Roving Periscope: After US aid and Chinese intimidation, Taiwan prepares to meet the PLA’s challenge

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: Fears that China could start a military misadventure against Taiwan anytime to divert its people’s attention from the Covid tsunami infecting millions and killing hundreds gained currency on Tuesday when the self-ruled island’s government took the next steps to prepare for the emerging situation.

China’s “intimidation and threats against Taiwan are getting more obvious,” President Tsai Ing-wen said, as her country, citing the threat from an increasingly belligerent Beijing, announced the extension of mandatory military service for youth from four months to one year from 2024.

“The current four-month military service is not enough to meet the fast and ever-changing situation,” she told a press conference, two days after China sent several ships and warplanes to intimidate Taiwan.

“We have decided to restore the one-year compulsory military service from 2024”, she said, adding the extended requirement will apply to men born after January 1, 2005.

According to the Taiwanese defense ministry, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on Sunday despatched 71 warplanes and seven ships, marking the biggest daily incursion yet as Beijing protested against “collusion and provocation” by the island and the US.

In a statement on Monday, the Taiwanese defense ministry said 47 of the Chinese planes crossed the median line of the Taiwan strait, an unofficial boundary once tacitly accepted by both sides, during the 24-hour display of force. Among the Chinese planes were 18 J-16 fighter jets, 11 J-1 fighters, six Su-30 fighters, and drones.

The Chinese threat apparently came after the USD 858 billion legislation, which US President Joe Biden signed on Friday last week, authorized increased security cooperation with Taiwan and required expanded cooperation with India on emerging defense technologies, readiness, and logistics.

Taipei said it monitored the Chinese moves through its land-based missile systems, and on its own navy vessels.

Since 1949, China claims that democratic Taiwan is a part of its territory, to be taken one day, by force if necessary. The island lives under the constant fear of a Chinese invasion.

Under President Xi Jinping, China’s saber-rattling has intensified in recent years, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine deepened worries in Taiwan that Beijing might move similarly to annex the island, the media reported.

“No one wants war… but my fellow countrymen, peace will not fall from the sky,” President Tsai Ing-wen said.

In Taiwan, mandatory one-year military service for youth became unpopular under its brutal military dictatorship that has since morphed into a progressive democracy. Its previous government had reduced compulsory military service from one year to four months with the aim of creating a volunteer force for military exigencies.

But recent polls showed over three-quarters of the Taiwanese public now believes that is too short. The military has also struggled to recruit and retain full-time personnel because of low financial incentives.

Tsai described the extension as “an extremely difficult decision… to ensure the democratic way of life for our future generations.”

Fears of a Chinese invasion have increasingly worried Western nations and many of China’s neighbors.

President Xi Jinping, China’s most authoritarian leader since Mao Zedong died in 1976, has made clear that what he calls the “reunification” of Taiwan with mainland China cannot be passed on to future generations.

Taiwan and China split at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, and President Tsai has said becoming a part of China is not acceptable to the people of the island. Most Taiwanese no longer identify themselves as “Chinese.”

Taiwan, a mountainous island, would present a formidable challenge to an invading force, but it is massively outgunned with only 89,000 ground forces compared with China’s one million, according to a Pentagon estimate released last month.

Beijing also has a huge advantage in military equipment.

Taiwan has stepped up reservist training and increased its purchases of warplanes and anti-ship missiles to bolster its defenses. But experts have said that is not enough.