China has threatened to invade Taiwan.
Taiwan has been preparing.
But is Taiwan ready?
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Chris Chappell.
This episode has been sponsored by Surfshark—because you should
be protecting your identity whenever you go online by using a VPN like Surfshark.
Taiwan. A thriving democracy of 24 million people.
Home of the Freedom Pineapple.
And the hottest flashpoint of 2021!
For years, experts have called Taiwan the likeliest flash point
that would trigger world war 3.
That’s because of the Chinese Communist Party’s plan for Taiwan “unification”.
Which is just a nicer way of saying invasion.
But a Chinese Communist takeover of Taiwan would also endanger the rest of the world.
Taiwan is part of the first island chain in the Pacific, along with Japan and the Philippines.
The Chinese Communist Party is already claiming the bottom part of the first island chain,
with their nine-dash line in the South China Sea.
If they got Taiwan, too, that would consolidate their power over much of
Asia. And it would also be a launching point for them to threaten the rest of the Pacific.
Including US allies like Japan, the Philippines, and Australia. And US territories like Guam.
Even Hawaii.
That’s a big reason why the Pentagon should focus on Taiwan.
But the US doesn’t have an official defense treaty with Taiwan. That means if the Chinese
Communist Party actually invaded Taiwan, the US isn’t required by law to defend Taiwan.
That doesn’t mean the US wouldn’t defend Taiwan, it just means it’s not guaranteed.
However, the US is required by law “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character.”
Enough to “enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.”
In 2020 alone, US arms sales to Taiwan totaled 5 billion dollars.
Of course, the Chinese Communist Party has warned the Biden administration
to stop doing this. Or doing anything to support Taiwan.
But other than throwing hissy fits at the US,
the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t have a lot of options for how it can take over Taiwan.
It could move decisively to a full-scale invasion to raise the cost of US intervention.
It’s possible that the Biden administration would then decide
it’s not worth sending US troops to defend Taiwan.
This is a risky move, though. We’ve talked before about how
difficult it would be to launch a full-scale invasion of Taiwan.
The Chinese regime could also adopt a coercive strategy
that gradually increases military pressure to bend Taipei to China’s demands.
This idea of gradual escalation is what many people call gray zone warfare.
We did an episode about how the Chinese regime is using gray
zone warfare against Taiwan by constantly sending warplanes into Taiwan’s airspace.
This can ensure that China always maintains the initiative, keeping Taiwan on edge constantly,
without going into full-scale conflict.
This “war of attrition” is already wearing down Taiwan
politically, militarily, and psychologically.
The Chinese Communist Party is trying to make their aggression and militarization
the norm, “something that is not worthy of any sort of response from other nations.”
So if other countries won’t respond to the Chinese Communist Party’s actions,
is Taiwan’s military prepared for a Chinese invasion?
I’ll get to that after the break.
Welcome back.
So is Taiwan’s military prepared for an invasion?
Taiwan has its eyes on increasing its conventional weapon capabilities,
but many experts say that Taiwan should stop spending its money on them.
That’s because those systems are expensive and not necessarily useful
for the type of warfare that Taiwan would face from the Communist Party.
This is why, a couple of years ago, former Taiwanese Admiral
Lee Hsi-ming proposed what’s called the Overall Defense Concept, or ODC for short.
“The ODC is Taiwan’s current strategy for dealing
with a potential Chinese invasion in a resource-constrained environment.”
Instead of a traditional war of attrition, the ODC
redefines winning war against China as “foiling the People’s Liberation
Army’s mission of successfully invading and exerting political control over Taiwan.”
Admiral Lee says Taiwan should prepare to absorb
missile and air strikes and preserve the ability to strike back.
The ability to strike back would rely on an abundance of small, cheap weapons
like mobile anti-ship missiles, portable anti-aircraft missiles,
advanced sea mines and fast missile boats.
What’s great about these weapons is that they can be camouflaged and dispersed in urban,
coastal, jungle and mountain areas.
