China would have to be stupid to invade Taiwan. It would be about as smart as getting into a land war in Asia.
―U.S. Army colonel in Taipei
Nothing matters more to Taiwan’s survival as a free country than overcoming the long-term threat of Chinese invasion. For Taiwan, defense planning must be a national effort that involves the island’s society and its national resources in a way that is generally unseen in the world’s other advanced economies. The Taiwanese people are far from warlike or naive. They have lived with the shadow of war hanging over their heads for many decades and place an extraordinary value on peace. Nonetheless, great care has been taken to make sure that if the worst were to happen they could marshal enough combat power to secure their democratic way of life.
Little has been written in English on Taiwan’s anti-invasion plan, but it is fairly well understood in many parts of the Chinese-speaking world. Some details, of course, are classified and officially nonexistent. Yet the broad strokes are publically available information on the island, where the all-out national defense strategy requires millions of people to know what would be expected of them if the PRC invaded. Like Western European countries during the Cold War, Taiwan faces an imposing juggernaut right at its doorstep. The sprawl and density of its cities and the limited land available for maneuver or retreat virtually guarantee that any conflict would impact the whole populace. If war comes, everyone will be involved in some way, and everyone will be expected to contribute however they can.
Size affects strategy. The PRC is the world’s largest country by population and fourth largest by territory. China is massive by almost any measure. In contrast, Taiwan is just slightly larger than Belgium, with a population of 23 million people. This asymmetry of size affects how Taiwanese defense strategy is formulated and communicated to the general public. For Taiwan’s strategy to work, it must harness every strength available, combining the superior quality of the standing military with the superior size of the reserve forces, while drawing additional power from the island’s industrious civilian populace.
Because of the extreme nature of the threat facing Taiwan, defense education is emphasized to a degree that would be unthinkable in most other countries. Nearly every high school and college has uniformed officers stationed on campus to teach courses on military affairs. Bookstores sell a wide selection of relevant materials, including glossy magazines that update readers on recent exercises and weapons deliveries from America. Local internet portals offer an endless array of high-quality studies and papers, published by the MND and easily downloadable. Talking heads on nightly news shows frequently discuss defense issues, their dialogues and debates fed by media outlets that are known for their scathing investigative reports. In addition, the parliament regularly holds rough and tumble public hearings on defense policy.
Taiwan’s security authorities have a strong interest in creating an information-rich environment. Every major government office and military base has a school right outside its gates where official dependents study alongside kids from the surrounding neighborhoods. Even assuming Chinese missiles and bombs were to land squarely on their targets (many would not), their impacts would set off indiscriminate fires and send shock waves and debris into surrounding structures. If an enemy attack ever comes, every citizen will be affected, especially those in government jobs, whose families would be at risk and who themselves would likely be imprisoned or shot if they lost the war.
The code name given to Taiwan’s national defense plan is the Gu’an Operational Plan.[418] Gu’an can be translated into English as “solid and secure.” The purpose of the plan is reportedly to provide an overarching conceptual blueprint for wartime operations and a detailed playbook for defending against anticipated Chinese acts of aggression. Like all such plans, Gu’an is almost certainly founded on fundamental assumptions about the enemy’s political intentions and military capabilities, as well as those of allies, partners, and neutrals. These assumptions guide planners in their work by narrowing the range of contingencies commanders must certify their forces can handle. Without boundaries in place, operational plans could grow excessive in their requirements, leading to a situation where the military is spread thin in order to be nominally prepared for a wide range of possible threats. Militaries risk growing weak when they fail to focus on their most critical threats and do not cultivate areas of core competency.
The Gu’an Plan is centered on the worst-case scenario: full-scale invasion. Since 1949, ROC military strategists have regarded the possibility of a Communist Chinese amphibious operation to be the foremost threat facing their nation. Their basic assumption is that the PLA could use a mix of navy and civilian ships to attempt to land around one million men in an all-out attack. This is certainly not China’s only possible course of action, but it is by far the most common theme seen in PLA doctrinal writings, operational studies, and training handbooks. It is also the single most dangerous scenario threatening Taiwan’s survival, since only a successful invasion would guarantee enemy takeover. The main objectives of the Gu’an Plan are to convince the Chinese not to invade Taiwan and to defeat an invasion if deterrence fails.
For the PRC to actually invade Taiwan, a lot of seemingly improbable things would first have to happen. The PLA Central Military Commission in Beijing would have to convince itself that its Joint Island Attack Campaign could be well executed, and then convince the CCP’s civilian leadership the same. In addition, the Politburo Standing Committee would have to decide that the campaign would likely have acceptable political, economic, and social costs. The Gu’an Plan seeks to influence the Chinese calculus, making sure the perceived costs of invasion would be too high for China’s leaders to seriously consider. If they attacked regardless of the risks, the anti-invasion plan is designed so that Taipei could drag Beijing into a long war of attrition, delaying amphibious assault and/or occupation until the Chinese high command either collapsed under the strain, or the military retreated after suffering humiliating losses.
