The military should prioritize protecting the country’s crucial infrastructure, maintaining combat readiness and decentralizing its military command, to build an effective national defense against a possible full-scale invasion by China, a military think tank said in an annual report.
The recommendations were made in the 2023 Report on the Development of the Chinese Communist Party’s Politics and Military, released on Wednesday last week by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
In a chapter titled “People’s Liberation Army’s amphibious assault capabilities in a potential Taiwan invasion,” the report also gave a projection of the first wave of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
Photo courtesy of Chuang Chuan-cheng
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is likely to start with an amphibious assault with about 30,000 troops, including a special operations brigade, transport aviation brigade and combat support brigade, as well as six airborne brigades, the report said.
After the first wave, the PLA would face difficulties in handling Taiwan’s terrain and resupply, said academic Ou Si-fu (歐錫富), writer of the chapter, who heads the think tank’s Division of Chinese Politics, Military and Warfighting Concepts.
“When they land, they will immediately encounter mountains, hills and towns, which are not conducive to large-scale mechanized troop movements,” Ou said.
As an alternative, the PLA might switch to airborne assaults in a bid to seize Taiwanese ports, airports and other strategic infrastructure to facilitate rapid deployment of its troops by sea and air, Ou said.
However, attempted landings from the air are extremely risky, he said, citing the recent example of Ukraine repelling Russia’s airborne attacks by using a relatively small number of defensive troops.
Therefore, Taiwan’s defense of its seaports and airports should be a priority, even if it means sealing them off and destroying runways to prevent landings by the attackers, Ou said.
He also said that if the PLA launched a full-scale invasion of Taiwan, it would deploy large numbers of missiles to paralyze Taiwan’s command and control systems.
The main defense strategy in that regard should be to decentralize Taiwan’s military command, spreading out the decisionmaking among multiple leaders in a complex and rapidly changing system, Ou said.
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
NATURAL INTERRUPTION: As cables deteriorate, core wires snap in progression along the cable, which does not happen if they are hit by an anchor, an official said Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) immediately switched to a microwave backup system to maintain communications between Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County (Matsu) after two undersea cables malfunctioned due to natural deterioration, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told an emergency news conference yesterday morning. Two submarine cables connecting Taiwan proper and the outlying county — the No. 2 and No. 3 Taiwan-Matsu cables — were disconnected early yesterday morning and on Wednesday last week respectively, the nation’s largest telecom said. “After receiving the report that the No. 2 cable had failed, the ministry asked Chunghwa Telecom to immediately activate a microwave backup system, with
RSS