Taiwan said for the first time on Tuesday it would fire missiles at Chinese airfields and missile launch sites if its arch-rival ever attacked the island.
The details emerged as Taiwan military leaders discussed the results of simulated attack scenarios, part of the island’s annual military exercises that began last month and which the Defence Ministry said showed Taiwan could successfully repel a Chinese attack.
Taiwan’s military has not in recent history openly said it would launch a large military strike against China if it were attacked and in the past its plans have been largely defensive in nature.
The admission comes during accelerated military spending by China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory and refuses to rule out an invasion to take it back.
The exercise, run over five days last week, used computers to simulate attack scenarios by China in the year 2012, beginning with an air and sea blockade, followed by cruise-missile attacks on the island’s airbases, air-defence weapons and radar sites.
It also modelled an amphibious assault and landings by enemy forces. The exercise was conducted in the secretive joint operations command centre located in a fortified bunker in mountains near the capital, the Defence Ministry said.
In the simulation, however, Taiwan responded with ground-based missiles to counter the enemy’s threat from the air and sea, said Lieutenant General Shu Tai-sheng, who commands the joint operations and training, doctrine and development office.
”In this Han Kuang simulated exercise, the defending forces used tactical shore-based missiles for fire suppression, which were targeted at the enemy’s airfields, missile-launch sites, observation and communication facilities,” Shu said.
Taiwan and China have lived in a state of preparedness for major armed confrontation since 1949 when the former Chinese Nationalist government lost a civil war to Mao Zedong’s communists and fled to the island.
Fire power
Suppression of the enemy’s air power and missiles would permit Taiwan sea and air forces to resupply military outposts on outlying islands and repel a landing force while crossing the Taiwan Strait, the ministry said.
Shu declined to discuss details of the missiles. However, local media and analysts suspect the simulated missile was most likely based on the Hsiung Feng 2E cruise missile, which is still being developed by Taiwan.
”What kind of missile in Taiwan’s inventory can strike airbases inside China from land-based positions? None. The only answer is that Taiwan is projecting forward a few years when the Hsiung Feng 2E [Brave Wind] will be deployed,” said Wendell Minnick, Asia bureau chief of the United States-based Defence News.
Minnick said the missile was believed to have a range of 300km to 500km and would be based initially on Taiwan’s west coast facing China on mobile launchers.
Military officers declined to say which areas in China were targeted, but insisted their missiles would only be used against military facilities.
”The defensive forces have never targeted civilian facilities for attack,” said Shu.
Analysts and Taiwan military officers say the likely targets would be in areas adjacent to Taiwan along China’s west coast, where Beijing has deployed nearly 1 000 short-range cruise missiles, according to Taiwan government estimates.
China also has 700 fighter and bomber aircraft within strike range, along with 400 000 ground troops, according to a Pentagon report on China’s military power.
By comparison, Taiwan has 130 000 ground forces and 330 combat aircraft, according to the Pentagon.
The exercise was observed by a delegation of US officials, including former commander of US forces in Asia, retired Admiral Dennis Blair, said Defence Ministry officials.
The Defence Ministry will hold live military drills in May in the next stage of the annual exercise, officers have said. — Reuters