Tag Archives: Taiwan

No Strait for Aircraft Carriers

Earlier this year, United States Naval Academy Museum hosted a debate on the future of aircraft carriers (with parallel debate on twitter under #carrierdebate). It is a timely debate as the utility of aircraft carriers is under review in the face of the proliferation of Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD) systems. Critics argue that current aircraft carriers are too vulnerable in highly contested environments and too crucial to lose. Indeed, ever more precise, maneuverable, and swift anti-ship missiles (ASM) and silent submarines make certain types of environments overly prohibitive for aircraft carriers. However, this is not an entirely new situation. In fact, sending aircraft carriers close to coastlines and into the littorals has always been dangerous and against their designed purpose.

Ever since the commissioning of the ex-Varyag into the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) as the Liaoning (CV-16), speculations have taken place as to its tactical, operational, and strategic implications. With Taiwan classified as one of China’s “core interests”, and due to the protection (however ambiguous) offered by the US under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, Taiwan remains a prime hotspots with the potential to escalate into an all-out great power war. Thus, various analysts have engaged in discussions on the Liaoning’s role in a potential crisis over Taiwan. However, in doing so, it is better not to fall for the allure of focusing on the hardware capability over doctrine, tactics and the nature of the specific theater.

Harpoon anti-ship missile is launched from the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) during a live-fire exercise. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr.
Harpoon anti-ship missile is launched from the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) during a live-fire exercise. Shilih is part of Japan-based Carrier Strike Group Five. Taiwan and Japan also posses Harpoon ASMs. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr.

An examination of tactical and operational situations encountered by Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) through the Taiwan Strait reveals that adding a hypothetical Chinese carrier group’s presence does not augment existing the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)’s strategy. Instead PLAN doctrine relies on assets in the form of saturation missile attacks, submarines, fast missile boats and other Chinese A2AD elements. It is worth mentioning that these capabilities were already present in the the Taiwan Strait during the 1995-96 missile crisis. Being close to an enemy’s land-based assets poses a severe risk to the CSG’s survivability. Its combat effectiveness, is significantly diminished in the narrow waters of Taiwan Strait during high intensity combat conditions. In essence, the PLAN already had sufficient capabilities in place in 1996 such that sending a CSG into the Taiwan Strait would be a suicidal endeavor. The situation has only become more challenging for the US Navy in recent years not because the PLAN has acquired an aircraft carrier of its own, but rather due to the fact that China has greatly enhanced and modernized its existing A2AD capabilities.

The common reference to the 1996 deployment of aircraft carriers during the Taiwan Strait Missile Crisis as an indication of what could happen should the situation between China and Taiwan escalate into a shooting war suggests that there are two common misconceptions about the 1995-96 crisis. In late December’s piece for The Diplomat, Vasilis Trigkas presented interesting argument on the presence of aircraft carriers in the Taiwan Strait. In particular, he notes: 

Memories from 1996 – when Chinese missile tests in the strait prompted U.S. President Bill Clinton to order two fully armed carrier battle groups to pass through the Taiwan Strait – have shaped the strategic operational codes of the Chinese military and the Central Politburo. While China might have had the military resources to sink U.S. naval forces in its close periphery (quantity has a quality of its own) the strategic escalation that an attack against a U.S. carrier would trigger led Beijing to de-escalate. Since the importance of Taiwan’s reunification with the mainland remains an indispensible argument in the PRC’s rhetoric on the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, China’s officials have long strategized about how to neutralize U.S. operational superiority in the event of a new strait crisis. The 2008 acquisition of an old Soviet aircraft carrier from Ukraine should be seen as an extension of this goal. This carrier is the missing piece in China’s strategic puzzle in its first island chain and adds new strategic variables to a Sino-U.S. clash over Taiwan.

First, contrary to popular belief, in March 1996 neither of the two deployed CSGs (Carrier Group Seven headed by CVN-68 Nimitz and Carrier Group Five centered around CV-62 Independence) entered Taiwan Strait (p. 110). Nimitz was deployed in the Philippine Sea ready to assist the Independence Battle Group deployed to the east of Taiwan. Indeed, earlier in December 1995 the Nimitz battle group did pass through the Taiwan Strait, but it was several months after Chinese first missile tests close to Taiwan in July 1995. Moreover, US officials back then believed that the passage went unnoticed by Beijing (p. 104).

Second, in 1995 and 1996, the issue at stake was Beijing displeasure with Taiwan’s effort to establish itself as a new democracy, demonstrated by then President Lee’s visit to Cornell University and the island’s first free presidential election in 1996. Beijing did not de-escalate because of the presence of the two CSGs but because it had made its point. However displeased the Chinese leadership was back then, no one has seriously contemplated further escalation. Moreover, China could very well have another motivation, testing the limits of US strategic ambiguity across the strait as they had tested the 1954 Taiwan-US defense alliance during the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis. In that sense, deployment of two CSGs gave Beijing the indication that the US would indeed intervene should the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) decide to use deadly force against Taiwan.

Thus, the presence of the Nimitz and Independence CSGs in Taiwan’s proximity in 1996 should be understood as a symbolic gesture of the US commitment to the peaceful solution of cross-strait relations. It is doubtful that the acquisition of the Liaoning would deter Washington should it decide to demonstrate its resolve again. With the other assets that the PLA has been busy deploying in a meantime, now, that is all different story.

