China pressure deepens Taiwan’s desire for big US weapon systems

Intensified military pressure from China has reinforced Taiwan’s desire to acquire large weapons platforms such as warships and fighter aircraft, deepening Taipei’s differences over arms procurement with the US.

China’s People’s Liberation Army this month conducted unprecedented week-long exercises to punish Taipei for hosting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and has since continued daily air and sea manoeuvres close to Taiwan.

Taiwanese government and military officials see this campaign as evidence that Beijing’s preferred strategy is not to invade their country, but to force it to submit to Chinese control through military pressure below the threshold of war.

Officials said this meant Washington should adjust its policy of pushing Taiwan to prioritise cheap, small and mobile weapons such as man-portable Stinger anti-aircraft missiles that are deemed essential to resist a full invasion. The US is Taiwan’s main arms supplier.

A senior Taiwanese government official briefed on national security issues said the PLA Navy had ships “pushing up” against the Taiwan Strait median line every day, as well as a vessel on the western and on the eastern side of the Bashi Channel between Taiwan and the Philippines and a “regular presence” between Taiwan and the Japanese island of Yonaguni.

“To push back against these 500-tonne ships, medium and large-size warships are really necessary,” the official said.

“In this situation, it is very hard to simply argue we should replace our ageing large platforms with small and mobile boats and missiles,” the official added. “If you just focus on coastal defence, the only thing you can counter is when they’re really storming onshore.”

In the light of growing US concerns that China might attack Taiwan within the next five years, Washington is trying to force Taipei to prioritise “asymmetric” weapons — systems that exploit an adversary’s weakness instead of trying to match its strengths. This year, President Joe Biden’s administration began denying Taiwanese requests for large, expensive systems that it argued were not efficient in deterring an invasion.

Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen’s government initially acquiesced to that course over resistance within its own defence establishment. But officials said the country’s most immediate defence needs must be reassessed in the light of what both Taipei and Washington have called a Chinese attempt to change the status quo around Taiwan.

“The PLA’s latest operations show how different Taiwan’s situation is from the Ukraine war,” said Shu Hsiao-huang, a research fellow at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research, a think-tank backed by the defence ministry. “We need to strengthen both our asymmetric and our traditional defences.”

The Chinese military has said its campaign has “destroyed” the median line, previously an unofficial buffer that its fighter aircraft now cross daily, and that it intended to conduct regular patrols closer to Taiwan.

Taipei is concerned that this “new normal” will help Beijing underpin its claim of sovereignty over the island. “If we do not counter these attempts to constrain us, this could enable them to coerce us into unification at some point,” said one military official.

Tsai’s administration is conducting a review of the recent PLA drills and plans to discuss the results with Washington.

“Without pre-empting the outcome, our and the US’s views do indeed differ on what exactly constitutes asymmetry and how much asymmetry we need,” the senior official said. “The US has experience in the Middle East and Ukraine. But taking into account China’s recent exercises, our needs may be different.”

There is no sign Washington plans to adjust its approach to Taiwan arms sales. China’s latest military pressure campaign “has absolutely reinforced our policy for us,” said a senior US government official. “It reinforces for us the need to make sure that they have enough of these asymmetric capabilities to deter any sort of threat from the PRC.”