Taiwan Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

manqiangrexue

Brigadier
That's been a long-standing attack line against the various US-orientated military alliances since the start of the Cold War. The US is decadent, it's morally weak, it's isolationist, it doesn't care about you, it will abandon you when you most need it - you should make friends with us instead.
That's what it has been proving. America will only fight easy fights.
If Taiwanese are foolish to thinking that the US will help then the same applies to Japan, the ROK, Middle Eastern states and Baltic states.
Does the US employ strategic ambiguity with those other states as well? In either case, it would be foolish of them to think that the US would fight to the death for them. If a country capable of defeating the US (or even had some chance of doing it) were to attack these nations, America would find a way out. It has its own citizens to keep alive, and it's not necessarily a dig at the US. Self-preservation comes first; a person may sacrifice himself in the heat of the moment fighting for a friend but world leaders are not generally known to sacrifice their whole countries for the sake of another nation.
It's more about symbolism to show that NATO is a unified alliance rather than using Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as an expendable buffer against Russia.
That's exactly what they would be if a hot war started.
It's not a ploy to get Americans dead and then the rest of the population angry. If Russia thought there was a chance the US wouldn't help then it would avoid bases where American personnel were stationed or warn off Washington so they had a few hours to pull out their personnel.
You have these concepts confused. It's not how the Russians would act if they thought there was a chance that the Americans wouldn't fight but it's how the Russians would act if they thought there was any chance that the Americans would fight, if American personnel were killed. Countries usually play it safe like when driving. You only enter a lane when you're sure that there's no chance of causing an accident, not when you there think there's a chance that you wouldn't. And this simply shows that Russia and the USA respect each other's boundaries as large powerful nations, not that the US is willing to fight to the death for any ally.
I'll just observe that international indexes that show how democratic a territory are normally show Taiwan ranking much higher than HK (and obviously mainland China). Try the Economist Intelligence Unit's index - last time Taiwan was 31st (on a par with Beligum) whilst HK was 75th. There are others as well.
LOLOLOL Were those indices made by the same people who like to blow smoke up their own rears by releasing a map that shows China poorly prepared and the US supremely prepared for a pandemic? Or the guys who make basically the same map about governmental stability right before the American Capital Building was ransacked?
 
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azretonov

Junior Member
Registered Member
China is also not yet strong enough to overpower through this pressure coming from the west.
It is why Taiwan is getting so much support and attention from the west. Taiwanese themselves feel this is the time to go for independence cause if they wait longer, China will be too strong in the future and even the west won't dare to support them in a war.
There is no support to muster from the west. Both Ukraine with Russia, and, JCPOA with Iran have created great discord between the US and European big four. Mind you, this isn't their fight and they don't have any obligations to Taiwan. Furthermore, are you familiar with the term 'Mutual Assured Economic Destruction'? Both the Europeans and the Americans have greater economic interests in healthy relations with China, than spoiling it in a time of economic hardship. During the pandemic, we've seen what a much smaller distruption to the global logistics can yield great trouble in return. Especially after Covid, no one would jump into that bandwagon of adventure to risk their respective statuses of power.

Domestic support for independence has been there since early 90s but so was the case of Casus Belli renewed by the Chinese. Back then, there was little trouble that concerned Washington DC directly as it does today. Even the most loyal of allies are challenging the status quo, thus the US. Do you follow up the developments in Eurasia and MENA regions? I don't see much optimism there -- neither for Taiwan nor for Ukraine or Belarus or Poland or the Baltic states.
 

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
This is getting us no where, he's mind is stuck in the last century, he still hoping against hope that the mighty US 7th fleet will come and rushed into their aid.

If that's the case, just like @vesicles said, declared UDI. The mighty U.S. will come and protect you. And stop with this notion in your head that the U.S. won't because Taiwan has changed the status quo. And it's China's fault!

Just what's going in that head of his? It's amazing. In fact I wish Taiwan would have the balls to declared UDI. In doinf so, we will see whether the U.S. got the balls to go up against China in their own turf.

I'm saying this not because U.S. is weak or anything, far from it. US is still the strongest military in the world. But China is no few rag tag soldiers with camels just so U.S. can fire a rocket up its bum. The U.S. knows it. Which is why they hide behind this strategic ambiguity crap.
 

supersnoop

Major
Registered Member
Talking in a historical context, I think CSB was the closest before being rebuked by the USA. He was constantly seen by both USA and PRC as trying to push through many referenda that could’ve crossed the line though in the end he didn’t get that far. LTH was still nominally KMT (although both repudiated each other later on). I think it is unlikely he had enough political capital domestically to carry out any sort of move to independence.

