China's missile build-up raises stakes on Taiwan

TAIPEI: A rapid expansion in China's arsenal of missiles deployed against Taiwan suggests the weapons are no longer just a psychological deterrent for islanders wanting independence but are actual preparations for war.

Taiwan Vice President Annette Lu estimated this week that by 2005 China would have pointed 800 missiles at the island it claims as a rebel province, a significant increase from the present 500. Most military experts have forecast an increase to about 600 next year.

While Western military experts may disagree with Lu's figure, they say there is no doubt China is accelerating its arms build-up, convinced that Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian intends formally to declare statehood in a new constitution by 2008.

"The fact that Beijing is moving towards a continued build-up, whatever the number, is a troubling development," said defence analyst Ted Carpenter of the Cato Institute in New York.

"I think the ultimate strategy that Beijing is pursuing is to have a military capability sufficient to inflict unacceptable damage on US forces in and around the Taiwan Strait should the US intervene."

Historically, analysts had viewed China's missile deployment as a psychological threat to Taiwan to ensure its leaders did not seek a permanent separation from the mainland with a formal declaration of independence.

As China lacked amphibious vessels to ship battalions of its 2.5-million-strong army across the Taiwan Strait, a missile shower was deemed unlikely to be followed by an invasion force. But China's missiles have become too accurate and destructive to be dismissed as empty threats, and some analysts view the Taiwan Strait as the most dangerous flash point in Asia.

DISTURBING DEVELOPMENTS: "To actually be able to use them in a militarily relevant way, that's a new trend line and frankly that is more disturbing," said James Mulvenon, a China military expert at Rand Corporation's Center for Asia Pacific Policy.

"The psychological make-up of the population in Taiwan is fairly fragile and I think Beijing has a very good understanding of the kind of political dynamics it would unleash with even the smallest of combat."

Beijing aims to acquire pre-emptive strike capability by bombing Taiwan's command centre and 12 airbases, thus grounding the island's more advanced air fleet, and to hit strategic targets such as highways, power plants and oil refineries.

With 800 missiles, China can launch five waves of attacks and intensively bomb Taiwan for 10 hours, Taiwan's Defence Ministry said in a report in July. "The military cannot meet such an attack with our current capabilities," it said. The report was aimed at winning support for a proposal to buy advanced US anti-missile defence systems.

Andrew Yang, a military expert at a private think tank in Taipei, estimated China's short-range ballistic missiles to have an accuracy to about 30-50 metres and said it would take 10 years for Taiwan to operate an anti-missile system.

"There is a time gap between the Chinese missile threat and the availability of our missile defence," said Yang of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies. "It'll force Taiwan to come to terms using missile attack or air force attack," he said.

"Then we'll be finished." Other analysts are less sure Taiwan would succumb so easily, saying it could sit out the missiles and repair its airbases fairly quickly. Beijing will have to send ground troops into battle if it wants to force reunification. China staged a mock invasion drill with air force parachutists and amphibious soldiers in July.

NORMANDY SCENARIO: "It's a Normandy-type scenario that the Chinese have certainly been preparing for, but most analysts don't see that process having been completed yet," said Robert Karniol, Asia Pacific editor of Jane's Defence Weekly.

"If they act rationally, the only way they can go to war is if they know they are going to win and I don't think those circumstances exist and are going to exist in 2007 or 2008." The PLA has about 3,400 aircraft, according to the Pentagon's annual assessment on China issued in May.

Taiwan has 400,000 soldiers and about 340 advanced F-16, Mirage and IDF fighters, but it maintains a qualitative edge by possessing three times as many fourth-generation fighters as China, the Pentagon said.

If China does attack, it will have to inflict substantial damage very quickly so that Taiwan leaders are forced to begin negotiations before its main ally and arms supplier, the United States, can intervene,

Analysts say the United States would unquestionably fulfil its treaty obligations to help Taiwan if China attacked, although a question mark hovers over whether that assistance would be diplomatic, intelligence or involve actual combat forces.

Carpenter of the Cato Institute said China would have to develop a greater ability to attack US aircraft carrier battle groups and submarines before it would be willing to take on Washington. "Given current trends, certainly within a decade they will be in that position. It's possible that if they accelerated the modernization programme, it may be less than that," he said. -Reuters