Chiashan Airbase, Hualien, Taiwan
HIDDEN FROM THE AIR, hidden from satellites, Taiwan’s Chiashan airbase lay deep in granite-reinforced bunkers on the eastern side of the island. Officially, it had not even existed until a decision to go public was taken in the summer of 2022, around the time of a tense phone call between the US and Chinese presidents over the status of Taiwan. Even before the latest crisis, with the rhetoric from Beijing growing ever more strident on the need to ‘return the renegade province to the motherland, by force if necessary’, Taiwan had long been boosting its defences.
Taking a leaf from Iran’s nuclear playbook, the self-governing island had decided it needed to squirrel away some of its most precious assets in a subterranean cave complex so well protected that not even a powerful bunker-busting bomb could reach them. And those assets included a wartime command and control centre and at least a hundred of the island’s most advanced fighter jets: the F-16 Viper, capable of detecting and tracking targets in all weathers using its active scanned array radar.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence had taken an extremely close interest in the war in Ukraine, as had China. The parallels were clear to see: huge, nuclear-armed country invades much smaller neighbour in the expectation of a swift victory by overwhelming force of arms. Smaller country puts up surprisingly strong resistance, reinforced by recent years of help from the West. Taiwan did not intend to be caught napping by a surprise attack from the mainland.
Today was drill day and all across the base the sirens were blaring, from the sodium-lit tunnels to the massive earth revetments outside, designed to interrupt the path of an incoming missile. Pilots were scrambling for their planes, ground crews rushing to make final adjustments to the weapon loads, from Sidewinder air-to-air missiles to Harpoon anti-ship missiles to take on the enormous amphibious fleet China could be expected to send in the event of an actual invasion.
Standing alert and tense in his underground command centre, Air Force General Chun-chieh Yang and his staff watched the proceedings with mounting impatience. They had one eye on the video feeds coming in from all points on the base, some even from inside the F-16 cockpits, and one eye on the clock. The exercise completed, he addressed every member of the base using the PA system.
‘You performed well today,’ he told them, ‘but not well enough. We are still nearly four minutes over time. And what does that mean? Let me tell you. It means four minutes more for the invaders to reach closer to our shores. Four more minutes for them to attack your families’ homes, our farms, our cities. Those four minutes could mean all the difference if it comes to war. We don’t want this war, of course not, none of us do. But, like our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, if it comes to war we will fight back with everything we have. Now go and clean up, take some rest, and think about how you can improve your performance. Because the fate of the republic, and our whole democracy, depends on you.’