Taiwan in bunker mode facing China

Taiwan keeps 160 of its most advanced fighter aircraft behind “a wall of granite” deep inside a mountain, far away from Chinese surveillance. The “super complex” at Chiashan airbase in Hualien on the eastern side of the island is Taiwan’s equivalent of the US Cheyenne Mountain military facility in Colorado built as a Cold War underground bunker to keep watch for a Soviet nuclear missile attack. The layers of protection that conceal the Taiwanese air force’s frontline fighters underline the constant readiness required by the self-declared republic for potential invasion by China, just 100 miles at its closest point across the Taiwan Strait. Breaking from its traditional secrecy rules , Taiwan this week showed off its deep-bunker hangars buried in the sheer mountain at Chiashan during a military exercise. The rare images revealed a sophisticated cave-like environment in which operators were seen arming fighter jets with advanced anti-ship Harpoon missiles. Although the building of the tunnel complex began many years ago, the release of the images appeared aimed at underlining the Taiwanese government’s confidence that whatever China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were to fire at them, whether ballistic or cruise missiles, the bunkered complex at Chiashan would survive. “The fighters are literally hidden behind a wall of granite,” said Ian Easton, senior director of the Project 2049 Institute in Arlington, Virginia. Easton is an acknowledged authority on China’s vision of becoming a military and economic superpower by 2049, which includes the reunification of Taiwan on Beijing’s terms. “But Taiwan has also built huge earthenwork revetments in front of the doors to the underground complex so that there is no clear line of sight for Chinese ballistic or cruise missiles,” he said. Chiashan, one of several bunkered sites, also provides Taiwan with a secure command centre and an alternative headquarters for key government figures in time of war as well as a home for the 160 advanced jet fighters that include the F-16V Viper, a fourth-generation version of the General Dynamics aircraft. The F-16V Viper would have to take on China’s J-20 fifth-generation stealth fighter in the event of hostilities. Adding to Taiwan’s concerns of China’s accelerating readiness for conflict, the PLA is nearing completion of a significant expansion of an airbase at Longtian in eastern China which is located about 100 miles from Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Satellite images reveal a contingent of Su-27 Flanker fighter aircraft at the extended base and a series of new hardened hangars, according to The War Zone American defence website. The J-20 could potentially be deployed to Longtian if hostilities broke out between China and Taiwan. The warning by China’s President Xi Zinping in his phone call with President Joe Biden on Thursday that “those who play with fire [over Taiwan] will only get burnt” was an unsubtle message to Washington not to intervene militarily in the event of a decision by Beijing to reunify Taiwan to mainland China by force. Underlining Beijing’s determination to deny access to US warships in the region in the event of a war over Taiwan, Chinese surveillance ships monitored the arrival in the South China Sea this week of the US 7th Fleet’s carrier strike force led by the Nimitz-class USS Ronald Reagan. The presence of the aircraft carrier coincided with the continuing tensions between Beijing and Washington over the expected visit to Taiwan next week of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. Beijing has issued stern warnings to Washington over the possible visit. China’s president has said he wants a diplomatic solution to reunify Taiwan with the mainland while retaining the option to use force. But his calculations may now have changed, Easton said. “I think there is a risk that the war in Ukraine has validated some of the Chinese communist party’s assumptions about the US in relation to Taiwan,” Easton said. “These are that the US would not commit troops [despite Biden’s personal public pledge to go to Taiwan’s aid] and that America would be vulnerable to nuclear blackmail. This is precisely what Putin achieved in deterring the US from intervening in Ukraine,” he said. Also China would do what Russia failed to do in Ukraine: before an invasion on Taiwan the PLA would “dominate the electromagnetic spectrum” by jamming all communications and the internet to isolate Taiwan from the outside world, “making them blind”. “The Russians never achieved information supremacy in Ukraine and as a result President Zelensky has been able to talk to the outside world and communicate with Nato,” Easton said. Because of what has happened in Ukraine, Easton said, Beijing may now be accelerating its plans for Taiwan and is already engaged in “a stunning military build-up”.