A brilliant, long, Reuters investigation of the China threat to Taiwan and ways to counter it, including Taiwan's use of submarines.
Part One: By David Lague and Maryanne Murray published Nov, 5, 2021 at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-wargames/
Titled “China’s quest to
rule Taiwan has already begun with a campaign of “gray-zone” warfare. Here is
how military strategists believe the struggle might play out.” With terrific
graphics and excellent research.
Some Part One excerpts:
“Tokyo, one of America’s
closest allies, has also been reticent to get involved. Japan operates one of
the world’s most advanced conventional submarine fleets. The idea of helping
Taiwan was informally discussed in Japan but was dropped out of concern over
how China might react, according to two senior defense ministry sources in
Tokyo.”
“One reason for Japan’s
hesitancy is fear of the economic consequences of offending Beijing, said
retired Vice Admiral Yoji Koda, a former fleet commander of the Japanese
Maritime Self-Defense Force. Japanese companies that would stand to lose
business in China for helping Taiwan are a powerful lobby, Koda said.”
"Reuters found at least 12 foreign engineers who said in interviews or on social media that they had worked on the submarine program or worked for Gavron in Taiwan.
...[Taiwan] also succeeded in hiring engineers, technicians and former naval officers from at least five other countries: Australia, South Korea, India, Spain and Canada. Based at a shipyard in the port city of Kaohsiung, the experts have advised the Taiwanese navy and state-backed shipbuilder CSBC Corporation Taiwan, the company building the new submarines.
... a mix of
young and veteran submarine experts – had experience working on advanced
submarine programs. These included the S-80 built by Spanish state-owned
shipbuilder Navantia and Britain’s nuclear-powered Astute-class attack subs
built by BAE Systems, according to the recruits’ social
media profiles.
...According to two sources in Taiwan, Lockheed Martin Corp is providing the subs’ combat system, which integrates and displays sonar and other sensor data to allow commanders to engage targets. Raytheon Technologies Corp is supplying the sonars, the sources said."
Part Two: Published Nov. 29/30, 2021 at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/taiwan-china-submarines/ .
Titled: “Taiwan has
stealthily recruited expertise and technology from around the world to build a submarine fleet to
serve as a deterrent against a Chinese invasion. Risking Beijing's ire, defense
companies and engineers from at least seven countries are helping the
diplomatically isolated island.”
Some Part Two excerpts:
"...For Beijing, success [in taking over Taiwan] would translate into a commanding strategic position in Asia, undermining the security of Japan and South Korea, and allowing China to project power into the Western Pacific."
"...For the American
alliance, a Chinese takeover of Taiwan would be a devastating blow. At a
stroke, the United States would lose its status as the pre-eminent power in
Asia, according to most U.S. and regional military experts. If America were
unwilling or unable to defend Taiwan, its network of allies in the Asia-Pacific
– including Tokyo, Seoul and Canberra – would overnight be far more vulnerable
to military and economic coercion from China. Some might switch allegiance to
Beijing, analysts say. Some might seek nuclear weapons to boost their own
security."
OUR COMMENT
There are many references to submarines througout Parts One and Two.
We suggest readers use Control + F inserting "Submarine" to find them.
Petra and Pete
7 comments:
Since PRC gets to choose the scenario, Taiwan, AUKUS, etc. need to prepare for all of them. Difficult, but perhaps not impossible.
1. Quemoy and other small islands cannot be saved, but perhaps can be made expensive to capture, and politically expensive for Taiwan's "allies" to ignore. This would require lots of land and sea mines, portable SAM's, anti tank missiles, dug in infantry, etc.
2. Chinese blockade requires plans for counter blockade by AUKUS, etc. at Malacca and other straits. Agreements must be in place before China makes its move. Economic blockade would also need to apply to traffic coming by rail through Russia. This would be painful, long and expensive, but I think the combined west would be stronger.
3. To deter invasion, Taiwan needs to invest heavily in asymmetric gear: Networked mobile AI sea mines, anti-aircraft defenses, and anti invasion infantry gear.
4. I think it is too late to count on a new submarine fleet, though if they want one they should get it before PRC gives western companies cold feet. Given that the mission of the submarines is sea denial against PRC navy (and perhaps blockading Chinese ports) UUV's and networked mobile AI sea mines may be able to achieve the same.
