WASHINGTON – US officials are stepping up efforts to build a gigantic supply of weapons in Taiwan after studying the recent naval and air exercises of the Chinese army on the island, according to current and former officials.
The exercises showed that China probably it would block the island as a prelude to any attempted invasion and Taiwan would have to resist alone until the United States or other nations have intervened if they so wish, current and former officials say. .
But the effort to turn Taiwan into an arms depot faces challenges.
Priority
The United States and its allies have prioritized sending arms to Ukraine, which is reducing those countries’ stocks, and arms manufacturers are reluctant to open new production lines without a steady flow of long-term orders.
And it is not clear how China might respond if the United States accelerated arms shipments to Taiwan, a democratic and autonomous island that according to Beijing is Chinese territory.
US officials are determining the number and type of weapons sold to Taiwan by silently telling Taiwanese officials and US arms manufacturers that they will refuse orders from some large systems in favor of more weapons. smaller and more mobile.
The Biden administration announced on September 2 that it has approved its sixth arms package for Taiwan:
a $ 1.1 billion sale that includes 60 Harpoon coastal anti-ship missiles.
US officials are also discussing how to streamline the sales and delivery process.
President Joe Biden Last month he said the US “does not encourage” Taiwan independence, adding:
“This is your decision.”
Since 1979, Washington has adopted a policy aimed at guaranteeing Beijing that it does not support independence. But Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a speech to the Asia Society last month that the United States was undermining that position “through repeated deals and official arms sales, including many offensive weapons.”
In August, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army conducted warship and fighter drills in areas near Taiwan.
It also fired ballistic missiles into the waters off the coast of Taiwan, four of which passed over the island, according to Japan.
The Chinese military took action after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.
But even earlier, US and Taiwanese officials had taken a closer look at the possibility of an invasion because Russia’s assault on Ukraine had made the possibility seem more real, although Chinese leaders had not established. explicitly a timetable for establishing the government over Taiwan.
The US would not be able to supply Taiwan as easily as Ukraine due to the lack of land routes from neighboring countries.
Resistence
The goal now, officials say, is to ensure Taiwan has sufficient weapons to defend itself until help arrives.
Biden said last month that US troops would defend Taiwan if China carried out an “unprecedented attack” on the island. Fourth time declaring that commitment is a shift away from a preference for “strategic ambiguity” about Taiwan among US presidents.
“Storage in Taiwan is a very active talking point,” said Jacob Stokes, a colleague at the Center for a New American Security who advised Biden on Asian politics when he was vice president.
“And if it does, how do you harden it and how do you disperse it so that Chinese missiles can’t destroy it?”
“The point of view is that we need to extend the amount of time Taiwan can stand alone,” he added.
“This is how you prevent China from reaping the low fruit of its ‘fait accompli’ strategy: that it won the day before we arrived, assuming we intervene.”
US officials are increasingly stressing Taiwan’s need for weapons smaller cell phones which can be lethal against Chinese warships and aircraft and which can evade attacks, which is key to the so-called asymmetric warfare.
The “shoot and slide” types of weapons are popular among the Ukrainian military, which has effectively used Javelin and NLAW shoulder-mounted anti-tank guided missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles against Russian forces.
Recently, the Ukrainians hit Russian troops mobile rocket launchers made in the United States known as HIMARS.
To turn Taiwan into a “hedgehog,” a weapon-laden entity that would be costly to attack, US officials sought to lead their Taiwanese counterparts to order more of those weapons and fewer conventional ground warfare systems such as chariots. armed M1 Abrams.
Pentagon and State Department officials have also regularly discussed these issues since March with US arms companies, including an industry conference in Taiwan this week in Richmond, Virginia. Jedidiah Royal, a Department of Defense
The Ent official said in a speech that the Pentagon was helping Taiwan build systems for “an island of defense against an attacker with conventional overrun “.
In a recent article, James Timbie, a former State Department official, and James O. Ellis Jr., a retired US Navy admiral, said Taiwan needs “a lot of little things” for distributed defense. and that some of the recent US purchases, including the Harpoon and Stinger missiles, fit this bill.
Taiwan also manufactures its own deterrent weapons, including mining ships, air defense missile systems, and anti-ship cruise missiles.
They said Taiwan needs to shift resources away from “expensive, high-profile conventional systems” that China can easily destroy in an initial attack, although some of these systems, particularly F-16 jets, are useful for countering the fighter jets and Chinese ships underway. activities in the airspace and waters of the “gray zone”.
The authors also wrote that “an effective defense of Taiwan” will require the storage of ammunition, fuel and other supplies, as well as strategic energy and food reserves.
Administration officials of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen say they recognize the need to stock smaller weapons, but point to significant delays between orders and shipments.
“I think we are moving towards a high degree of consensus in terms of prioritizing the asymmetric strategy, but the speed must increase,” Bi-khim Hsiao, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Washington, said in an interview. .
Some US lawmakers have called for faster and more robust deliveries.
Some high-ranking senators are trying to push through the proposed Taiwan Policy Act, which would provide it $ 6.5 billion andn security assistance to Taiwan for the next four years and would order the island to be treated as if it were an “important non-NATO ally”.
Foror Jens StoltenbergSecretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said in an interview that arms manufacturers want to see the predictability of orders before committing to increasing production.
Weapons directors from the United States and more than 40 other nations met last week in Brussels to discuss long-term supply and manufacturing issues.
If China were to decide to establish a naval blockade around Taiwan, US officials would likely investigate which route to supply Taiwan, by sea or by air, would offer the least chance of Chinese and US ships, planes and submarines going into direct conflict.
One proposal would involve sending US cargo planes carrying supplies from bases in Japan and Guam to Taiwan’s east coast.
In this way, any Chinese fighters attempting to shoot them down would have to fly over Taiwan and risk being shot down by Taiwanese fighters.
“The sheer amount of material that would likely be needed in the event of a war is formidable and overcoming it would be difficult, although it might be doable,” said Eric Wertheim, defense consultant and author of “The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets” . of the world.”
“The question is: how much risk are they willing direct China and the White House respectively in terms of enforcing or breaking a blockade, and whether it can be maintained?
China has probably studied the strategic failure of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, he said, and the US should continue to send the kind of weapons to Taiwan that will make an amphibious invasion or weapons attack much more difficult for China. long range. .
“The Chinese naval officers I spoke to in previous years have said they fear the humiliation that would result from any kind of failure, and this obviously has the effect that they are less likely to act if there is a greater risk of failure. “. Wertheim said.
“Essentially, the success the Ukrainians are having is a message for the Chinese.”
Biden administration officials are trying to gauge which moves would discourage China without provoking a further military action.
Jessica Chen Weiss, a Cornell University government professor who worked on Chinese politics last year at the State Department, tweeted that Biden’s recent remarks on U.S. troops’ commitment to Taiwan’s defense were “dangerous”.
He said in an interview that following the hedgehog strategy improves deterrence, but not doing what he sees as symbolic steps on Taiwan’s diplomatic status.
“The US must make it clear that it has no strategic interest in Taiwan being permanently separated from mainland China,” he said.
But other former US officials praise Biden’s strong remarks, saying a major “strategic clarity”Strengthens deterrence.
“President Biden has now said four times that we would defend Taiwan, but every time he says it, someone takes him back,” said Harry B. Harris Jr., a retired admiral who served as commander of the Pacific States Command. United and ambassador to South Korea.
“And I think that makes us look like a nation that seems weak because who is running this show? I mean, is he the president or are they his advisors?
“So maybe we should take him at his word,” added Harris.
“Maybe he’s serious about defending Taiwan.”
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
