Full-scale Chinese invasion would be difficult, says Taiwan

As China continues its shrill rhetoric on reunification with Taiwan, the island's defence ministry has released an assessment on the threat of invasion.

Reuters reported on Monday the assessment had been shared with lawmakers. “Taiwan's Defence Ministry said China's transport capacity was at present limited, it would not be able to land all its forces in one go, and would have to rely on 'non-standard' roll-on, roll-off ships that would need to use port facilities and transport aircraft that would need airports,” Reuters reported.

Referring to the capabilities of Taiwan's military, the report stated “... the nation's military strongly defends ports and airports, and they will not be easy to occupy in a short time. Landing operations will face extremely high risks. The nation's military has the advantage of the Taiwan Strait being a natural moat and can use joint intercept operations, cutting off the Communist military's supplies, severely reducing the combat effectiveness and endurance of the landing forces.”

The report argued China would not be able to commit all its forces for an invasion, given the need to deter possible foreign intervention and monitor other disputed areas such as the South China Sea and border with India.

“US and Japanese military bases are close to Taiwan, and any Chinese Communist attack would necessarily be closely monitored, plus it would need to reserve forces to prevent foreign military intervention... It is difficult to concentrate all its efforts on fighting with Taiwan,” Reuters quoted the report as saying.

Last week, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the US would act to prevent a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Sullivan was quoted by AP as saying, “The United States is going to take every action that we can take, from the point of view of both deterrence and diplomacy, to make sure that the Taiwan scenario… never happens and to try to avert the invasion... The sum total of the efforts we have undertaken over the course of the past eight months in the Indo-Pacific have also all been geared towards avoiding any kind of scenario where China chooses to invade.”