilities are likely to become an essential aspect of the air force’s ability to conserve its fighting strength.
Lin Yu-sheng has a master’s degree from Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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