Posted on 12/09/2007 7:33:34 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Minister of defense is leaving out one detail
By Cheng Ta-chen 鄭大誠
Thursday, Dec 06, 2007, Page 8
On Nov. 28, Minister of National Defense Lee Tien-yu (李天羽) said during a question-and-answer session at the legislature that the military would be capable of destroying 60 percent to 70 percent of China's troops in case of an invasion.
But Lee did not include the possibility of a Chinese formation of aircraft carrier battle groups in his analysis of the combat strengths of Taiwan and China.
Taiwan must prepare for the development of Chinese aircraft carrier battle groups.
It is a well-known fact that an aircraft carrier without a battle group is worthless.
With the exception of cruisers, China's military already has all the destroyers, frigates, submarines and support ships it needs.
All it must acquire now are aircraft carriers itself and the fighter aircraft for them.
China is the world's third-largest ship builder and it would not be too difficult for it to build medium-sized aircraft carriers weighing about 50,000 tonnes.
As for carrier-based aircraft, China has already signed a deal with Russia to purchase Su-33 fighters and intends to remodel its Su-30 or J-10 fighters into carrier-based aircraft.
Acquiring the necessary equipment would not be so difficult, despite the fact that China needs to strengthen its training and C4ISR -- command, control, communication, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.
With full political and financial support, China could be expected to have initial aircraft carrier battle groups within 10 years.
China is likely to build one aircraft carrier battle group for its East Sea Fleet and another for its South China Sea Fleet.
The task of the former would be to counter US power, with a short or medium-term goal of winning a battle to block access to the region.
The task of the latter would be to safeguard China's marine transport lines in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean.
In the case of a cross-strait war, the East China Sea battle group would attack from the east while the South China Sea battle group would attack from the south.
In this situation, Taiwan could quickly find itself surrounded by Chinese ships.
As for battle group submarines, most of China's conventionally powered submarines, such as Gato class, Yuan class, and Song class submarines, belong to the East China Sea Fleet.
Within the next 10 or 15 years, China could be capable of amassing as many as 40 to 50 advanced conventionally powered submarines.
In addition to these, China has assigned a nuclear-powered submarine detachment to the North China Sea Fleet and has plans to form another.
If necessary, these two detachments -- one north, one south -- could join an aircraft carrier battle group during an attack on Taiwan.
But because of the continental shelf, the waters around Taiwan are more suitable for small, conventionally powered subs.
Nuclear-powered submarines would likely be responsible for supporting the carrier group attack on the east coast and cutting off US aid.
The People's Liberation Army's military expansion will not end here, however.
In evaluating China's combat capabilities, Taiwan must adopt a strategic viewpoint that is 10 or 15 years ahead. If it makes the mistake of keeping its eyes on the ground, a catastrophe could be waiting around the corner.
Cheng Ta-chen is an independent defense analyst.
Translated by Eddy Chang
The 90-100 mile strait and all of Taiwan is easily covered by Chinese land based aircraft.
In this situation, Taiwan could quickly find itself surrounded by Chinese ships.
If we put a tomahawk cruise missile in each ship, the threat will be drastically reduced. China threatens to nuke LA if we get involved. The Olympics are only months away. War could be closer than we may think. Considering that China's military buildup is mostly focused on Taiwan, I think there is more than mere propaganda involved.
Why not “lend” Taiwan some of our mothballed conventionally-fueled carriers? We can train their aviators and crew, and then Taiwan will have one more weapon to use against the commie scumbags. Can anyone here prognosticate on the practicality of this?
If Taiwan had a robust SAM and fighter defense coupled with large numbers of shoulder launched Javelins (to hit landing craft with 2000 yards of the beach) and a thousand mobile shore launched anti-ship cruise missiles with ranges of 80+ miles, the Chinese could not land troops.
The Chinese have been building hundreds of ballistic missiles and not for nothing. They are likely to use that arsenal to attempt to make Taiwan surrender.
Taiwan will one day support China over America.
They are CHINESE!
Those ships are all 40 years or more in age.The ROC-N has never operated anything which comes to a quarter of the size of the Kitty Hawk or Kennedy,which requires crews of 4000+ men.You would find that much people on all of Taiwan’s frigates....put together!!Then there is the issue of escorts & supply ships- besides building up shorebased support capabilities-new dry docks,aircraft repair etc.Training men for so many different things takes lot of time & money.
Does Taiwan have that much money???& Even if it did,what difference would it make??The Chinese airforce is the world’s third largest with a vast number of anti-ship missiles & their navy has scores of modern submarines.Those carriers you mentioned will become liabilities than assets for Taiwan’s navy.
If Taiwan needs something urgently,they are the AEGIS equipped destroyers(which the US can supply) & Diesel-electric submarines(which the US can’t do much about).
Equipment does not wins wars, it is the operators who do. The Chinese military is poorly trained. The US military performs better because we generally have better training than our adversaries.
The more pertinent question would be whether China really wants to launch an invasion????? Why they have focussed on more building up their cruise/ballistic missile capabilty & submarine fleets???
A missile barrage against Taiwanese military installations coupled with a naval blockade is what makes more sense.Would the US get involved in such a case???
Well I don’t think anyone talked about a US vs China clash over here.
Where is "here" ?
Post No.9.Don’t know what you were possibly referring to,but the fact is that Taiwan’s qualitative edge is eroding.
Only 10-20% are Han Chinese (the Nationalist stock). The majority are Formosan and do not consider themselves historically part of the Mainland, not racially connected.
Ping.
better yet, why don’t we give them submarines with good missiles with nuke warheads. That may make China think twice about invasion. Even if they invaded they would not know where the subs were.
I never knew that - thank you. As usual, I learned something new just by logging onto FR. How long was Formosa occupied by mainland China historically? What is their justification for claiming the island as part of China?
You never knew that because SampleMan made it up. While Formosa/Taiwan was originally inhabited by non-Chinese populations (mostly of Austronesian stock), these populations today account for just 1-2% of Taiwan’s entire population. The rest are all Han Chinese (though they represent different dialect groups of the Han).
The aboriginal population was essentially wiped out when the Chinese from the mainland started migrating to Taiwan during the Ming and Qing dynasties (the two Chinese dynasties before the modern era). When the Qing dynasty was taking over the Ming during the 1600s, some of the rebel Ming forces (led by Koxinga) escaped to Taiwan and kicked out the few Dutch settlers there (who had called the island Formosa) and established Chinese settlement there. Shortly after, the Qing conquered the Ming garrison there and established settlement policies to populate the island. From then on, millions of Chinese mainly from the southern Chinese province of Fujian arrived to Taiwan. The bulk of these migrations took place toward the end of the Qing dynasty during 1850-1900 following the nationwide devastation of the Taiping Rebellion.
Taiwan was then colonized by the Japanese for fifty years and returned to the Republic of China (ROC) in 1945. The Nationalists (ROC) then escaped from the Communists (PRC) to Taiwan between 1948-1952, accounting for the second major Chinese migration. However, most of the Nationalists spoke northern dialects Mandarin and Shanghainese, while the earlier Chinese migrations spoke southern dialects Fujianese/Min. Hence the distinction between them, but they are both Han Chinese. The Chinese across the Taiwan strait (the Fujianese) speak the same dialect as the pre-Nationalist Taiwanese.
All that China has to do is build 500 Ronald Reagan class carriers and put them end to end and simply drive across the straights. (USS Reagan = 1092 ft. Mile= 5280 ft. Straights = 100 miles)
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