5. Since China can totally blockade Taiwan with its own submarines and mines, it is doubtful the blockade can be broken, so such a blockade will be part of any PRC strategy. The best case is a mutual blockade, and the winner would be the government with better public support. If Taiwan can use cruise missiles to damage PRC's rail links with Russia, there is a chance that Taiwan government may outlive CCP, which would be a close to a win.
6. As China's economic leverage increases over time, Taiwan needs to stock up on equipment, fuel, and food and other consumables before western allies and companies start bailing out.
A key issue is how to hold the alliance together for the required duration. PRC will play divide and conquer (See "salami slicing tactics") and since each ally wants "peace for our time", PRC has the advantage. If alliance fails and Taiwan falls, result is PRC dominance of western pacific (or more) for a very long time.
Invasion is the ultimate PRC option. It is best if Taiwan can deter on its own (see above). If invasion can be made too risky for CCP survival, I think the PRC would be effectively deterred. (Though even that would result in a bad situation, since PRC leverage over international business may be very harmful to Taiwan.) That said, if you can postpone a defeat by 20 years, there is always the chance that the situation will change and you will survive. 20 years was the approximate interval between the rise of Brezhnev to the rise of Gorbachev. (Also note that the blood and treasure lost in the Afghan war hastened the demise of the USSR. A Taiwan invasion will also cost much blood and treasure. I am sure these enter into Xi Jinping's calculations)
As an aside, a humorous political response to a request to start re-unification talks is to agree, but demand internationally supervised free elections with a free press in both China and Taiwan to elect the governments that will plan the re-unification. If China becomes a real democracy (or pigs learn to fly), I think Taiwanese resistance to re-unification will diminish.
Hi Pete,
There seems to be growing support, for Taiwan's defacto independence, from Japan in most open-source releases. CNN reported yesterday "Former Japan PM tells China, 'a Taiwan emergency is a Japanese emergency'". Japan's deputy defense minister spoke at the Hudson Institute think tank and stated that “Taiwan's autonomy and democracy must be protected”. R, Ashley on November 23rd published an article that talks to "Tokyo’s strategy toward Taiwan is dramatically shifting", and "Japanese officials now increasingly state their desire to protect Taiwan as a democratic country”. It would be interesting to understand how true those economic consequences are, considering the apparent shift toward Taiwan support from Japan's previous and current government officials.
Jason
Hi, Japan for sure will support a Taiwan independence and South Korea probably. Related to second article, below link to similar article published in Spanish in January 2021. Really the Taiwan Submarine Program (IDS) is very very interesting.
https://www.revistaejercitos.com/2021/01/28/los-submarinos-taiwaneses-una-historia-multinacional/
The biggest problem by far is the fact that more than 60% of semiconductors worldwide are manufactured in Taiwan. The nearest rival is South Korea. The world supply of IC’s is dominated by two nations who in theory at least, are still at war with their nearest neighbour. If Taiwan falls, there is likely to be nothing left of their high tech electronics industry. Key parts of that industry requires specialist equipment that is manufactured in Europe, so rebuilding factories after a Chinese takeover is problematic. Taiwan’s best defence tactic has been to make themselves indispensable to the rest of the world. The current worldwide chip shortage caused by COVID is hammering that home. Even Germany has noticed.
Thanks for the 3 Anonymous comments [Dec 2 - 4] and Jason's Dec 2 comments
We plan to turn these comments into an article for Thursday Dec 9th.
Regards
P & P
What if a Chinese attack on Taiwan is coordinated with a Russian attack on Ukraine?
A carefully designed, coordinated response would be required (starting with a trade embargo), but this could still be extremely unpleasant.
It seems unlikely that Russia and China would compromise on their respective timelines, and also unlikely they would explicitly state their plans to the other party. But it is certainly possible that one or the other might exploit an existing conflict as a window of opportunity, if they were nimble enough. For China this would probably be taking an outlying Taiwanese island; for Russia this would probably be formally annexing Donbas or Belarus. Both would be fairly quick and easy operations that would be politically challenging to the US.
Every Japanese poster I've seen on military boards assures me that Japan would fight for Taiwan even if the US didn't. That is of course purely anecdotal and those posters probably represent the far right of Japanese society, given the context. But the general impression I'm left with is the Japanese government view Taiwan as a 'hang together or we will assuredly hang separately' situation...if Japan is going to pick a fight with China, it would be best for it to happen when the PLA is busy trying to moving hundreds of thousands of troops over contested water and Taiwan is acting as a ballistic missile sponge.
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