Other options for enemy use of force are studied and considered, but they have less saliency for defense planning. While the PRC could forego invasion and attempt to defeat Taiwan using a blockade and/or bombing campaign, this possibility is viewed by military planners as markedly less dangerous. Taiwanese strategists know well that a long duration military operation is an unattractive option. Practically speaking, it would be hugely complex due to local weather patterns, and for much of the year the PLA’s ships and planes would struggle to operate in the Taiwan Strait. The political, economic, and diplomatic drawbacks would each be considerable as well. By its very nature, a blockade and/or bombing campaign would have to drag on for a long time to produce results. It is assumed that the negative factors for China would almost certainly become unbearable long before Taiwan had been starved or burned into submission.
Taiwanese strategists assess that PLA doctrine favors a minimal warning, rapid invasion campaign that employs deception and surprise to land on the island and overrun Taipei, securing the government’s capitulation before American-led coalition forces could decisively engage. Internal Chinese military writings reveal that a short duration, all-out blockade and bombing operation should be anticipated before the massed landing attempts. As an alternative to invasion, PLA writings indicate that a prolonged, but intermittent and low intensity, blockade and bombing operation could be used to apply pressure―but only if Beijing’s objective fell far short of annexation. For these reasons, the blockade and bombing threat is very much secondary to the invasion threat.
The Gu’an Plan is reportedly designed to be flexible and continually updated. Changes and inputs are made to it when there is newly available intelligence on the PLA, when Taiwanese forces receive new equipment and capabilities, or when units are downsized or restructured. Lessons learned from exercises and training are used to modify the anti-invasion plan. It is tested multiple times per year in field deployments, live-fire drills, and computer simulated command post exercises. These war games put it into simulated action.[419] Natural and man-made disasters can have similar and far less artificial effects.
One major test of Taiwan’s response system came on the evening of June 27, 2015, when tragedy struck a seaside water park outside Taipei. The Formosa Fun Coast in Bali was hosting a theme dance party that night, featuring colored corn starch thrown into the air in the style of a Hindu festival. As the revelry was heating up, the powder suddenly ignited, creating a horrific fireball that caused over 500 casualties. Most were severe burn victims, who found themselves trapped on a fiery dance stage or inside a drained-out wave pool. The explosion instantly triggered defense early warning nets. Unbeknownst to the party goers, they were raving in one of Taiwan’s most dangerous potential invasion zones, an area heavily monitored by the military in case of Chinese attack.
The deadly fireball led national authorities to activate emergency procedures originally designed for the defense of greater Taipei. Rapid reaction units, having regularly practiced deployments to the area before, quickly arrived on scene and had a triage station and evacuation operation set up in record time. Rescue units included a joint force of army, navy, marine, reserve command, and military police teams, who won high praise from the media for their speed and professional demeanor during the chaos. While tasked with defending the capital region from invasion, that night the ROC military handled a different type of man-made disaster. The Gu’an Plan and the military units assigned to execute it were put to the test, and they passed with flying colors.[420]
Taiwan’s anti-invasion plan nonetheless has its critics. Some American experts have asserted that Gu’an is too ambitious and demands too much of the ROC military. In their minds, the goal of the plan should be to, “hole up and hold out until the cavalry arrives.”[421] Their thinking is informed by the history of allied war planning in Asia, especially with Japan and South Korea, both of whom have American troops permanently based in their countries. However, in the absence of a formal defense treaty, Taiwanese strategists are unwilling to emulate Tokyo and Seoul, placing their country’s survival at the mercy of American decision makers.
The Gu’an Plan is designed so that the armed forces of Taiwan are prepared for the three worst-case scenarios they might one day confront. In the first scenario, China invades and the U.S. “cavalry” never shows up. In the second, the Americans arrive on the battlefield too late to make a difference. In the final scenario, the Americans deploy in good time, but are routed by overwhelming PLA surprise attacks. These scenarios, though seemingly unlikely, could be catastrophic for Taiwan. Precautions are therefore made to guard against an overreliance on America’s superior military capabilities and good intentions.[422]
Taiwanese defense planners cautiously and prudently assess that ROC military forces have to be prepared to defend their own country, without any international help. Coercive blockade and bombing campaigns, although more probable than all-out invasion, are not at the forefront of their thinking. Military planners assume that no Taiwanese government elected into being would ever capitulate as the result of intimidation. In their minds, economic devastation and limited combat would never be sufficient to force them to surrender. If the Chinese Communists want to take Taiwan, they will have to actually invade and occupy the entire country because the defenders will fight to the bitter end to preserve their freedom.[423] Having outlined the basic assumptions that guide Taiwanese strategists, let us now turn to some of the details of their anti-invasion plan.
