All the weapons China doesn’t want Taiwan to have

The US Department of War’s latest China Military Power Report is grim reading when it comes to Taiwan. 

China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has all the pieces needed for an assault on Taiwan utilizing air, naval and ground forces, along with missiles, electronic and cyber weaponry. And it has been rehearsing, not exercising, rehearsing.

The report doesn’t much mention the Chinese “fifth column” in place in Taiwan or the ongoing subversion – “entropic warfare” – aimed at breaking apart Taiwan’s society and the citizenry’s will to resist a Chinese invasion.

However, this focus on Chinese military capabilities refers to what China can do to Taiwan. As important is what Taiwan can do to China, especially to a PLA invasion force coming across the Taiwan Strait.

One way to consider this is to put yourself in the place of a PLA invasion force commander and ask “what would I least like to face?” More than anything, you don’t want to have to deal with an enemy you can’t see (because he’s well-hidden, hard to spot and mobile) while he’s hitting you with precision from different directions and long distances. 

And if he can do these things, he’s probably got the confidence to fight hard – and that makes a huge difference. The Trump administration’s recently announced US$11 billion arms sale to Taiwan, if delivered soon enough, adds to the island’s capabilities to conduct this sort of fight.

The weapons in the arms package reflect Taiwan’s steady transformation from a fixed, relatively immobile defense scheme – that’s relatively easy to target and destroy – to a more mobile, dispersed, deadly and survivable defense. 

Done right, Taiwan’s military could present the PLA with a very difficult problem – especially if Beijing’s objective is a quick victory that doesn’t give the US and its allies time to react on Taiwan’s behalf or for China’s public to sour on what would likely be a costly stalemate.

Of course, there’s more to Taiwan’s defense than just specific hardware, but consider the main weapons in the $11 billion deal:

High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS)

This is a mobile rocket system that fires several types of long-range missiles, including ATACMs (420 of which are in the latest package), with the range and precision to hit targets across the Taiwan Strait. So imagine the PLA Navy invasion force’s ships being cracked in half before they even leave port. 

HIMARS is effective against personnel as well, and submunitions can cover a sizeable patch of ground. The launchers are harder to locate and target than you’d think. If Taiwan’s HIMARS are armed with the newer Precision Strike Missile, they will have even better range and anti-ship capability.

155mm self-propelled howitzers 

There is still plenty of use for regular “tubed’ artillery on the battlefield, and the Ukraine war has demonstrated that if you can fire and “shift position” fast enough, you’ve got a reasonable chance of surviving. Maybe not forever but long enough to not lose a war.

TOW anti-tank missiles and Javelin shoulder-fired missiles

These two weapons, Javelins in particular, stymied the Russian assault force in Ukraine.  They were helped out by poor Russian soldiering and some tough Ukrainian troops with the nerve to get in close.

This is providing Taiwan ground forces weapons that are easy to use and conceal – and can take on armored or unarmored vehicles the PLA gets ashore in an invasion scenario. TOWs and Javelins give some real punch to relatively small combat teams of the sort Taiwan will need to deploy in order to survive.  

Altius loitering munitions

These are armed drones. With enough of these, and used properly, they can make life miserable for a PLA landing force – both at sea and ashore.

Dealing with a sky full of drones – either ‘tracking’ or ‘killing’ you – has got to be one of the most unpleasant developments in modern warfare, for both attacker or defender. Ukraine only shows the beginning of what’s coming in terms of drone capability. 

And keep in mind anti-drone capabilities are similarly developing in a “spy versus spy” game of one-upmanship. How many drones does Taiwan need? As with Javelins, TOWs and anti-ship and other missiles, a military can never have enough. 

Taiwan rightly hopes it is being moved to the front of the line and receives this latest package (along with others already in the pipeline) soon and not years from now. That makes a big difference operationally and also psychologically for the Taiwan military and civilian population. 

Taiwan’s terrain is such that any defense is a coastal defense, but at the same time, there’s enough room so that Taiwan’s forces can be deployed to conduct a more mobile and survivable defense to hit targets at sea, on the beach and farther ashore, if they get that far. 

The key has been to change Taiwan’s military leadership’s thinking away from static, fixed defense and into something dispersed and mobile, and with initiative being passed down to very low levels. 

This has been late in coming for the Taiwan Armed Forces, but it’s coming. It’s 15 years later than it should have been, but US military trainers are now in Taiwan in significant numbers. And Taiwan Armed Forces are training in the US with American forces. 

Skills are reportedly improving, particularly small-unit operations, and confidence is being rebuilt after four decades of near isolation needlessly imposed by successive US administrations.

So despite the China Military Power Report that might suggest Taiwan is a lost cause, the PLA’s considerable capabilities are not the end of the matter. Taiwan and the rest of the free world have something to say about it as well – as Xi Jinping and any PLA commander knows.

Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine officer and former US diplomat. He’s a fellow at the Center for Security Policy and the Yorktown Institute and is the author of “When China Attacks: A Warning to America.” Follow on X @NewshamGrant