TO START A WAR
FISHER, RICHARD D. Jr.
TO START A WAR. . . . by Richard D. Fisher Jr. A DEADLY SERIOUS CONTEST is being played out above the Taiwan Strait between the air forces of china and Taiwan, a contest that underscores both the...
...There is some debate among military sources in Washington and Taipei over whether China will begin a higher level of military pressure against Taiwan before the huge celebration planned for the October 1 anniversary of the Chinese Communist party...
...On top of this, the Chinese are using their new Russian Su-27, which at low fuel loading can outmaneuver the top-of-the-line U.S...
...China may now have 200 of these missiles in areas near Taiwan...
...There is another ominous element to China's looming air superiority...
...The State Department strongly opposes the bill...
...China has just started co-production of 200 more Su-27s...
...government sources, another similar incident may have happened on the weekend of August 7. Should miscalculation lead to combat, the ROC Air Force might have the edge in most, but not all, encounters...
...In the last month, however, in addition to the seizure of the supply ship, Chinese fighters have made a habit of flying large circles around the islands, to convey the message that this time, unlike the late 1950s, China intends to control the air over Quemoy and Matsu...
...But the AWACS are often unavailable, and they would be wiped out quickly in any major confrontation...
...arms sales until the aircraft and parts were back on track for Taiwan...
...But there is a window of opportunity: The weather in the Taiwan Strait usually holds until the end of October...
...The Chinese are also using a number of larger twin-engine J-8II interceptors, which are less maneuverable than the J-7 but have a longer range and a radar to guide medium-range missiles...
...After July 9, the Clinton administration tilted against Taiwan, holding up the sale of additional E-2Ts and aircraft spare parts and delaying a Pentagon air-defense advisory mission...
...The E-2T's almost 300-mile-range radar gives Taiwan a superior picture of any evolving air and sea conflict when it is flying...
...Woolsey and Reagan administration veterans Caspar Weinberger and Richard V. Allen firmly supported the Helms bill, which would have the United States sell Taiwan a future generation of weapons and allow the Pentagon to advise Taipei on deterring conflict with China...
...The majority of the People's Liberation Army Air Force sorties are being flown in the J-7 fighter, an upgraded version of the single-engine Russian MiG-21C, which first flew in the late 1950s...
...The rush to punish Taiwan for asserting its democratic prerogatives was opposed by the Defense Department, which apparently blocked an even longer list of military-related sanctions on Taipei, and by Benjamin Gilman, chairman of the House International Relations Committee, who announced that he would block congressional approval of all U.S...
...F-15, and the F-16 that Taiwan is now acquiring...
...This is usually a prelude to the launching of R-27 medium-range air-to-air missiles...
...In addition, China's air force has moved a unit of S-300PMU long-range surface-to-air missiles to a base on the strait...
...right attacks may follow the CCP festivities...
...For Taiwan this mightily complicates the interception of Chinese aircraft...
...The building confrontation is proving similar to the clashes of 1958, which featured air battles and attacks on offshore islands occupied by the Roc...
...But it remains discouraging that for defending its democracy and its airspace, Taiwan has been treated as if it were as guilty as Beijing...
...In another ominous move that recalls the 1958 crisis, it was reported on July 31 that China had seized a freighter carrying supplies to the ROC-occupied island of Mat-su...
...Jesse Helms's new Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, assistant secretary of state for East Asia Stanley Roth disclosed that in the previous 48 hours, the United States had delivered six diplomatic demarches, three warnings apiece to Taipei and Beijing, in an attempt to defuse their confrontation...
...However, the Clinton administration is clearly unprepared to consider that Taiwan may need much more to defend itself against China...
...This level of activity has been unseen in decades...
...At the time, saving these islands was a rallying cry for Taiwan's political supporters in the United States...
...Furthermore, the Su-27 carries the R-73 helmet-sighted missile, which makes it the superior fighter for short-range fights over the Taiwan Strait...
...is an expert on China's military and the former director of the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation...
...More recently, they have been thought of as safe, both because they are fortified and equipped with supplies for a long siege and because the lack of confrontation over the islands for the last three decades has engendered an assumption that China would not threaten them...
...The S-300PMU is a modern Russian-made anti-aircraft missile whose deadly range extends about two-thirds of the way across the strait...
...it is usually armed with short-range infrared guided air-to-air missiles...
...Any serious air battle would be decided by early and massive strikes against Taiwan's air bases by China's growing number of short-range ballistic missiles...
...One incident reported on August 4 had Chinese Sukhoi Su-27 fighters locking their radar on two ROC Air Force Mirage 2000 fighters...
...After the crisis of 1958, sporadic air battles continued into the early 1960s, but since then, China's air force has hardly ever ventured beyond the coastline of the strait...
...A DEADLY SERIOUS CONTEST is being played out above the Taiwan Strait between the air forces of china and Taiwan, a contest that underscores both the immediate and the long-term risks of war over the future status of the Republic of china (Roc...
...Sources in Taiwan note that China is now building two brigades of 360-mile-range DF-15 missiles and one brigade of 180-mile-range M-11 missiles...
...The announcement of the sale of two E-2s came on July 31...
...The administration acknowledged the looming aerial confrontation over the Taiwan Strait only when prompted to do so by the Washington Post on August 2. Then in a dramatic August 4 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Sen...
...Even in 1996, when Beijing fired missiles off Taiwan, its air force did not fly up to the middle of the Taiwan Strait, daring the ROC Air Force to give battle...
...It is slightly encouraging, if recent reports are correct, that the administration has had some tough diplomatic exchanges with China...
...According to Taiwanese sources, every day an average of 22 to 25 Chinese fighters venture up to the midpoint of the strait, and the Taiwanese, though not matching Beijing in the number of sorties, mount continuous defensive patrols...
...For now, Taiwan has one major advantage: its four E-2T airborne warning and control (AWACS) aircraft...
...And if the crisis were to escalate, it would indeed provide too little, too late...
...At the same Senate hearing, James Woolsey, Clinton's first director of central intelligence, castigated as "appeasement" the China policy of his former boss...
...Recent reporting in the Hong Kong press suggests that outTHE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION IS CLEARLY UNPREPARED TO CONSIDER THAT TAIWAN MAY NEED MUCH MORE TO DEFEND ITSELF AGAINST CHINA...
...Just a few miles from the Chinese coast, Matsu and the island of Quemoy were subjected to artillery barrages starting in 1958 and continuing sporadically into the early 1960s...
...With the strait barely 100 miles wide at its widest point, there is not a lot of space or time in which to make decisions about firing missiles...
...According to U.S...
...You wouldn't know it from any State Department briefing, but since at least July 13—four days after Roc president Lee Teng-hui referred to Taiwan indirectly as a "state," infuriating Beijing—China's People's Liberation Army Air Force has been mounting aggressive sorties over the Taiwan Strait...
Vol. 4 • August 1999 • No. 46
