By Ben Blanchard — Reuters, Monday 13 December 2021
TAIPEI (Reuters) — A full Chinese invasion of Taiwan with troops landed and ports and airports seized would be very difficult to achieve due to problems China would have in landing and supplying troops, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said in its latest threat assessment. Tensions between Taipei and Beijing, which claims the democratically-ruled island as its own territory, have risen in the past two years as China steps up military activities near Taiwan to pressure it to accept Chinese rule.
In a report to lawmakers, Taiwan’s Defence Ministry said China’s transport capacity was at present limited, it would not be able to land all its forces in one go, and would have to rely on “non-standard” roll-on, roll-off ships that would need port facilities, and transport aircraft that would need airports. “However, the nation’s military strongly defends ports and airports, and they will not be easy to occupy in a short time. Landing operations will face extremely high risks,” the ministry said. China’s logistics face challenges too, as any landing forces would need to be resupplied with weapons, food and medicines across the Taiwan Strait.
“The nation’s military has the advantage of the Taiwan Strait being a natural moat and can use joint intercept operations, cutting off the Communist military’s supplies, severely reducing the combat effectiveness and endurance of the landing forces.” The ministry also noted that China would need to keep some forces in reserve to prevent foreign intervention and to keep watch on other fractious areas of its border, such as with India and in the South China Sea.
Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is overseeing a military modernisation programme to make the island harder to attack, including making the military more mobile and extending the range of weapons to bring Chinese airfields, ports and assembly areas within reach. The government is planning an extra NT$240 billion (US$8.66 billion) over the next five years in military spending, going mostly toward naval weapons including missiles and warships.