How would China invade Taiwan?

The first physical sign of an invasion on Taiwan by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would be when the lights go out across the island. A cyber attack, hitting every power outlet to cripple Taiwan’s ability to defend itself would lead the way to a full scale multi-pronged air, airborne, amphibious and ballistic missile assault that would include “decapitation” missions aimed at knocking out the island’s leadership command. “The PLA’s doctrine calls for emphasising operations in the speed domains - space, cyberspace, the air and the electromagnetic – and quick victory,” Andrew Krepinevich, American defence policy analyst and former Pentagon official, said. “If the PLA acts according to its doctrine, we would likely see a massive cyber attack supported by large-scale jamming and other forms of electronic warfare on the island to disable its critical infrastructure and military command links. This would be supported by any Chinese Fifth Columnists on the island,” he said. “I would expect to see major air and missile attacks on key military facilities, a modern-day version of the German attacks on the Soviets on June 22, 1941 [Operation Barbarossa], Pearl Harbour or the Israeli attacks on the first day of the Six Day War [in June 1967],” he predicted. There would be no D-Day-style invasion, he said. “I would anticipate PLA special forces landing by air and sea, seizing several airfields whereupon transport aircraft would land large numbers of ground troops,” he said. The mass presence of 150 Chinese fighter aircraft and bombers inside Taiwan’s air defence zone over four days this week was “a dry run” for testing Beijing’s war plan for invading the island, one of America’s authorities on Chinese/Taiwanese security said. “This wasn’t about China retaliating for something the West had done, such as the exercise involving American and British aircraft carriers off the Philippines, it’s more likely to have been a dry run for testing their ability to execute their war plans, “ said Ian Easton, senior director at Project 2049 institute in Washington and former China expert at the Pentagon-funded centre for naval analysis in Virginia. “The timing would support that. October is the best month to invade Taiwan in terms of the sea state. The water at this time of year is perfect for military operations,” said Easton who lived for more than four years in Taiwan researching the island’s defences. The Pentagon which has drawn up contingencies in the event of an attack by the PLA on Taiwan, accused Beijing of “provocative military activity” near Taiwan. “We urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure and coercion against Taiwan, “ Lieutenant-Colonel Martin Meiners, a Pentagon spokesman, said. The imbalance of power between the self-governing nation and its superpower neighbour across the Taiwan Strait, separated by less than 81 miles at the narrowest point, might suggest that an invasion by the PLA would be both victorious and rapid. Taiwan’s defence minister has warned the PLA could be ready for an attack by 2025. However, Beijing’s calculations about a future takeover of the “breakaway province” remain as complex and challenging as ever because of the unknowns in the military equations: would an attack lead to unacceptable casualties and destruction, what role would the US play and would an invasion lead to conflict with America? Easton said there was another big factor. “Taiwan is God’s gift when it comes to defending,” he said. “There are 14 beaches, two of them designated as red , regarded as the most vulnerable to an amphibious landing, and 12 of them defined as yellow, but all of them are bordered by bluffs [cliffs], most between 1,000ft and 2,000ft high and some much higher,” he said. “So this isn’t like Omaha beach in the Normandy landings in 1944 or Okinawa [in the 1945 Pacific war when the Japanese island was invaded by US soldiers and Marines] where there were also bluffs to climb but not nearly so high as in Taiwan. In Taiwan these topographical features favour the defenders and there are tunnels dug everywhere to provide cover for attacks on invading forces,” he said. However, he admitted that strategically Taiwan faced “an impossible task”. “They could defend against the first wave of attacks and maybe the second but the Chinese would jam their communications and satellites and cut off their fibre optic cables. In the end Taiwan wouldn’t be able to defend itself without massive US support,” Easton said. Would there be time for the US to intervene before it was too late? “Currently the US has few forces based forward and so could not strongly contest a PLA attack unless it had months of prior warning, giving ample time for the Chinese Communist Party to declare it has no further territorial claims in the region and offer the US the option between a major war and fig-leaf negotiations as a way out for Washington,” Krepinevich said. The US Anderson air base on Guam, 1,700 miles from Taiwan, would be a vital staging area for US back-up, as well as aircraft carrier strike groups in the region. Would Beijing risk preempting an American rescue attempt by launching ballistic-missile or bomber attacks on the Guam base? “My guess, and it’s only a guess, is no. Beijing would rather put the onus on Washington to shoot first and bet that President Biden will not,” Krepinevich said. China spends 25 per cent more on its military than Taiwan and has an overwhelming advantage in everything from cyber capabilities to ballistic missiles, fighter jets and warships. However, Taiwan has the US to thank for some advanced weaponry. In the pipeline but still a long way from being delivered are a number of different missile systems. They include an artillery rocket launcher armed with the 200-mile-range army tactical missile system (Atacms). Taiwan is also mass-producing its own long-range missiles, although the number is a closely guarded secret.