Military
Experts don’t yet trust China to invade Taiwan
Soldiers in southern China’s Guangdong province. photo
© Yin Huan/XinHua/dpa
China’s pressure on Taiwan is growing. Internationally, there have long been fears that the next war will break out in the region, which is important for world trade. Some experts see it differently.
The chances of a successful operation are uncertain, Hsiao said. According to her, Beijing does not currently have the military capabilities for a quick and decisive victory over Taiwan.
China also seems to have realized that it cannot force Taiwan to give up, said David Gitter of the US research institute National Bureau of Asian Research. “However, Beijing is actively working to address these deficiencies.” However, in the medium and long term, an invasion or other military actions cannot be ruled out. However, the costs of war are high. China’s economic problems and attempts at rapprochement with Taiwan’s ally, the USA, currently make an invasion unlikely.
Why China wants Taiwan back
In Beijing they see it differently: “If China wants to solve the Taiwan issue by force, it can be solved tonight, and no one can stop it, not even the Taiwanese independence elements or the USA,” said the president in Beijing based Chinese think tank Center for China and Globalization, Victor Gao. The US either overestimated its own military strength or underestimated China’s. According to Gao, China does not want war. “We all think that peaceful reunification is the better way,” he said. Taiwan will always be part of China and China is in no hurry to resolve the issue.
Beijing has claimed Taiwan for decades under the so-called One China policy. The dispute dates back to the Chinese civil war between the communists and the government of the Republic of China – not to be confused with today’s People’s Republic of China. After the Second World War and the end of Japanese colonial rule, Taiwan was again part of the Republic of China for a few years. In 1949, today’s Taiwanese opposition party, the Kuomintang, lost in the civil war and fled to Taiwan, where it continued to rule as the Republic of China. An independent democratic government has sat in the capital Taipei since the late 1980s.
Beijing has already threatened to invade Taiwan and its more than 23 million inhabitants if “peaceful reunification” is not possible. China’s air force and navy regularly exercise in the Taiwan Strait, the strait between Taiwan and southeast China’s Fujian Province. Fighter jets invade Taiwan’s air defense zone almost daily, trying to tire out the armed forces and intimidate the public, experts say.
Expert sees geographical advantage
The Taiwan Strait is the “core” for the island nation’s defense, said Su Tzu-yun of the Taiwan Institute for National Defense and Security Research. Unlike Ukraine or Israel, Taiwan cannot be invaded as easily because it is not connected to land. China has little chance of winning even by 2030. Taiwan is equipped with many missiles against warships and fighter aircraft, which could make the sea an impenetrable zone, which in turn makes an amphibious landing in Taiwan more difficult.
In addition, Kuo Yujen from the Institute for China and Asia-Pacific Studies at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University assumes that China’s state and party leader Xi Jinping has little trust in his army. Beijing fired its defense minister and several generals in 2023. The official reason for this is unclear. According to experts, the elections in Taiwan in January will also have a decisive factor. If the Democratic Progressive Party stays in office, that is likely to increase the pressure. If the pro-Beijing Kuomintang wins, China will want to try to negotiate reunification, according to Kuo Yujen.