Two major Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-People’s Liberation Army (PLA) power demonstrations in November 2024 highlight the urgency for Taiwan to pursue a military buildup and deterrence agenda that can take back control of its destiny.
First, the CCP-PLA’s planned future for Taiwan of war, bloody suppression, and use as a base for regional aggression was foreshadowed by the 9th and largest PLA-Russia Joint Bomber Exercise of Nov. 29 and 30.
It was double that of previous bomber exercises, with both days featuring combined combat strike groups of PLA Air Force and Russian bombers escorted by PLAAF and Russian fighters, airborne early warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft, YY-20 refueling aircraft, and electronic warfare (EW) aircraft.
PLA and Russian air forces launched 4 bombers (2x H-6N, 2x Tu-95MS) and 11 aircraft in total on Nov. 29 to blockade the Sea of Japan side of Japan, also violating South Korea’s air defense zone, while on Nov. 30, 4 bombers and ten other fighter and electronic support aircraft poured though the Miyako Strait practicing blockade and attack operations aimed at Taiwan’s east coast.
This joint bomber exercise for the first time featured the nuclear-capable and refuellable Xian Aircraft Corporation H-6N, that could launch a nuclear warhead-armed 3,000km range air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM), which with 8,000-kilometer range Russian Tu-95MS bombers can also threaten United States forces on Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska.
Due to China’s continued and growing economic and military support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, it is reasonable to expect that China will request that Russia begin integrating its air and naval forces with the more comprehensive PLA Joint Sword exercise series for 2025 to increase joint warfare, blockade, and strike missions potential — all to advance goals of being prepared to fight a war over Taiwan by 2027.
A second power demonstration by the CCP-PLA was the 15th Zhuhai Air Show from Nov. 12 to 17, China’s largest bi-annual joint air, ground, and naval weapons exhibit, raising the possibility that CCP schedules for war could make the 16th show in 2026 the last.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied a journalist visa for this analyst since 2004, and in 2024 apparently no Western military journalists were permitted to attend, reducing interested observers to collecting the thousands of internet photos, and some brochure data posted by Chinese military fans.
Nevertheless, the PLA previewed current and near-term capabilities that could significantly increase threats to Taiwan at the strategic nuclear and conventional-operational levels.
One image, largely unnoticed by Zhuhai commentators, was the China Electronic Technology Group Corporation’s (CETC) revelation of a model of a large rotatable X-Band radar, with its size suggesting that successive versions guided and helped to target China’s ten or so “mid-course” missile interceptions from 2010 to 2023.
Mid-course interception usually refers to missile engagements just as the missile or its warhead is entering the atmosphere, meaning the target missile could have an intermediate range (3,000 to 5,000 kilometers) or an intercontinental range (above 5,000km).
Or more to the point, CETC’s new large X-Band radar could form the basis for a PLA National Missile Defense “breakout” that could follow the PLA Rocket Force’s current nuclear “breakout” expansion of 300 or so new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos which that could contribute to a PLA warhead count in the several thousands by the mid-2030s.
As the Biden Administration refused to increase US warhead levels beyond 1,500 deployed, per the 2010 New START agreement with Russia, a potential overwhelming PLA nuclear warhead superiority — to be joined by nuclear warfare coordination from Russia and North Korea — with US nuclear retaliation capability degraded by PLA missile defenses, would create profound instabilities.
These would include temptations to launch an overwhelming nuclear first strike in addition to many levels of nuclear coercion/blackmail that would also diminish the US nuclear retaliation/deterrent guarantees extended to allies like Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia, and presumably, to key strategic partners like Taiwan.
Thus, it is most fortunate that during his second election campaign President-elect Donald Trump made it one of his 20 “Core Promises” to “build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country — all made in America.”
A National Missile Defense for the US would be huge, expensive, involve new missile interceptor bases, ground and space-based sensors, perhaps even space-based weapons, and require an expensive but essential major expansion of US strategic intercontinental and regional nuclear weapons.
However, a much larger US nuclear offensive force balanced by a new US National Missile Defense force would also complete the dream of the late President Ronald Reagan to balance offensive nuclear ICBMs with missile defenses which reduce their utility, potentially reviving the value of verifiable negotiated nuclear weapon reductions.
A key element for success in a “defensive” strategic competition, much as Reagan also realized, will be to involve key US allies and partners as soon as possible, or to extend the reach of new missile defenses that undermine the coercive effect of Russia’s and China’s current huge advantages in regional nuclear missiles against US allies and partners.
