Taiwan-China-US update-8/10
Some good news here
8/10
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Ministry of National Defense tracked 36 aircraft and 10 ships from China’s military around the country as China's military announced an end to its maneuvers close to Taiwan Wednesday (Aug. 10).
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4622413
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwan Strait conflict would be devastating for all belligerents, participants of a think tank war game concluded last week.
The day-long simulation, hosted by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), divided a group of military analysts and scholars into a red and blue team, according to a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report. The wargame lasted seven hours and simulated three weeks of fighting.
In the simulated scenario, China made the first move, launching an attack on Taiwan, and the U.S. decided to help Taiwan defend itself. The game did not consider the use of nuclear weapons.
The Chinese military first fired ballistic missiles at American air bases in Japan and an aircraft carrier strike group in the Pacific, wreaking havoc on squadrons of jet fighters and sinking the carrier and other U.S. ships. It then dispatched military ships to Taiwan’s east coast and bombarded the nation’s infrastructure to sabotage ground troops’ movement.
In the next phase of the invasion, 22,000 Chinese troops landed on Taiwan’s southeast coast and made their way northward with the hopes of capturing a port or airfield. However, as the days passed, the U.S. and Japan gradually gained the upper hand.
Though they suffered devastating losses, American forces unleashed bombs on Chinese ports and destroyed the Chinese ships near Taiwan’s east coast. The U.S. also attacked China’s fleet of amphibious ships required to transport troops and equipment to Taiwan.
The hypothetical conflict was set in 2026, and each team could only utilize real-world military capabilities. However, Becca Wasser, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank and a participant in the game, said 2036 was a more realistic year, WSJ reported.
“In 2027, China is unlikely to have the ability to successfully launch an amphibious invasion of Taiwan,” Wasser said. Ultimately, she said the results of the simulation did not feel like a draw but rather a situation in which “nobody won, but nobody lost either.”
“Probably the biggest (takeaway) is, under most assumptions, the United States and Taiwan can conduct a successful defense of the island. That’s different from many people’s impressions,” Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at CSIS said. Cancian spent two years designing the game in cooperation with experts from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Naval War College, per WSJ.
This is the only such game that’s in the public domain,” Cancian noted. He said that this allows the game’s results to be shared with a larger audience compared to classified ones.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4622130
[this is a completely bogus war game story whose only purpose is to paint a rosier picture on what a war would look like. Notice the complete absence of any detailed mention of Chinas actions against Taiwan (beyond an amphibious landing which China does not have the capacity to execute) which would include blockade, and missile attacks on infrastructure thats would make life horrific on Taiwan, not to mention the economic effects on the US and rest of the world with breaking the supply chain from China. The classified war games allegedly all painted a much grimmer picture than this bogus war game]
More detail on the War Games here
The Wall Street Journal reported that “In the first three weeks after invading Taiwan, China sank two multibillion-dollar U.S. aircraft carriers, attacked American bases across Japan and on Guam, and destroyed hundreds of advanced U.S. jet fighters.”
In the simulated exercise, “Chinese missiles sink a large part of the US and Japanese surface fleet and destroy ‘hundreds of aircraft on the ground’.”
“However, allied air and naval counterattacks hammer the exposed Chinese amphibious and surface fleet, eventually sinking about 150 ships,” one participant told the Journal.
He continued, “To get a sense of the scale of the losses, in our last game iteration, the United States lost over 900 fighter/attack aircraft in a four-week conflict. That’s about half the Navy and Air Force inventory.”
Critically, the war game did not calculate the number of lives that would be lost in such a conflict, but the minimal scenario with such losses would mean the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of lives of people in China, Taiwan and Japan, as well as American sailors and airmen.
[Anyone really think nukes would be off the table?]
Yet here are what the idiots are planning
U.S. warships will continue to make Taiwan Strait transits and perform freedom of navigation operations in the Indo-Pacific despite the recent Chinese live fire drills, the undersecretary of defense for policy told reporters Monday.
The U.S. Navy is expected to conduct some freedom of navigation operations in the region in the coming days, Colin Kahl, undersecretary of defense for policy, said during a press briefing. It is important for Beijing to understand that the United States will continue to sail in international waters where it is allowed.
China is using military drills to prepare for an invasion of Taiwan, and its anger over US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit is just an excuse, Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday.
Speaking in English at a news conference in Taipei, Wu accused China of “gross violations of international law.”