Publically available materials indicate that Taiwan’s war plan likely has three major phases of operations, each of which is specifically designed to counter the three main phases of the PLA’s Joint Island Attack Campaign. The first phase aims to prepare for PLA surprise attacks. Reservists would be mobilized to fortify the island, and high value assets bunkered down. The second phase of the plan envisions launching joint task forces out to engage and destroy Chinese amphibious fleets before they could strike. The last phase of the plan calls for surviving Taiwanese units to fight along the coast to repel invasion and defend the homeland. If necessary, homeland defense forces would fall back into the major population centers and mountains to fight a prolonged series of sieges and counterattacks.
Mobilization and force preservation begins once Taiwan’s government receives unambiguous warning of an impending attack. At this point, the president would confer with her cabinet and the leaders of parliament. She would then announce a state of emergency and declare a limited period of marital law.[424] Classified legal procedures have reportedly been drawn up to bring Taiwan’s latent strength alive and turn the government into a highly organized war machine. These secret procedures are reviewed, updated, and tested at least once every year to certify that the process, if necessary, could be carried out swiftly in very stressful circumstances. As soon as the president gave the order, Taiwan’s military could elevate readiness levels and go to a war footing.[425]
According to Taiwanese sources, force preservation in the invasion scenario would probably begin with the president, her cabinet and parliamentary leaders being moved to deep underground vaults, sealed into a system of secret command complexes that are capable of housing thousands of essential personnel under the earth’s surface. They might also disperse to safe houses and hide sites. Surrounding them would be a layered phalanx of ROC marines, military police, and special service bodyguards, entrusted with their protection. It seems probable that certain key decision makers would avoid meeting in person to ensure that the entire government could not be knocked out by a single sinister blow.[426]
Fleets of armored fighting vehicles and bullet-proof sedans housed in locations around Taipei are assigned the mission of moving selected personnel from place to place. Special tunnel systems are also thought to exist for moving them across the capital unseen. In wartime, bunkers and mobility operations are often the first lines of defense. Decoys and other deception measures would be instituted to confuse enemy agents. Individuals of interest, routinely monitored but left free to go about their business, would be rounded up in counterintelligence dragnets and put under lock and key. In some cases, known Chinese agents could be fed false information, used as pawns in high stakes deception operations.
With the top leaders secured, the priority order of business would be to call up the reserves. Taiwan maintains one of the largest and most sophisticated reserve systems in the world, allowing the military in the supreme emergency to call upon the services of more citizen-soldiers than the entire PLA could ever to hope land on the island. Two and a half million Taiwanese men of military age are registered. Almost another million citizens of all ages, both male and female, have signed up to be civil defense workers. Government employees, health care professionals, and private contractors form a large block of wartime support personnel. Truck and bus driver unions, construction companies, and fishing associations all have their members and their machines registered. Even temples and churches are in the war reserve system. Many patriotic religious groups plan to feed and shelter troops at their rustic mountain retreats.[427]
Mobilization would reportedly commence with alerts flashing urgently across television channels, internet and social media pages, and radio broadcasts. Personal devices would beep, chirp, vibrate, and ring, signaling incoming calls and text messages. Military bases, police stations, fire stations, and hospitals would start to go into high gear. The Cabinet Office (Executive Yuan) and MND Reserve Command would light up in a surge of activity. Government personnel would scramble out to post notices at schools, parks, and other public spaces. Sirens would sound and public service announcements would echo across Taiwan’s immense mass transit systems.