From military standpoint, CSB administration (2000-2008) was probably the last to hold a qualitative advantage over PRC. For example, all ROCAF fighters had Active radar AAM at the time (AIM-120, MICA, TC-2), while PLAAF only had R-77 on Su-30. Domestic PL-12 would only be introduced near the end of his term, just like many of the other advanced systems now commonly in service with the PLA now.

These are some of the systems where PLA pulled ahead of ROCArF
KJ-2000 (2007)
052C (2004)
Z-10 (2010)
J-11B (2007)
J-10B (2010)

Obviously PLA had 2nd Artillery/Rocket Force that has no equivalent.

It is interesting to think back that even relatively recently that TW did possess an advantage on a platform to platform basis.
 

Gatekeeper

Brigadier
Registered Member
Yes, it is amazing how in such a short space of time, the whole calculus has changed. It used to be the price is quite high for PRC if It wish to reunify by force. But now the price is very high for foreign troops to come sailing in and defend Taiwan.

It is quite sad that people here still thinks the white knight that will still come, given this white knight had form of letting their allies down when it suits them. Just ask the Kurds.

Oh wait, you don't need to go that far, just go back in time to see who ditched and kickedTaiwan in the teeth in favour of PRC as the sole representative of China when it suited them. Mmmmmm. Dream on crafting the world in your image.

 
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quantumlight

Junior Member
Registered Member
Yes, it is amazing how in such a short space of time, the whole calculus has changed. It used to be the price is quite high for PRC if It wish to reunify by force. But now the price is very high for foreign troops to come sailing in and defend Taiwan.

It is quite sad that people here still thinks the white knight that will still come, given this white knight had form of letting their allies down when it suits them. Just ask the Kurds.

Oh wait, you don't need to go that far, just go back in time to see who ditched and kickedTaiwan in the teeth in favour of PRC as the sole representative of China when it suited them. Mmmmmm. Dream on crafting the world in your image.


"Trust the plan"... said Q... all the way up to the final hour.

Pompeo's 30 minute timed tweets was a countdown timer they said...

The 25,000 DC troops was Lord Trump setting a trap to arrest Biden on the morning of inaugeration day they said

The fact that the barbwires were deployed on the inside of the perimeter meant it was to keep people locked inside of DC during Trumps arrest of democrats

Trump had already invoked insurrection act in secret, Obama was arrested, Q said

lol...

The White Knight cometh for TW in the same manner Q came for Trump... four years he didnt even release his tax returns, couldnt be bothered to pardon Snowden or Assuage even though wikileaks helped him get elected... then on his way out he reversed the no lobby order he set in place in the beginning of his term to drain the swamp and pardons a bunch of evil rotten folks...

TW gonna be eating a lot more poisoned meat soon
 
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weig2000

Captain
Actually its the opposite. Taiwan has the easiest decade ahead, especially for DPP and its supporters. China is at its most dangerous period now. Why? Because China is now getting closer to surpassing US. It is still weaker than the west and thus US feels it must act now to suppress China with all it has. China is also not yet strong enough to overpower through this pressure coming from the west.

It is why Taiwan is getting so much support and attention from the west. Taiwanese themselves feel this is the time to go for independence cause if they wait longer, China will be too strong in the future and even the west won't dare to support them in a war. That's why Taiwan independence has so much popular support. Its now or never for them.

Even a few years back, the feeling in the US was to avoid war with China over Taiwan. Now the mood is that if they can force China to back down without war then that's good but if there is war, that's even better cause they still have chance to beat China down now.

China must use all its diplomatic skills to tough it in the next decade to suppress Taiwan independence and western desire to go all out. They must cajole the west to remain soft. Once China develops its military much further and also surpasses US gdp then this period of danger will pass.

It's difficult for me to tell whether you wrote the above in sarcasm or in earnest.

To be sure, China has shown and will show some restraint when it comes to facing the provocations from the US and Taiwan, assuming the red lines are not crossed. As important as Taiwan issue is for China, it is playing a much bigger geo-strategic game with the US and, most of everything is going in China's favor, at a speed much faster than even the most optimistic had projected. We're not talking about some extremely long term prospect. Why upset the apple cart and disturb the trend?

China has the military capability to take over Taiwan today, with or without foreign intervention. Sure, it'll pay some cost; therefore postponing the final show down will put China in a better position to deal with any potential fallout. In other words, it's a matter of optimal timing. But the bottom line is, China has the capability to reunify Taiwan by force, and that gives her confidence to tolerate somewhat more insults. Because it knows that its adversary is desperate and is provoking for an error in judgement on China's part. China has shown herself to be a far superior strategic player than its adversary so far.