“China has used the drills in its military playbook to prepare for the invasion of Taiwan,” he said. “It is conducting large-scale military exercises and missile launches, as well as cyberattacks, disinformation and economic coercion, in an attempt to weaken public morale in Taiwan.
He said the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) activities would have taken far longer to prepare if they were a direct response to Pelosi’s visit.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2022/08/10/2003783272
[He fails to mention Pelosi’s plans to visit Taiwan were publicly known as early as April]
On the COVID FRONT
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan will phase out community PCR screenings for COVID starting Thursday (Aug. 11) as demand declines.
The Central Epidemic Command Center Spokesman Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said Tuesday (Aug. 9) that about 114 PCR testing sites nationwide will halt services within a month. Local municipalities have reported waning demand and that the move will save the human and medical resources deployed for such facilities.
Individuals with no symptoms and need PCR proof for overseas travel will be required to pay for a screening at medical institutions. The price of a self-paid PCR test ranges from NT$3,000 (US$100) to NT$4,000 for a standard report, CNA quoted Chuang as saying.
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is the CECC’s spokesperson, said that demand for PCR tests has greatly declined since the center on May 26 started allowing COVID-19 to be diagnosed based on a rapid test result.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4620766
Some Pre-Pelosi visit news stories of interest
Taipei, July 30 (CNA) A state-run institute that develops and manufactures weapons in Taiwan will conduct a series of live-fire missile tests at a military base in the south of the country next month, the Fisheries Agency said Saturday, issuing an aviation safety notice.
In the first three rounds of tests by National Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST), the missiles' trajectory will take them to a maximum altitude of 7,620 meters, according to the notice.
The tests will be conducted at Jiupeng military base in Pingtung County between Aug. 3 and 18 in daylight hours, the agency said, warning aircraft and ships to avoid the danger zone off the coast of Taitung County.
The last two rounds of missile tests, scheduled between Aug. 18 and 26, will have an "unlimited" projectile altitude, and the danger zone will extend about 200 kilometers off the coast of Taitung, which means it will include Orchid Island and Green Island, the agency said.
https://focustaiwan.tw/sci-tech/202207300016
Hmmm- not sure if related but
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A top military official overseeing Taiwan's missile production has died from a heart attack in southern Taiwan during a business trip.
Serving as the deputy to the president of the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) since March, Ouyang Li-hsing (歐陽力行) was responsible for supervising the manufacturing of all types of missiles.
The 57-year-old military professional fell ill and was discovered by his aide at a hotel in Pingtung on Saturday morning (Aug. 6) after a no-show for a cultural event. Surveillance video from the hotel shows Ouyang had been alone since checking-in the preceding evening
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4618248
Also in Pingtung
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Two men were killed in Pingtung County after a light aircraft crashed on Saturday (Aug. 6).
CNA reported that the deceased have been identified as 61-year-old Chu (朱) and his 27-year-old son. The cause of the crash has yet to be determined.
[I never even knew Taiwan allowed private aircraft-very strange. ]
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4618625
Taipei, July 29 (CNA) The trench system and use of FIM-92 Stingers were among the highlights of this year's annual combined forces live-fire Han Kuang exercises which concluded on Friday, Taiwanese defense analyst Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) told CNA.
The five-day live-fire component of the annual Han Kuang military exercises, which took place across Taiwan, simulated defending against a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Su, an analyst at the government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research, observed that the military had "referenced Ukraine's experience" in trying to defend itself from the attacks of Russian forces.
This included the building of a 100-meter-long trench system and bunkers by reservist forces at Port of Taipei in New Taipei's Bali District, Su said.
Such fortifications could block or delay attempts by enemies to advance and allow Taiwan's forces to destroy invading units, Su said.
The military also deployed soldiers to high-rise buildings to practice firing FIM-92 Stingers, a United States-made man-portable air-defense system, Su said.
This is part of the asymmetric warfare tactics used by Ukrainian forces because of its low cost and effectiveness, he said.
In many ways the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not only made Taiwan nationals pay more attention to the country's defense, but also influenced how the military conducted its exercises, Su said.
https://focustaiwan.tw/politics/202207290027
[I will comment on this section
The military also deployed soldiers to high-rise buildings to practice firing FIM-92 Stingers, a United States-made man-portable air-defense system, Su said.
This is part of the asymmetric warfare tactics used by Ukrainian forces because of its low cost and effectiveness, he said.
Among Taiwans high rise buildings are Retail and Residential buildings along with Hospitals some of which are high rises making them targets, as we saw in Ukraine when their military used Civilian Buildings to mount operations against Russia]