Once the emergency alert goes out, normal daily activities will cease across the nation as men of military age, in batches numbering in the hundreds of thousands, are called in for military service. Schools would close down, with young children likely sent out of the cities to stay with elderly relatives in the countryside. Plans call for high school and university students to be gathered into combat support groups, tasked with assisting air defense, medical, communications, and police operations. Assuming there would be enough time, the primary danger zones in greater Taipei, Taoyuan, Tainan, and elsewhere would be evacuated by the military, with all non-essential civilian personnel moved to shelter areas via a system of special access roads. Dozens of pre-surveyed refugee camp sites are scattered across rural areas in the island’s hinterlands. Neighborhoods likely to soon become warzones would be cleared out, becoming as much as possible the sole domains of military and paramilitary units.[428]
Taiwan’s reservists reportedly could be brought into action rapidly. The emergency mobilization plan assumes that some 200,000 to 300,000 men would muster within the first 24 hours. According to the plan, the bulk of the reserve force would be mobilized in 72 hours, with over two million military personnel at their duty stations or on standby. Taiwan’s defense planners are cautious, assuming that only 80 percent would show up on time. Some men might be away on travel, or they might be sick, or attending urgent family business. Others might lose their nerve and flee the country, or be waylaid by unforeseeable circumstances. The vast majority would obey the law, do their duty, and fight.[429]
Tests of the emergency mobilization system are performed every year at randomized locations across Taiwan and the outer islands to see how well it works. Men know that they have been called up when they see their unit’s code name and number on the news. These simulations offer great hope. Year after year, they indicate that around 97 percent of a local reserve brigade will muster on time (they are generally given less than 24 hours). Nonetheless, war planners assume the actual situation would be far worse. False messages could go out online, or the power grid might go down, forcing military police units to drive around towns with bullhorns to call up reserve units. In some circumstances, military police officers may have to go door to door with name lists, something they are reportedly well prepared to do. After years of testing and tweaking, there is a high degree of confidence that the mobilization system would work even in the most stressful conditions the enemy could create.[430]
Activated reservists would not have to travel far. Most citizen-soldiers in Taiwan, like national guardsmen and militia units in other countries, are assigned the task of defending their own hometowns, virtually guaranteeing that they would fight much harder than an invading enemy. Once reservists arrived to their nearby armories and marshaling stations, they would be issued weapons, ammunition, and equipment. Most would be sent to the firing ranges for three to seven days, where they would refresh their training. Others would almost immediately be sent to work on construction teams, their mission to erect fortification networks along the coasts and around other key points. Taiwan is reported to have amassed sea mines, landmines, and beach obstacles, which are piled up in coastal bunkers and ready to deploy quickly in an emergency. As of 2015, the military was estimated to have over 7,000 sea mines of all types, stored in at least four naval armories. The navy trains to have over half of these mines sown in dense underwater arrays around the invasion beaches within fourteen hours, with the rest used for other missions or held in reserve.[431] In case naval mine-laying ships were sabotaged or sunk, hundreds of fishing boats in the reserve system are to be outfitted for filling in.[432] No solid estimate exists regarding the number of landmines and obstacles that are available for the beaches, but they are depicted as vast in number.[433]
PLA sources devote considerable attention to Taiwan’s coastal fortification and defense capabilities. They ruefully note that Taiwan’s military does not deploy minefields and obstacle networks in peacetime, except in a highly limited fashion during exercises, in order to ensure that operational security is maintained. If the locations and layouts of Taiwan’s beach defenses could be studied over time with overhead satellite reconnaissance, Chinese military analysts apparently feel they would be in a better position to develop countermeasures for defeating them.[434] Secrecy is not the only reason the ROC military waits for a wartime emergency. The nature of its planned coastal defense system is such that it would pose a serious threat to normal sea traffic.
According to PLA assessments, Taiwan has the ability to rapidly establish an elaborate and lethal coastal defense system, holding every type of amphibious vessel in the Chinese fleet at risk of destruction. It is assessed that this system would be comprised of an interlocking series of minefields and obstacles at sea. The minefields would reportedly be laid in a series of large belts, established along the best lines of approach to the invasion beaches. It is envisioned that the outer fields could start somewhere on the eastern side of the Taiwan Strait middle line (or Davis Line), which runs approximately 60 miles from Taiwan’s western shores. Minefields in the Strait would, in theory, be laid about six to eight miles across, comprised of moored contact mines, drifting contact mines, and large bottom mines scattered across a broad area to block the deep water passes.[435]
The anticipated minefields would be relatively thin far from Taiwan and thicker the closer to shore one got. They could be planted with a special focus on pre-surveyed anchorage areas off the coast, where the PLA would launch small landing craft and amphibious tanks, unloading them from their mother ships for the final sprint to the beach. These waters are expected to be sown with belts of death, each row of mines five to seven miles long, when measured from west to east. Another mine belt could be around two miles across, made up of small and medium-sized bottom mines laid in tight clusters a few miles off the coast, where PLA gunboats otherwise could sit and shell the shore.
Naval minefields, it is believed, would create kill boxes, trapping and sinking landing ships and their escorts. The threat of mines is psychological as well as physical. Taiwan’s planned kill boxes are intended to limit the willingness of Chinese ship captains to maneuver at high speeds outside the slender shipping lanes they considered safe. Vessels traveling in formation along fixed routes at fixed speeds are an easy target. In war, the advantages of dodging randomly across the sea are significant and often vital to a ship’s survival. Taiwanese naval mines, deadly in their own right, could make cautious ships vulnerable to being shredded by air attacks or blown to pieces by coastal defense batteries.
