Chinese commentator vows retaliation for Japan’s missiles near Taiwan
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TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — If Japan attacks China with the missiles it plans to deploy on a small island near Taiwan, Beijing will destroy Japan’s military, a hawkish Chinese commentator said Thursday (Aug. 5).
Hu Xijin (胡錫進) serves as the editor-in-chief of the state-owned Global Times tabloid and is known for targeting critics of China’s communist regime with harsh statements.
Japanese media reports said the military planned to deploy missiles and more than 500 troops on Ishigaki, a small island in Okinawa just 300 kilometers east of Taiwan. Their main purpose is to monitor Chinese naval activity in the area and to counter a Chinese attack.
Hu said the plan amounted to Japan “carrying the ammunition” for the United States to bomb China, UDN reported. In the event of a cross-strait war and Japan intervening, Ishigaki and the small islands nearby would immediately be at the receiving end of a massive attack, Hu warned.
Military bases in Japan would not be safe either, the writer said. He also named the types of missiles China could use to take revenge for more than a century of Japanese actions since 1895, when their first war ended with the loss of Taiwan to Japan.
Commenting on the U.S. decision to sell 40 M109A6 self-propelled howitzers to Taiwan, Hu claimed they would be useless as China would saturate Taiwan’s military installations with attacks, so there would be no place for the weapons to be used. Any U.S. military equipment would be destroyed or fall into the hands of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), Hu wrote.
Analyst says China could attack Taiwan from all directions
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TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — David Axe, a military analyst for Forbes magazine, said in an article published on Monday (July 12) that Taiwan should anticipate a Chinese attack from all directions.
In the commentary, titled “To capture Taiwan, Chinese forces might attack from several directions,” Axe says the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) can now strike Taiwan at several places at once, making it difficult for the democratic nation to defend itself. The analyst said the PLA Navy is forming a fleet of eight Type 071 landing docks and three Type 075 assault ships, which can hold approximately 25,000 marines. With the addition of other transport vessels and aircraft, the PLA could be able to bring thousands of troops to Taiwan’s shores, he added.
Axe cited Brookings Institution analysts Bates Gill and Michael O’Hanlon as saying that Taiwan had enough airpower to potentially wipe out an entire Chinese amphibious fleet in one go back in 1999. However, that is no longer possible, as the Chinese Air Force now greatly surpasses Taiwan’s in both size and technology.
The expert also said that the PLA plans to surround Taiwan and come in from the east, as that is a prime location where the Chinese Navy’s new aircraft carriers can operate.
Axe said that Taipei is revising its defense strategy based on the possibility a Chinese attack could come from more than one location. He noted that Taiwan’s current plan is to launch a barrage of missiles at incoming Chinese warships, adding that the U.S. approved Taiwan’s purchase of 400 coastal defense missile systems in October 2020, which would add to the nation’s arsenal of projectiles.
Japan ends one-China policy, new map no longer shows Taiwan as part of China
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