But that doesn't mean China's patience is unlimited. The provocations are cumulative and will eventually add up, should the adversary not stop, by which time China will be in a better position politically, diplomatically and morally to strike back. And it would strike back hard and overwhelmingly.

We've seen this pattern very consistently throughout the history of the People's Republic, from the Korea War when PRC was founded barely a year earlier, in the 1962 China-India War when India started to provoke on the border at least as early as 1959 and when China was pretty weak after the failure of the Great Leap Forward. We've also seen the same pattern in the most recent Hong Kong riot and its aftermath. In short, there are plenty of track records to back up China's consistent and tough responses to the challenges to its sovereignty and territory integrity, but not a single piece of evidence to suggest China will swallow the violation of its core interest. Not in the past. Not now.

And, just in case someone brings out the nuclear card. Here is the short answer: it won't work. China was the only country that had fought the two superpowers during the Cold War, against explicit or implicit nuclear blackmails. It invaded Vietnam in 1979 as punishment for Vietnam's aggression in Southeast Asia, knowing fully well that Vietnam had a mutual defense treaty with Soviet Union (the internal briefing from the top leadership had gone down all the way to the grass root level to prepare the populace for a possible conflict with the Soviet Union when the war broke out). People need to learn history before they threaten China's core interest. I'll leave it as that.
 

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
It's difficult for me to tell whether you wrote the above in sarcasm or in earnest.

To be sure, China has shown and will show some restraint when it comes to facing the provocations from the US and Taiwan, assuming the red lines are not crossed. As important as Taiwan issue is for China, it is playing a much bigger geo-strategic game with the US and, most of everything is going in China's favor, at a speed much faster than even the most optimistic had projected. We're not talking about some extremely long term prospect. Why upset the apple cart and disturb the trend?

China has the military capability to take over Taiwan today, with or without foreign intervention. Sure, it'll pay some cost; therefore postponing the final show down will put China in a better position to deal with any potential fallout. In other words, it's a matter of optimal timing. But the bottom line is, China has the capability to reunify Taiwan by force, and that gives her confidence to tolerate somewhat more insults. Because it knows that its adversary is desperate and is provoking for an error in judgement on China's part. China has shown herself to be a far superior strategic player than its adversary so far.

But that doesn't mean China's patience is unlimited. The provocations are cumulative and will eventually add up, should the adversary not stop, by which time China will be in a better position politically, diplomatically and morally to strike back. And it would strike back hard and overwhelmingly.

We've seen this pattern very consistently throughout the history of the People's Republic, from the Korea War when PRC was founded barely a year earlier, in the 1962 China-India War when India started to provoke on the border at least as early as 1959 and when China was pretty weak after the failure of the Great Leap Forward. We've also seen the same pattern in the most recent Hong Kong riot and its aftermath. In short, there are plenty of track records to back up China's consistent and tough responses to the challenges to its sovereignty and territory integrity, but not a single piece of evidence to suggest China will swallow the violation of its core interest. Not in the past. Not now.

And, just in case someone brings out the nuclear card. Here is the short answer: it won't work. China was the only country that had fought the two superpowers during the Cold War, against explicit or implicit nuclear blackmails. It invaded Vietnam in 1979 as punishment for Vietnam's aggression in Southeast Asia, knowing fully well that Vietnam had a mutual defense treaty with Soviet Union (the internal briefing from the top leadership had gone down all the way to the grass root level to prepare the populace for a possible conflict with the Soviet Union when the war broke out). People need to learn history before they threaten China's core interest. I'll leave it as that.

In addition to the above, I'm sure some people might ask "well if China thinks it can win a war with Taiwan +/-external intervention, why doesn't it just invade Taiwan now???" or "why don't the people itching for a war with Taiwan sign up to the PLA and volunteer to land on Taiwan's beaches"???"


I would advise those individuals to understand that China doesn't want war and military force to be the first option.
That is to say, when someone says "the PLA is willing to fight and and take Taiwan today if red lines are crossed" does not mean "China would like to fight and take Taiwan today in an unprovoked manner as its primary option of settling this issue".

The below factors should all be considered:

1. No one starts a war or fights a military conflict willy nilly, because war ultimately is not the most desirable way to achieve an outcome. After all, if you have to fight a war, it means you have failed in diplomacy.

2. China today, likely would prefer to settle the Taiwan issue without having to fire in anger -- i.e.: some sort of negotiated settlement obviously would be preferred, and the geopolitical realities of today and into the future means of course that any such negotiated settlement would be one where China has much more geopolitical cards to play than say a decade or two ago, so such negotiations would be on China's terms. It's understandable that Taiwan would not desire this for various reasons, but the desire for a negotiated settlement where the use of force is not needed is still preferable.