PLA texts anticipate that minefields at sea would be followed by beach obstacle systems, emplaced in the shallow waters that begin 300 to 600 feet offshore. These are designed to entangle, rip apart, and incinerate small landing boats full of troops. Taiwan’s planned obstacle systems are believed to make use of moored nets, clamshell traps, log cages, steel spikes, sunken truck containers, and mines. The military is believed to have stockpiled 53 gallon oil drums for wartime beach defense. Just prior to invasion, these would reportedly be filled with 220 pounds of TNT, mixed with gasoline, and chained three or four feet below the surface, where they would wait menacingly for Chinese landing craft to touch them off. Each is estimated to have a lethal blast radius of 100 to 150 feet, killing with shock and shrapnel, and leaving flaming oil slicks in their wake.[436]
Pike obstacles are made of steel bars emplaced at 45 degree angles, each about six feet long and weighing 150 pounds. These would be emplaced in the surf, facing the enemy. It is anticipated that at low tide they would rest entirely on dry land, spaced out in long rows, each around 15 feet apart, looking like forests of black needles protruding from the sand and silt. From the perspective of PLA planners, however, the most horrific beach obstacle facing them would be what they call, “the seawalls of fire.”[437] According to Chinese military texts, Taiwan’s invasion beaches are protected by secret underwater pipelines, designed for pumping flammables out into the shallows. Just as the first waves of PLA amphibious troops were storming ashore, Taiwanese officers would open pipe values to create a thick film of oil and gasoline. This unstable slick would be lit off by artillery shells and gunfire, creating sheets of fire that could consume the invaders all along the blackened beach lines. In peacetime, oil and gas stores that could be used in this defense system are reportedly kept inside hardened subterranean bunkers at the edge of the Taoyuan plain and elsewhere up and down the coast. Nearby airports and harbors store their own fuel, providing additional supplies for fire making purposes.[438]
Although the full extent of Taiwan’s secret pipeline system is unknown, internal Chinese manuals caution PLA tacticians to prepare for the worst and assume that every breakwater and seawall has gas lines embedded that are capable of releasing large jets of flame. To reduce the number of burn deaths, restricted-access PLA handbooks recommend covering amphibious landing craft in fire retardant materials to mitigate the risk of them being engulfed while motoring through the slicks. In theory, the first wave of troops is to be provided with fire protection suits, fire extinguishing equipment, and water cannons. When possible, landing craft crews would be advised to swerve around flaming sea areas, although this could be difficult given the other obstacles. As a consequence, the firewalls are anticipated to be horrific and difficult to escape.[439]
Assuming Chinese skirmishers made it to shore alive, it is anticipated that they would have to fight through a dense interlocking system of beach obstacles, minefields, and coastal fortifications. It is believed that some frontline defense systems could extend over a quarter mile inland. Defensive works are expected to be designed like quilts, with each box one component of a larger patchwork of death, sprawled across the landscape. Chinese military writings depict the envisioned fortification systems as something ugly and medieval, painting dystopian pictures of landmine fields, razor wire nets, spike strips, hook boards, and skin-peeling planks. They envision Taiwanese beaches fortified with gun emplacements, machine gun nests, mortar pits, cement barriers, trenches, and tank traps, with open spaces covered by sharp piles of broken glass and blades of junk metal.
Landmines in the system are anticipated to include both anti-personnel and anti-tank variants, laid out in kill zones designed to trap the attacker between steel hedgehogs wrapped in tangles of barbed wire. Giant “dragon teeth” (complex geometric-shaped, steel-reinforced concrete blocks) would link together with other obstacles in the system to either block pathways off the beach, needed by amphibious tanks and hovercraft, or channel them into minefields and ambush sites where troops with anti-tank rockets and heavy machine guns would be waiting.[440]
Behind Taiwan’s landing beaches are low inland areas, pockmarked with countless cement drainage ditches, ponds, salt fields, swamps, and wind-breaks. Here is where Taiwan’s army would reportedly establish frontline anti-invasion bases. During the mobilization phase of Gu’an, combat engineers and civilian contractors would fortify these bases and the roads connecting them. Each strongpoint would be protected by barbed wire fences, wire obstacles, spike strips, landmines, anti-tank barrier walls, anti-tank obstacles, and anti-tank trenches. The entire area would be littered with something PLA writings refer to as “glass shard mountains,” in addition to bamboo spikes, felled trees, truck shipping containers, and junkyard cars.[441] According to Chinese assessments, Taiwan’s beach and coastal defense works will pose an enormous problem for amphibious troops. One excerpt summarizes the challenge as follows: “This wide-area, defense-in-depth obstacle system will increase the difficulty of landing operations. It makes our obstacle clearing mission a giant burden. It makes setting up forward command posts highly difficult and highly risky. It makes the situation ever more complex.”[442] This same text goes on to describe how Taiwan’s army has greatly altered the coastal landscape in peacetime to make it more defensible in wartime. Examples given include the cultivation of sharp-spine agave plants, cactuses, and thick thorny hedgerows. In addition, military engineers have reportedly constructed water retention areas that can be opened in an emergency to flood low-lying areas, denying them to the enemy.[443]
One PLA source evaluates Taiwan’s coastal fortifications as follows:
After decades of battlefield preparation, the Enemy on the Island has constructed a hardened system of central tunnels surrounded by static defensive works, field works, and interlocking coastal bunkers. It faces and looks down on areas of utility for landings. It is a hardened interlocking coastal defense system, which emphasizes single bunkers and groups of bunkers, some that can be seen, some that are hidden, both at forward areas and into the depths of the Island, with obstacles both natural and manmade, and parts both underground and above ground, forming a combined coastal defense system to envelop attackers, launch localized counterattacks, and all-out counterattacks to execute decisive battles along the shore.[444]
