Recently, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been increasingly aggressive in its civilian and military attacks on Taiwan, and many experts have poured cold water on the assessment that Xi Jinping is ready to unify Taiwan by force during his term. Some strategic experts argue that the CCP would pay a huge price for violating Taiwan by force and would face international political and diplomatic constraints, and that the CCP is actually “not capable of firing the first shot.
The Australian Financial Review published an interview with Republic of China Foreign Minister Wu Chiu-sup on June 6, in which Wu called on friendly countries to support Taiwan. Wu said the Chinese Communist Party is trying to isolate Taiwan from the international community, trying to use disinformation or hybrid warfare to harass and increase the military threat from the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party “seems to be preparing a final attack on Taiwan.
But Wu also said there would be no “immediate war,” but that all aspects of Taiwan would have to prepare for a war situation to deal with a possible military attack by the Chinese Communist Party. He called on friendly and like-minded democracies to show their support for Taiwan and concern for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.
Military commentator Leyi Qi told Free Asia that the Chinese Communist Party’s “sense of urgency to violate Taiwan by force is indeed more urgent than in so many years in the past.
He said that after the problems in Hong Kong, the people of Taiwan have no hope for the “one country, two systems”. And the Chinese Communist Party also believes that “one country, two systems” is impossible to achieve. So it will have to “come hard,” which is “the worst possible scenario for the future.
However, Qi Leyi also said that if something happens in the Taiwan Strait, “the United States will definitely intervene”, which Beijing is deeply afraid of. The Chinese Communist Party knows that compared to the United States, the military equipment is far worse. Therefore, it only uses military aircraft around Taiwan to intimidate Taiwan by force, in fact, the Chinese Communist Party “does not have the ability to fire the first shot”.
The Chinese Communist Party will pay a huge cost for violating Taiwan by force
Taiwan’s strategic experts have also poured cold water on the Chinese Communist Party’s invasion of Taiwan. According to reports, on May 8, the Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation held a lecture in Taipei on the cross-strait from a military perspective, hosted by Su Ziyun, director of the Institute for Defense Strategy and Resources at the National Defense Security Research Institute, and delivered by Jie Zhong, a senior research associate at the National Foundation for Policy Research.
Jie Zhong said that the Chinese Communist Party’s military believes that once force is unleashed against Taiwan, it will pay a huge cost, and that it will face international political and diplomatic constraints, especially military intervention by a strong enemy (the United States), as well as many countries with which the Communist Party has territorial disputes, and China’s borders such as Tibet and Xinjiang will provoke a chain of events that will cause a chain effect.
To avoid military intervention by a strong enemy or to provide enough time for the chain effect, he said, the Communist Party stressed the need for quick warfare, striving for the shortest possible time to disrupt the effect of organized resistance of the national army.
“Committing Taiwan by force is the CCP’s last resort to cope with the Taiwan issue.” Jie Zhong pointed out that everyone can breathe a little easier about the defensive strength of the National Army, which according to Chinese scholars is actually rated higher than many Taiwanese people. They believe that the national army is currently performing well in four areas: strategic early warning, joint pressure control, joint air defense and defense system.
Jie Zhong said, first of all, the Chinese Communist Party believes that the national army has strong strategic early warning, so that the communist forces will be detected by the national army at the stage of preparing to commit force against Taiwan, which means there is no possibility of strategic surprise attack. The second is the joint pressure operations of the national army, with the ability to strike from the island across the sea against the targets of the southeastern garrison of mainland China.
The third is that the entire joint air defense system of the National Army has a high operational capability, which poses a great danger to the incoming Communist air forces. The fourth is that the Communist forces believe that the current defense system of the national army is doing quite well. Therefore, at this stage, if the Chinese Communist Party wants to violate Taiwan by force, the actions of the national army will cause great harm to the communist army.
Chinese scholars also disclosed that the Communist army’s war effort is insufficient
Jie Zhong said that Chinese scholars also admit that the current stage of the Communist army has a lot of problems.