3. For China, the likelihood of a conflict over Taiwan being successful and the likelihood of a conflict over Taiwan being more "easy" for the PLA to achieve, only increases with time over the next decade or two, rather than decreases with time. That is to say, in terms of military capability (as well as geostrategic factors), time is on China's side with regards to the ability to defeat Taiwan and/or external intervention, and for at least the next two decades, China likely doesn't mind waiting because the balance of military power (both across the strait, in the region, and in the world) will continue to shift in its favour. All this is to say that if China was forced to fight a war over Taiwan but had the option to "choose" when to fight a war over Taiwan, it would likely prefer to be able to do so more distant into the future rather than today. Every year that passes the balance shifts a bit more in its direction.




In short; the argument is that China is willing to fight a war over Taiwan today and is likely able to be successful in its political and geopolitical objectives, but that doesn't mean China is interested in fighting a war unprovoked today over Taiwan -- instead it reserves that capability in case any of its geopolitical red lines are crossed.
If those red lines are not crossed, then China will be content waiting for time to pass as they continue to build military and geostrategic power.

The only people who think China wants to fight a war over Taiwan today for no good reason either don't understand the whole point of "red lines" or who think China are somehow inherently aggressive for no logical reason and are irrational or something.
 

weig2000

Captain
We can also look at the issue from the US's perspective.

The US provokes China on Taiwan because its challenges to China in most other aspects are either not working or complete failures. Think about trade war, financial war, tech war, Covid-19, Hong Kong, Uighurs etc. Taiwan is the only issue where it hurts China (precisely because China cares dearly) but it's hard for China to fight back with symmetric measures without blowing up the whole issue.

There are two possible purposes to play Taiwan card for the US. One is more emotional and is to soothe some of the deep angers, frustrations and wounded pride against an opponent that has simply outplayed it in every which way. This explains a large part of the Trump administration and Congress's recent moves and policies on Taiwan. The other is more strategic and is to loosen up China's increasing tight grip around Taiwan economically, diplomatically and militarily, and in the event of potentially stepping out of line, to trigger an ill-considered overreaction on the part of China. It should be pointed out though that even in its most craziest moves, the US still tries to avoid the most drastic response from China. Thus Pompeo calls Taiwan "free China" and Congress tried to put a five-year expiration date in some of its most provocative Taiwan bills.

In the event when China do response with military options, the "best scenario" (I have to put them under quotation marks because provoking a war is never a best scenario for any sane person - the emphasis being sane) for the US would be China acted out of haste and blue, and the US led the "allies" in the Asia-Pacific to defeat or at least impede China's military operations, and then, whether China was successful or not militarily, led the world to sanction China economically and diplomatically. This would be a containment strategy much more likely to succeed. That way, China would be contained, and the declining empire would buy some breathing room.

Put simply, the US will not have any chance of succeeding in containing today's China militarily or economically without the help and collaboration from its full complement of "friends and allies" (a lot of Americans use these words rather liberally) in Asia-Pacific and Europe. The US is not exactly in a position now, domestically or internationally, to rally and lead such a coalition, willing or otherwise, against China the rapidly emerging superpower, on a sovereignty issue that the entire world and UN, including the US itself, consider to be a legitimate Chinese territory.

I expect the Bidden administration will cool down the provocations on Taiwan considerably.
 

Mr T

Senior Member
If those red lines are not crossed, then China will be content waiting for time to pass as they continue to build military and geostrategic power.
Does that mean you don't subscribe to the view that China will invade at some point simply because Taiwan puts off unification discussions? That was one part of the anti-independence legislation that was passed some years ago. Is it in your mind possible that all of us on the forum could die before unification took place and it would be for the next generation to find a solution?

Whilst I think that urgent unification via military force isn't in China's interests - although I agree that if the ROC constitution is changed to show that Taiwan is a separate legal entity from China that would trigger an attack - I don't think that anyone can guess who will be Xi's successor or what their agenda will be. I remember being lectured by Chinese nationalists that the presidential term limits were a core part of the PRC's constitution and that the CCP would never allow them to be swept away easily - right up until Xi swept them away easily. Xi himself was supposed to be a compromise candidate between different political factions, and he's gained more power than any of his predecessors going back to the 1980s.

The PRC's 100 year anniversary is the biggest China will have yet. The president of China that retakes (and holds) Taiwan - especially before 2049 - will go down in PRC history and might well replace Mao as its top leader. For someone with an ego that might be a temptation too big to pass up.
 
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