Although Chinese military analysts take great pains to warn tactical PLA commanders of Taiwan’s lethal beach defenses, their writings are equally pessimistic about what would be waiting farther inland. Taiwan’s anti-invasion plan reportedly assigns units to defend fortified key points deep inside the island. Before Z-Day, local air defense teams would dig in to guard landing zones where Chinese paratroopers might fall. Infantry would set up patrols of city streets and rural fields. Military police units would man bridges, tunnels, power stations, water reservoirs, and highway checkpoints. Under their watchful gaze, explosive ordinance specialists would rig tunnels, bridges, and ports with detonation mechanisms.[445]
Taiwan’s anti-invasion plan reportedly calls for the defense of all strategic infrastructure that could be of aid to the enemy if captured. In the unlikely event that defense should prove untenable, everything of value is to be demolished, especially large sections of the coastal highway system and the bridges leading into Taipei. Other roads are to be blocked by collapsed buildings, overhead power lines, and trees.[446] According to PLA writings, the plan calls for stringing steel cables between mountain passes, across rivers, and around tall buildings to crash low flying attack helicopters. It is even envisioned that barrage balloons (blimps tethered to the ground with metal cables) could be put in place to defend major cities against low flying aircraft, entangling them, or forcing them to approach via more dangerous routes. These blimps, it is believed, could have small explosives charges attached that would be flung into the sides of ensnared helicopters.[447]
The following PLA study excerpt succinctly captures an official Chinese military view of Taiwan’s inland defenses:
The Island’s urban battlefield has undergone many years of buildup. Its defensive deployments are quite complete. All defensive works have been hardened and perfected. Detailed pre-war plans are in place for emplacing obstacles at every critical transportation point from the coast into city depths. When our combat groups are fighting on the Island, these obstacles, which will certainly be emplaced according to their layered defense plan, will cause our army units extreme difficulties in maneuvering.[448]
The same source states that since the 1970s Chinese war planners have regarded Taiwan’s elaborate fortification lines as “critical bottlenecks” that needed to be broken through before the island could be conquered. It stresses that a long series of technical studies and exercises have been held in China to develop an approach whereby the PLA would bomb the shore, mine-sweep the sea, clear channels through beach obstacles with combat engineers, and send troops storming into whatever remained armed with flamethrowers and dynamite. But this approach is viewed as sub-optimal and possibly even a receipt for stalemate and repulse. According to this account, the PLA has not yet broken the code on how to quickly get through Taiwan’s planned grid of fortifications.[449]
Before Z-Day, while Taiwanese citizen-soldiers and contractors were preparing the battlefield, a much smaller elite would be gearing up: the rapid reaction brigades. The ROC Army has thousands of tanks, self-propelled rocket launchers, artillery guns, and armored fighting vehicles. These outfit specialized armor and mechanized infantry brigades. They are supported by helicopters and special operation groups, and backstopped with marine counter-invasion brigades. The mission of the rapid reaction brigades is to stay hidden at inland sites until the main focal points of enemy invasion are clear. Before landing zones could consolidate, they would converge on and smash into lodgments, making sure enemy forces were not able to secure footholds. Some reservists would report to duty at these brigades in the run-up to war, but not many. They are active duty units, maintained close to full-fighting strength even in peacetime.
Force preservation for the rapid reaction brigades means parking tanks, guns, and ammunition at hide-sites. Hidden caves, tunnels, concrete-covered shelters, and concealed garages dot the countryside. Many units would disperse into civilian infrastructure, where the PLA could not find them even if it had a master copy of Taiwan’s defense plan. Helicopters and other large machines would deploy to pre-planned operating areas where the enemy might not expect them, such as factory grounds, university campuses, parks, golf courses, parking lots, and open fields at abandoned construction sites. Lists of pre-surveyed hideouts are kept and ready to be distributed when needed. Many prime sites are never used in exercises in order to maintain their secrecy. Some have been tested in war game maneuvers, but some exist only in the minds of battalion-level commanders, each of whom would have his or her pick of the local terrain.[450]
PLA writings express concern that the main elements of the ROC Army would go to ground across Taiwan’s population centers and hinterlands. It is very unlikely that they could be neutralized before Z-Day. Layered air defense shields protect them from close-in overhead reconnaissance and strikes. They would be buried or camouflaged, and so vast in number and widely dispersed that anything other than a long-term concentrated bombing operation against them is likely to prove a waste of effort. The guidance given to PLA commanders is to wait until the invasion begins, and then concentrate on finding tank brigades, in particular, attempting to disrupt their movements after they have come out of hiding and formed up for counterattacks.[451]
Finding and hitting mobile units in the fog of war, however, is acknowledged to be a herculean task, and one which, to be successful, would have to soak up all available intelligence, targeting, and strike assets, drawing them away from amphibious operations just as they were surging to their climax. Presenting the aggressor with hard, confusing, and complex situations, terrible dilemmas, and painful tradeoffs is the hallmark of any good defense plan. From the perspective of Taiwan’s ground force generals, force preservation is not the least bit theoretical; it is about surviving a concentrated enemy first strike and husbanding strength for the final struggle to repel invasion.