In short, the CETC X-Band radar revealed at Zhuhai heralds the beginning of a furious offensive and defensive strategic competition, or a strategic arms race that with sufficient determination the US can “win” to the degree that China, Russia, and North Korea become convinced that nuclear war cannot achieve victory.
Another major CCP-PLA coercive message from the 15th Zhuhai Airshow was the display of stunning progress in the harnessing of unmanned combat systems to achieve greater synergies with human operators at levels of strategic and mass personal combat — and just as important, the revelation of many new counter-unmanned combat systems.
As an antidote to the armor and man-slaughtering micro unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) warfare seen in Ukraine, the North Industries Corporation (Norinco) and the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) revealed three new microwave broadcasting weapons, with Norinco’s claiming to be able to fry UAV microcircuitry at 3km.
Norinco advertises that its microwave weapons will be combined with three types of mobile laser weapons, with 30 to 50 kilowatts of power, and new mobile anti-air and missile platforms to counter-attack unmanned swarms, while CASIC revealed an “Engagement Management System of Anti Drone System” claiming to be able to engage 1,000 targets.
These revelations are a clear response to US Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo’s intention expressed at the June Shangri-La Conference in Singapore, to create an unmanned weapon “hellscape” to deter a PLA attack against Taiwan.
Having cleared the way of Taiwanese and/or US UCAVs, Norinco is also ready to unleash swarms of Xiaotian-100 four-leg “wolf” unmanned combat ground vehicles (UCGVs) with manned controllers which can coordinate strikes from swarms of rifle or rocket-armed wolves and armed vertical UCAVs.
These could clear the way for groups of Norinco VU-T10 30mm cannon and rocket armed unmanned tanks that along with swarms of wolves could clear out pockets of urban resistance, clearing the way for invasion by PLA Ground Force armored brigades.
At greater distances to strategic reach, the PLA unveiled the China State Shipbuilding Corporation Jari USV-A, a 420-ton unmanned surface vessel armed with a 30mm cannon, vertically-launched anti-ship or ground attack missiles, and a deck to launch Z-5B vertical UCAVs, to clear out Taiwan Navy small combat ships that could block invasion routes.
Also revealed was the Aviation Industries Corporation (AVIC) Juitan or JetTank, a 16-ton, 6-ton payload UCAV with a potential 8,000km range and a “bomb bay” that could carry air-launched ballistic missiles to attack US Navy formations, and the CSSC “Orca,” a 450-ton unmanned underwater combat vehicle which could carry 12 torpedoes or mines out to 10,000km, potentially prosecuting US nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).
Amid these threats Taiwan must also contend with the approach of the new Trump Administration, which could build the forward leaning support of Trump’s first term — the first to sell Taiwan 300km range Lockheed Martin ATACMs short range ballistic missiles — but could also condition its support on Taipei vastly increasing its military investments, with suggestions it could request increases to 4.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Suggestions from Taiwan that it could meet new US concerns by requesting long-sought and expensive Lockheed Martin F-35B short take-off 5th generation fighters, which this analyst has long favored for its long range surveillance and ability to act as an airborne data relay, are a justified purchase, but perhaps should follow more decisive deterrents.
One way to meet the concerns and take advantage of the new Trump Administration would be to consider a “Two-Two” strategy: purchasing and co-producing 2,000 new Lockheed Martin PrSM 1,000km medium range ballistic missiles, and committing to creating a manned force of 2 million armed Taiwanese, from formal armed forces to a Reserve Force, and armed Militia, better to deter a CCP-PLA invasion.
A large number of medium range ballistic missiles, with PrSM soon to feature anti-ship capable warheads, will serve to overcome new PLA theater missile defenses while threatening the weakest link in a PLA invasion: the requirement to employ large military and civilian ships to move invasion forces across the Taiwan Strait.
A Taiwan Army supplemented by 1.5 million or so Taiwanese who can shoot rifles, including sniper rifles, and fire rocket grenades, could become a quick antidote to PLA joint force unmanned invasion systems — while also providing the counter mass to quickly tie down PLA invasion waves that survive ballistic missile strikes.
Achieving this level of deterrent force will require strong leadership from the Administration of President William Lai Ching-te (賴清德), the cooperation of the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), cultural changes for Taiwanese, and consistent support from Washington, but it would offer a path for Taiwan to take control of its destiny and deter the certain hell of CCP invasion and subjugation.
Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
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