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China's military buildup eroding Taiwan's advantages: Pentagon

ROC Central News Agency

09/02/2020 04:06 PM

Washington, Sept. 1 (CNA) Beijing's military modernization has eroded Taiwan's potential advantages should a cross-Taiwan Strait conflict occur, even though Taiwan is taking steps to compensate for the growing disparities, the Pentagon said in a report Tuesday.

In its "2020 Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China," the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) continues to prepare for contingencies in the Taiwan Strait to deter Taiwan to move toward independence.

Taiwan has "historically enjoyed military advantages in the context of a cross-Strait conflict, such as technological superiority and the inherent geographic advantages of island defense," the report said.

But many of these advantages have been eroded or negated by China's "multi-decade military modernization effort" as Beijing's official defense budget has continued to grow over the years and was roughly 15 times that of Taiwan's in 2019, it said.

According to the Pentagon report, the PLA has a range of options to coerce Taipei based on its increasing capabilities in multiple domains, including air and maritime blockades, air and missile campaigns, and an amphibious invasion of Taiwan.

One of the scenarios is the Joint Island Landing Campaign, which would "break through or circumvent shore defenses, establish and build a beachhead, transport personnel and materiel to designated landing sites in the north or south of Taiwan's western coastline," and then seize and occupy key targets or the entire island.

The report noted that the PLA conducted joint amphibious assault exercises near Taiwan in 2019 to simulate the scenario.

Such large-scale amphibious invasions, however, are among the most complicated and difficult military operations, the report cautioned, and such a move "would likely strain China's armed forces and invite international intervention."

"These stresses, combined with China's combat force attrition and the complexity of urban warfare and counterinsurgency, even assuming a successful landing and breakout, make an amphibious invasion of Taiwan a significant political and military risk."

Meanwhile, in response to the growing disparity between their respective defense capabilities, Taiwan has also been taking steps to develop asymmetric warfare.

It has also boosted its capabilities in terms of electronic warfare, high-speed stealth vessels, shore-based mobile missiles, and rapid mining and minesweeping, the report said.

The report reiterated America's long-term stance that it opposes "unilateral actions aimed at altering the status quo" and supports peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues "in a manner, scope, and pace acceptable to both sides."

The Department of Defense is required by the U.S. Congress to provide the annual report to serve as authoritative assessment on military and security developments involving China.

(By Chiang Chin-yeh and Joseph Yeh)

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