This makes it hard for the PLA to search and destroy.
The ODC is an approach that Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen supports.
There are, however, some bureaucratic challenges that Taiwan faces in implementing the ODC.
“Efforts at defense reform face obstacles from institutional opposition from senior
officers and a lack of time.”
On top of that, there’s also the issue of Taiwan’s military readiness.
“Taiwan is suffering a serious and worsening decay in the readiness
and training of its troops, particularly its army units.”
Much of it is because Taiwan’s mandatory military service
has dramatically decreased from one year to four months.
But even within those four months,
some army conscripts say that they only fire 30 to 40 rounds with their rifles. That’s not a lot.
One army conscript said that he wasn’t even taught how to clear his rifle if it jammed.
Not even a fraction of conscripts
get the chance to practice shooting anti-tank missiles and grenade launchers.
So, they miss all the fun parts.
This is a problem because a military is only as good as its soldiers. What good
is buying weapons if your soldiers aren’t trained to use them properly?
The Tsai administration is trying to correct these issues with a mobilization office.
Its goal is to better strengthen and coordinate Taiwan’s reserve
forces so that reserve soldiers play a greater role and support active-duty service members.
The administration will also extend post-service training
for reservists from 8 years to 15 years in 2022.
But are these reforms enough?
I’ll get to that after the break.
Welcome back.
Taiwan’s a democracy, and as a democracy, you don’t want to upset people — especially
young voters — with something like mandatory military conscription.
But you know what’s easy to do? Rely on America. But like I said earlier in
this episode, there’s no guarantee that America will come through.
Although if it doesn’t, that would be a huge blow to America’s standing in the world, not to mention
our ability to counter the Chinese Communist Party. But that’s a whole nother episode.
The biggest problem for Taiwan, is that relying on the US might be making Taiwan soft.
Retired US Marine Corp colonel Grant Newsham says that Taiwan’s military has been whittled down
because it is acting as if defending the country is someone else’s responsibility.
There is also a concern
the Taiwanese might not have the will to defend against and resist the mainland.
This is a problem because, “as the president of the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council puts it,
the problem of Taiwan's defense comes down to ‘the space between how young Taiwan citizens
feel about the island's sovereignty and what they're prepared to do about it.’”
So how do they feel?
Polls show mixed messages. According to one poll, “If war were to break out between Taiwan
and China, 40.9 percent of those surveyed said that they are willing to fight or would not
object to their family's participation, while 49.1 percent said the opposite.”
So the majority of Taiwanese are not willing to fight against the Chinese regime.
But another poll shows that 96 percent of 18 and 19-year-olds would be willing to fight.
Although that percentage dropped to 26 percent
for people in their 20s. The age that would likely be sent first to the front lines.
But public sentiment in Taiwan is likely to change as the Chinese Communist Party
gets more aggressive. Hong Kong has already been a huge wake-up call to many Taiwanese.
When faced with an existential crisis, a smaller force like Taiwan
can beat a much larger foe like China if it has enough resolve.
And Taiwan’s government is proactively trying to solve their military weaknesses.
They just need enough time.
So let’s hope that this retired Japanese general is wrong and China doesn’t invade Taiwan by 2025.
And this episode is sponsored by Surfshark.
Whenever you go online, you should be using a VPN like Surfshark to protect
your identity. Everything you do online is being tracked and logged—by the websites you visit
and your internet service provider. And in many cases, by the government.
And if you’re in an authoritarian country like
China this kind of tracking can put you at risk of surveillance and even arrest.
So I recommend you use Surfshark to protect yourself online.
When you use Surfshark’s CleanWeb mode, you’ll be protected from trackers,
plus a lot of ads and malware.
With one account,
you can connect as many devices as you want. Try it out with a 30-day money back guarantee.
And Surfshark has a special discount for China Uncensored fans. Go to surfshark.com/uncensored
and use the code UNCENSORED to get our special deal that includes 3 extra months for FREE.
Click the link below.
Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. See you next time.