The mobilization and force preservation phase of the Gu’an Plan is believed to call for the ROC Air Force to bunker down and ride out Chinese missile attacks, making the skies clear shooting ranges for Taiwan’s ten batteries of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles, which have the ability to intercept ballistic missiles.[452] To stay alive during the initial onslaught, Patriot launchers would “shoot-and-scoot,” not lingering in any one place for long enough to be hit. For defense against cruise missiles and stealthy fighter-bombers, Taiwan has self-built a significant number of Tien Kung “Sky Bow” air defense missiles. At least six batteries of this advanced, long-range missile system are deployed around Taiwan’s major operational areas, and up to twelve more batteries are expected by 2024.[453] Units in the field would be fed information from a resilient network of American-made radars and satellites. At the current pace of development, Taiwan’s missile shield may be one of the most robust defensive networks of its kind in the world. It offers overlapping fields of fire and the ability to link up and exchange information with American and Japanese ballistic missile defense ships.[454]
For force preservation purposes, Taiwan’s defense plan would assign squadrons of the nation’s most advanced fighters to enormous “nuclear proof” mountain bunkers on the east coast of Taiwan. There is enough space in Hualien’s Chiashan “Optimal Mountain” and Taitung’s Shihzishan “Stone Mountain” for hundreds of jets. They would likely sit out the early hours of war in vault-like stables, their pilots preparing for counterstrikes. Not all air squadrons are assigned to the mountain depths. Some would sit in dome-like shelters of reinforced concrete and earth. Taiwan has hundreds of hardened hangars spread across its airbases. Unlike the super bunkers in the mountains, they are not capable of surviving the impact of a ballistic missile hit. They can however weather carpet-bombing attacks and near misses, and they prevent secondary explosions when planes nearby are stricken. The sheer number of hardened shelters and hide-sites in Taiwan makes them a challenge for Chinese war planners. Targeting each individually would waste a mountain of precision ordinance because many will be either empty or occupied by a dummy plane.
Further complicating matters for PLA generals, the counter-invasion plan allows for Taiwanese air force commanders to move their squadrons out to the highways. Taiwan is one of the only countries in the world that regularly shuts down sections of its freeway system, turning them into makeshift fighter bases. Exercises to date have involved thousands of participants and hundreds of support vehicles, with all essential personnel and equipment moved out of their home airbases and onto highway runway strips. At least five locations are maintained for this emergency air mission. Taiwan’s mainstay F-16, IDF, and Mirage fighters, and E-2 Hawkeye airborne early-warning and control planes, have been certified to land and take off on the highways. The national freeway system was originally designed to support heavy C-130 Hercules transport planes as well, but that prospect has never been tested in peacetime.[455]
Taiwan’s large P-3 Orion sub-hunters have not been highway certified, but could operate from civilian airports which might be taken over by the military and used to hide high-value planes. Hangars that housed passenger jets in peacetime, could suddenly find themselves home to planes used for electronic warfare, parachute assault, and maritime patrol. Camouflage, concealment, and deception measures are planned on a large scale. False radio chatter would create a tremendous white noise, blanketing the airwaves and overwhelming targeting designs. PLA satellites that passed overhead could find themselves unable to see anything, or they might be fooled, transmitting images and signals that appeared to be those of real planes, but were not.[456]
There is no guarantee that each action taken would have its intended effect, but considered as a whole, Taiwan’s air shield is very likely to thin the herd of incoming missiles, making passive defense measures like hardening, camouflage, concealment, and deception more effective. No one in Taiwan’s defense planning circles harbors any illusion that the air force could emerge from ballistic missile and cruise missile attacks in the same fashion it went into them. The PLA has invested enormous resources into preparations for grounding Taiwan’s flying service. Early losses are expected to be heavy.[457]
Neither side can be certain before the storm comes that its forecasts will prove true. Steps taken during the mobilization and force preservation stage of the anti-invasion plan are intended to ensure that China would stand little chance of seizing air superiority in the first days of conflict. In the minds of even optimistic PLA planners, the ROC Air Force represents a fleet-in-being, a vague menace whose full strength and wartime role cannot be calculated out of the equation. Only the most foolish of general disregards a mighty air force hiding dispersed and deep in the mountains, waiting to strike out at a time and place of its own choosing.
