It’s as if the U.S. Navy added 30 destroyers in three years. That’s how much the Pentagon is beefing up Tawain’s fleet, with two pairs of retired Kidd-class anti-air destroyers. The first set was transferred on Oct. 29. The second pair will be handed over in 2007.
The Kidds were retired by the U.S. Navy in the mid-1990s and purchased by Taiwan in 2001. With the advent of the Arleigh Burke class armed with Aegis radar, Vertical Launch System for SM-2 missiles, the rail-launcher-armed Kidds became redundant, despite being less than 20 years old when retired.
At 9,000 tons displacement, the Kidds will increase by one-third the tonnage of Taiwans major surface combatant force. (Lately the U.S. has been decreasing its surface fleet by as many as ten hulls and tens of thousands of tons per year.)
Besides significantly bulking up Taiwans navy, the Kidds will give the force its first modern air-defense capability and should prove a significant deterrent against Chinas largely-outdated surface fleet, which depends heavily on land-based air cover. The Kidd deal has understandably angered China. While many in the U.S. are eager to tout China as the next superpower and a naval rival, cooler heads point out that China is heavily dependent on maritime trade and energy imports and that its naval modernization is largely intended to secure sea lines of communication and to counterbalance Indian intrusion into regional waters. Besides, on the seas China is still a generation behind the U.S. and years behind Taiwan. The Kidds only extend that disparity.
– David Axe
Kidding Around
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Have PRC threats to invade Taiwan “understandably” angered the Taiwanese?
J. Brenner,
I would hate to proved wrong on this point, since it would mean the deaths of thousands of people, but I tend to believe that China’s invasion rhetoric is just rhetoric. Every day economic and cultural ties between Taiwan and China are stronger. And despite its modernization, China remains incapable of mounting an invasion of Taiwan. Such an operation demands amphibious and aerial capabilities China lacks. Consider that China’s only effective aircraft are fewer than 200 Su-27s, and that it has NO large-deck amphibious ships.
I’ve been living in China for four years now, and I personally believe it is not rhetoric at all. Furthermore, I think the common perception by the US and some Taiwanese that it is just hot air is going to cost alot of innocent people their lives.
The fact is, although they’re economically growing closer, they’re cultually growing farther apart, especially the younger generations.
The CPC would sacrifice whatever they had to for Taiwan, even if it means makings China a pariah for a couple of years until it blows over, which it will.
Given that China wants to sieze Taiwan I imagine thay are pissed.
I do think that China is likely overated as an emerging superpower, but giving the Taiwanese a helping hand in preserving their independence seems to be a good rather than a bad thing.
While the goals listed in the article are all accurate, it does omit one biggie, invading Taiwan. That said, increasing the disparity would seem to be not really a bad thing.
Yeah, look at how we won WW2. It was our superior manufacturing capability that brought us through that one. And look at us now… Oh wait, we’re a service economy now, in debt to our eyeballs to countries like China. Countries with service economies get their asses kicked in wars with countries who have manufacturing economies. Boy, I hope China never develops one of those.
I think there’s quite a bit of complacency about what China can do, accompanied by underestimates of Chinese intentions and capabilities. For example, the number of Su-27/30s given in the comments above is incorrect, the current figure is nearly twice that, about 380. China now has more modern aircraft than Taiwan does, and many of Taiwan’s ‘modern’ aircraft are the untested IDF.
This is a chronic topic of discussion on the Taiwan blogs. Here and here for a debate between myself and MeiZhongTai, who blogs on Taiwan defense issues, over how things will proceed. I also have a speculative China Blitz scenario here that is well worth reading, with links to other ones.
Michael
The fact is that Taiwan’s military is staffed largely by mainlanders who may go over to China if it gets troops onto the island. The island’s two mainlander-led parties are both more or less pro-China.
David Axe,
Thank you for your well considered response. I also hope that you are not mistaken, however, I fear that you might well be. I do not question that the Chinese are capable of considerable empty rhetoric, unfortunately, they have in recent years chosen to increase this rhetoric in response political developments in Taiwan. In making increasingly loud threats, the Chinese have placed themselves in a position where they eventually must either act or be seen as ineffectual. It is difficult to believe that in making such threats the mainland is primarily motivated by a desire to dissuade Taiwanese voters or politicians from declaring independence – eventually, if the current situation continues, the Taiwanese will make such a declaration. Rather, I believe that the PRC is making explicit a threat that they will carry out at a time of their own choosing: think Korea 1950.
Exacerbating this motivation is the fact that it has been some time since the Chinese have experienced the deleterious effects of war – Vietnam in the late 1970s. Certainly there must have emerged leaders in the PRC military who are eager to demonstrate that they are capable of better planning and execution than was demonstrated in the badly bungled Vietnam operation. An economic downturn, which must afflict the PRC eventually, might well increase the attractiveness of such a campaign as it would provide the party with the means to justify its leadership to a dissatisfied population.
Your points regarding the technical and material limitations on the Chinese military are well taken. However, China has assets that could mitigate these limitations. For instance, China might make limited use of its nuclear weapons, or, might threaten the use of such weapons in order to discourage active resistance by certain factions and individuals within the Taiwanese military, at least a portion of whose membership either sympathetic to the PRC call for unification, or, believe that resistance is futile (sentiments that were alluded to by another reader). In addition, China possesses the vestigial institutions and inclinations necessary for the type of revolutionary societal mobilization warfare that shocked the U.S. in both Korea and Vietnam. In the context of an invasion of Taiwan, such warfare might take the form of “flooding the zone” with an invasion fleet consisting of thousands of troop laden fishing boats. All in all, I think that the risk of a forceble attempt by the PRC to reunite Tawian with greater China is a tangible concern that is not to be written off as the pipe dream of pentagon planners searching for a new threat. The U.S. must either find ways to deter such an eventuallity, or, it should have the honesty to inform the Taiwanese that they are on their own and therefore should make the best deal possible with the mainland.