Taiwan — why China will not invade
Peter Zhang
Some American commentators have been warning of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. For years now I have been advising that such an event is not on any Chinese militarist's calendar. As I have said before, two fundamentals must be borne in mind. The first is the fact that for sometime China has been working to undermine American influence in the region.
By showing that America is a "paper tiger", "an ally without courage", as one official put it to me, Beijing hoped to weaken the regional powers' faith in American willingness to stand by its allies, especially Taiwan. China's sabre rattling should be seen as part of this process. This is why President Bush's prompt response to China's threatening behaviour to Taiwan was welcomed in the rest of Asia.
For fear of sounding repetitive, I have stated many times that it is Beijing's prime long term aim to drive America out of Asia and then virtually out of the Pacific, at least as far back as the Hawaiian Islands.
There are those among China's political elite who believe that America is in a state of terminal moral and political decline and that this will eventually be reflected in American political power shrinking in absolute terms. They think that this decline will be preceded by an increasing inability by America to project military power. This is why many in Beijing believe time is on their side. (Taiwan thinks otherwise).
If this belief is dominant why should China ruin its long term hopes by attacking Taiwan and thus bringing the wrath of the US Congress down on its head, not to mention the US Navy? Well, there are those in Beijing who like to occasionally test US resolve.
This brings me to the other fundamental fact — the true state of the PLA. A few years ago a PLA general claimed that they could "roll up Taiwan in 10 days." This was pure bravado and he knew it.
Even though China has more than 2 million troops, its equipment is still largely obsolete. Compare this with Taiwan's 400,000 troops, highly trained and motivated, equipped with the latest hardware and backed up by a huge reserve of well-trained personnel.
Any attempt to cross the Taiwan Strait would therefore inflict the kind of massive losses on China's armed services that no government, even in China, could survive. It has been suggested that as a token military gesture the PLA could invade one of the outlying islands, Kinmen perhaps.
Even in this instance losses would probably be politically unacceptable and certainly militarily embarrassing. Beijing has not forgotten that in 1949 Mao ordered about 20,000 troops to take the island of Quemoy. As the island was only separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of water, the invasion should have been a walkover.
After about 60 hours of ferocious fighting the invaders suffered about 9,000 casualties while 6,000 were captured. It was a humiliating defeat that the PLA never forgot.
Fifty-five years have passed and the military situation is even less favourable to the PLA. To take Taiwan the PLA would need an invasion force that would dwarf the allied forces that landed in Normandy in 1944. The invaders would have to cross 100 miles of sea, and then what was left of them would have to storm the most heavily defended coastline on the planet. It would be a massacre.
Some media commentators have claimed that China could drop paratroopers on Taiwan's airfields while simultaneously using missiles to knock out the island's communications and fixed defences. This is fantasy.
It is amazing that anyone could imagine for a single moment that the PLA would be stupid enough to think it could successfully takeover any defence facilities in Taiwan with paratroopers.
Using missiles is equally naïve. Taiwan defences are in deep bunkers and connected by a maze of tunnels; all communications have been designed with every contingency in mind. Even using the Chinese air force to try and destroy the island's surface defences would be suicidal. The only thing that could work would be a massive nuclear strike. And that is something Beijing would never do.
Any attack on Taiwan would result in devastating losses for the mainland and political upheaval. Furthermore, the long-term political and military consequences, particularly with respect to Japan, from an attack are not something that China's political elite would omit from its calculations.
Forget about Taiwan for now, it is not the current problem.
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 19 July 2004