Taiwan Military Report Warns of China’s Capabilities; Landing Called Possible, But Full Invasion Less Likely

By Masatsugu Sonoda / Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent

6:00 JST, September 4, 2024

TAIPEI — Taiwan’s annual military report contains analysis that although the Chinese military has enhanced its capabilities for landing offensive operations on Taiwan soil, it does not have sufficient ability to implement a full-scale invasion at the current stage, according to a copy of the undisclosed report obtained by The Yomiuri Shimbun.

Taiwan’s National Defense Ministry submitted the report to the island’s Legislative Yuan, equivalent to Japan’s Diet, in late August.

In May, the Chinese military conducted combat drills by having forces surround the island just after Taiwan President Lai Ching-te took office.

Regarding those drills, the report presented a view that China aimed to “cause confrontations in Taiwan society and negatively affect morale in the [Taiwan] military and among citizens.”

During the drill, ships of the China Coast Guard conducted drills for patrols and onboard inspections in sea areas east of Taiwan for the first time.

According to the report’s analysis, the coast guard drills aimed to confirm the feasibility of a plan to blockade sea areas around Taiwan if a military contingency occurs on and around the island.

The Chinese military has been accelerating deployments of new types of antiship ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles to expand capabilities to counterstrike foreign military forces in sea areas between China and what Beijing calls the second island chain, which stretches from Japan’s Izu Islands to the U.S. territory of Guam, the report said.

The report pointed out that the China Coast Guard is also strengthening its ships’ weaponry and has received small ships retired from the Chinese Navy.

The Chinese military has been enthusiastic in building up new kinds of combat abilities, but its current capabilities are not sufficient to cope with geographical aspects of the Taiwan Strait.

Also because the Chinese military’s equipment for landing operations and supply capabilities for combat zones are not sufficient, the report concluded that the Chinese military’s combat capabilities “are not fully prepared to conduct a full-scale invasion on Taiwan.”

The Chinese government does not rule out the possibility of exercising force to integrate Taiwan into China’s territory, so the Taiwan military is hurriedly building up capabilities to counterstrike against landing offense operations.

In this year’s Han Kuang exercise in July, Taiwan’s largest-scale annual military drill, troops used portable weapons to shoot down unmanned aerial vehicles, likened to those of the Chinese military, with the intent to improve Taiwan’s capabilities to defend remote islands.

In the military exercise, the drill scenario was not revealed to force units in advance, and a situation in which communication lines would be cut off in battlefields was simulated.

By doing so, the Taiwan military examined whether commanders of force units will be able to ascertain circumstances and conduct missions independently.