Taiwan’s navy intends to fight shoulder to shoulder with the air force. Unlike the other services, the ROC Navy would not be able to hide its fleet in underground citadels.[458] The counter-invasion plan calls for the fleet to sortie, with ships pulling anchor and pushing out to sea at the earliest warning of impending attack. Regular exercises are held to certify that naval ports could be emptied out in short order.[459] Not all warships could be put into action. Maintenance, repair, and overall schedules preclude all navies from getting their full fleet underway at once. Most consider it a feat just to put one third of their fleet to sea. For Taiwan, the goal is to get well over half of all ships mobilized for battle. The rest would be drained of fuel, unloaded of ordinance, and then towed out of their harbors and scuttled, making each a sunken obstacle to incoming submarines and surface ships. In some cases, warships might have to be exploded in their dry docks and at their piers to forestall capture.[460]
The bulk of the fleet would in this way get out ahead of the first missile attacks, and every ship left behind would perish doing its duty. Task forces at sea would steam to prepared operating areas. Here they would hunt for enemy submarines and ships, harassing or evading whatever they could not readily sink. The east coast of Taiwan, with its wall of mountains, offers deep-water sanctuary areas offshore and wide open spaces for maneuver. Ship groups here would operate under the protective bubble of land-based air defenses and coastal anti-ship missile batteries, which have a force-multiplying effect that increases joint combat power.[461]
In the frigid depths below would be anchored sonar-buoys, capable of alerting ship captains to the approach of enemy vessels through the two principal chokepoints: the waters of the Miyako Strait in the north, between Taiwan and Okinawa, and the Bashi Channel in the south, between Taiwan and the Philippines. At the roof of the South China Sea, Taiwan’s Pratas (Dongsha) Island would serve as an additional outpost for monitoring Chinese ship movements. Task forces at sea would operate essentially like those of the ground and air services, dispersing to safe zones to preserve their strength until the enemy’s first strikes had subsided. Once the invasion armadas began forming up along the Fujian coast, naval task forces could launch strikes and raids upon them.
Meanwhile, on shore, Taiwanese civilians would be marshaling in support of the coming convulsions. As the strategic situation came unglued and China rushed toward the brink, Taiwanese logistics experts would stockpile food, medicine, and war supplies. Factories would retool and ramp up their production lines to meet wartime needs. Farmers would harvest and store whatever crops they could before their fields become warzones. Fishermen would swap their nets out, replacing them with equipment for laying mines and obstacles. Fuel depots would top off their buried supply chambers. The stock market would close. The Bank of Taiwan and other major financial institutions would inject rivers of cash into emergency spending programs, utilizing foreign reserves long held for just such an emergency.[462]
Declaring a temporary state of martial law in Taiwan would bring the entire society and economy to a frenzied pitch. The defense plan is designed to extract every available ounce of national power and to meet the threat.[463] The result would not just transform Taiwan, it would alter the financial fabric of the world. Supply chains everywhere, normally fed by Taiwanese manufactures, would be paralyzed―especially in the areas of advanced computing and electronics. Many routine transactions that are taken for granted would be suddenly become impossible. The effects would ripple into the headquarters of major corporations around the globe. Given the far-reaching and intractable consequences of misreading enemy intentions, Taiwan’s government leaders are only going to issue the emergency order to mobilize the entire nation when they are absolutely certain an invasion is imminent. The threat is likely to manifest itself slowly over the course of many months, and it could after all be a bluff intended to set off a false alarm to weaken public confidence in the government, kindle panic, and get Taiwan to reveal some of its preparatory defensive measures. Weeks before Z-Day, Taiwan would most likely begin climbing a mobilization ladder that would allow the president to increase readiness levels in a steady, step-by-step manner in accordance with Chinese actions. The nationwide invasion alarm would almost certainly not be sounded until defense and security professionals handed truly dire warning intelligence to the president and cabinet.[464]
The system is designed with fail-safes. A weak-willed, indecisive, or naive president could dally in a crisis and avoid hard decisions. Certainly, all the options open to them would be painful. They could find that the least painful choice to make before war is to make no choice at all, postponing mobilization for as long as they could. They might also be under American pressure. In Washington, there are likely to be those who would rationalize that all-out mobilization could “provoke” the Chinese, inviting an attack when there was still some slim chance of peace.
Historically, most countries facing invasion tend to wait until the threat is right on top of them before they act.[465] This seems unimaginable in the case of Taiwan, but the defense plan is reportedly flexible enough to account for less than perfect readiness outcomes. In the improbable event of total strategic surprise, the plan could ensure latent strength was rapidly brought to life just as the enemy’s missiles started to rain down. However, fewer defense forces would be mobilized and preserved for the coming battle. Only the most essential ones would be ready for the fight. The dangers to the life of Taiwan in such circumstances could skyrocket. Such is the burden of decision and responsibility that must be borne by the island’s elected leaders.
Major Taiwanese military bases