These include the Communist Army’s small warning range and low strike capability of the airship battle group in terms of key warfare capabilities; serious shortage of air refueling energy; and insufficient coverage of maritime surveillance and tracking. In terms of first-wave force projection energy requirements, it is estimated that there is a significant gap between about 4-6 brigades and the standard combined air and sea projection of about 12 to 15 brigades for the main force.
Chinese scholars have also disclosed the lack of integrated joint warfare capabilities of the Communist forces. Including the November 7, 2020 only promulgation of the Communist Party military joint warfare outline for trial, there is still a need to improve the new generation of Joint Warfare Orders and the basic system such as the Operational Readiness Regulations one by one. The tactical networks of the various military services are not yet fully integrated and are not fully capable of modern joint warfare.
Jie Zhongshang said that the key to a quick victory for the Chinese Communist Party in Taiwan is not how many planes, ships and missiles it has, but the most crucial thing is the overall logistical mobilization and speed.
According to estimates by Chinese communist scholars, when the Chinese Communist Party invades Taiwan by force, it will need to carry out medium- and long-range delivery of hundreds of thousands of troops. This will consume a huge variety of supplies of nearly 30 million tons and over 5.8 million tons of fuel. The synthetic brigade’s daily demand for gasoline and diesel fuel alone is estimated to be as high as 630,000 kilograms during the island-entry phase of the operation.
In addition to the huge amount of supplies, there is also the problem of wounded soldiers to consider. Chinese scholars estimate that the total number of wounded is estimated to be at least about 120,000, with at least 60,000 seriously wounded and sick, and enough standing medicine to cope with more than 400,000 troops in continuous combat for more than 30 days, he said.
Jie Zhong said that with such a huge amount of supplies to be transported, the Communist Party estimates that 3,100 special trains, 1.1 million vehicle trips, 2,200 air sorties and at least 7,800 sea ship trips would be needed, and the more difficult part is how to deliver them quickly, timely, accurately and in an endless stream to thousands of supply points, which can be imagined as a complex project.
He said that the communist army is currently facing several problems in logistics mobilization, including the established logistics support network chain does not match the strategic direction, so only in the past few years began to have to make large-scale adjustments to the logistics mobilization support system.
It has not been long since the adjustment of the defense mobilization system began only in the second half of 2018, and so far the Communist Army has not formally implemented large-scale cross-sea strategic delivery exercises. Therefore, he believes that if the communist army wants to commit a forceful attack on Taiwan in the short term, unless the morale of the Taiwanese people is very fragile, the communist army will not be able to reach the requirement of a quick war.
The expansion of the Chinese Communist Party’s military power urges democratic countries to counteract
Su Ziyun pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party is the biggest promoter of the division of China. In addition to the establishment of the so-called People’s Republic of China in 1949, this year 2021 marks the centennial of the CCP’s founding and the 90th anniversary of the CCP’s division of China.
He reminded that the “cognitive warfare” against the Chinese Communist Party must be paid attention to, “the core of the problem is the value of democracy and freedom, that is, the choice of the way of life of the people of Taiwan”.
Su Ziyun said that the announcement of military exercises in the Taiwan Strait by the Communist Party’s eastern war zone in an attempt to intimidate Taiwan actually sends a strategic signal to the world about the threat of the Chinese Communist Party, which in turn makes Beijing face a greater dilemma. Beijing’s “dream of a strong nation” is crumbling, and its aggressive war-wolf diplomacy and military expansion, as well as its totalitarian tactics to curtail Hong Kong’s freedom, have alerted and counteracted democratic countries.
He also pointed out that “the Chinese Communist Party still has no chance to win in terms of military power, and the security environment is unstable for all neighbors”. The “security partnership” with Mongolia and the joint military exercises with a sashay to Beijing.
And at the operational level, there are also fears of problems, the Communist Party’s various new models of equipment have “initial combat capability” is still in doubt, and the quality of performance has also appeared shortcomings, including combat armor vehicle protection, combat aircraft engine life is too short and other issues, are deadly indicators.
Su Ziyun said, most importantly, in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and other pre-defined battlefields, belonging to the technology-intensive air and sea combat environment, the initial scale of the Chinese Communist naval and air forces, I am afraid it is a technological warfare electromagnetic nightmare, battlefield detection and command chain fears will be completely dominated by the U.S. military.
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