Trigkas argues that in 1996 the Chinese backed off because targeting US aircraft carriers would escalate the conflict out of proportion. Having an aircraft carrier and deploying it in advance of an intervening USN CSG would push the escalation ball to the US’ corner. Henceforth, it would be the US who would have to take the first shot because the Chinese CSG would block its way. Given that in 1996 the use of force was off the table and the crisis was all about making a political stance without intention to escalate, would a Chinese aircraft carrier prevent future US intervention by making itself too (politically) valuable to be attacked?

Not since World War II has the world seen any significant battle fought between rival carrier groups, and just as the carrier replaced the battleship through asymmetric means (the range of the onboard aircraft negated the firepower, speed and armor of a conventional battleship.), the effective counter to a CSG is unlikely another CSG, but instead a whole range of asymmetrical means such as strikes against its rear-echelon fast combat support ships (AOEs), land-based airpower or submarine warfare. Moreover, one need not send the aircraft carrier to the bottom, resulting in massive loss of lives of those on board, to neutralize the combat effectiveness of a CSG.

Tuo Jiang class missile corvette deployed by Taiwan could become major threat for PLAN's aircraft carriers. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Larry41028/Wikimedia Commons.
Tuo Jiang class missile corvette deployed by Taiwan could become major threat for PLAN’s aircraft carriers. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Larry41028/Wikimedia Commons.

Even if Chinese aircraft carriers were to become targets of the USN’s CSG, it would still be an unequal encounter for the PLAN, facing much more experienced USN CSGs with superior sortie rate and integrated defense. In such an encounter, the US Navy could inflict sufficient damage to incapacitate a Chinese aircraft carrier without actually sinking it. The best way to render an aircraft carrier useless is to limit the effectiveness of its air wing. Liaoning’s air wing is in this respect very modest totaling 30 J-15s fighter jets with compromised range, endurance and armament resulting from a lack of catapult launch systems. This number will most likely be higher for Liaoning’s successors, but the sortie generation rate accumulated through operational experience will take a lot longer to equalize. In comparison, Nimitz and Ford-class supercarriers typically carry 70-80 fixed wing aircraft and helicopters and their designs are much more flexible to accommodate various mission requirements.

Furthermore, the employment of a CSG in an open confrontation would run contrary to the tactics and culture consistently displayed by a sea-denial mindset influenced by the tradition of people’s war that informs so much of the CCP’s naval strategy (p. 37), prominently displayed during the Battle of Dongshan on 6 Aug 1965, where 11 PLAN torpedo boats and 4 patrol boats sunk 2 Taiwanese capital ships in 3 consecutive waves, resulting in 171 missing and 31 deaths, including the commander of the ROCN Second Fleet. The PLAN’s efforts towards becoming a Blue-Water Navy have undoubtedly changed its tactical mindset, but even then deployment of a Chinese aircraft carrier against Taiwan (and presumably against the USN) does not offer advantages that would outweigh the potential costs. If deployed outside of the A2AD protective cover, a Chinese CSG would be too weak to counter its US counterpart, and when deployed within A2AD cover, its capabilities are largely redundant.

Moreover, while the debate focuses on the political significance of sinking a US aircraft carrier, Beijing itself could ill-afford the political consequences of its CSG rendered impotent during combat in or close to the Taiwan Strait where potential adversaries such as Taiwan’s recently introduced Tuo Jiang class missile corvette could fully exploit its weaknesses. Indeed, should China deploy its CSG near Taiwan as a part of combat operations, USN would not need to fire a single shot and China’s capital ship could still end-up incapacitated or sunk. Taiwan’s sea and land-based anti-ship missiles represent a reverse A2AD significant challenge for China. 

Hence it is reasonable to conclude that the Chinese acquisition of the Liaoning and the further expansion of the Chinese aircraft carrier fleet, while significant, has very little direct impact on a potential crisis deployment in the Taiwan Strait. Instead one should look toward the prestige factor of presenting itself as a Blue Water Navy and a CSG’s value in prosecuting the territorial ambitions displayed by the Chinese government in recent times, e.g. in the South China Sea or the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands, where Chinese land-based airpower does not enjoy the same advantage as in the case of Taiwan-related contingency.

In a potential crisis across the Taiwan Strait, the PLAN’s goal would be better served through a deterrence formed by a combination of guided missiles destroyer-led surface action groups, land-based airpower utilizing supersonic ASMs coupled with over the horizon (OTH) targeting, and high-end attack submarines rivaling the low noise level of even US Seawolf-class SSNs. All of this could successfully prevent US reinforcements from accessing littoral regions of the theater (A2) and impede their movement along the First Island Chain (AD).

The aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73), center-right, leads the George Washington Carrier Strike Group and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships in tactical maneuver training during Annual Exercise (AnnualEx) 13. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr.
The aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73), center-right, leads the George Washington Carrier Strike Group and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships in tactical maneuver training during Annual Exercise (AnnualEx) 13. Image Credit: CC BY 2.0 Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr.

Aircraft carriers will maintain its role as a blue water force projector in the foreseeable future. Indeed, they are indispensable for a global sea-control navy tasked with missions to protect sea lines of communication. But the carrier battle groups were never meant to physically present itself in an environment similar to the Taiwan Strait. Granted, ASMs and submarines are problem on the open seas too but any potential opponents would be limited by the storage capacity of their onboard ordnance, with PLAN having limited ability of underway replenishment. In other words, open sea offers no advantage of a compressed engagement battlespace that littoral contestant such as China possesses against the limited range of present day CSG, bearing in mind that as China’s A2AD capabilities make it difficult for US Navy CSGs, PLAN’s own aircraft carrier faces the very same risk from the its neighbors, Taiwan included. 

Michal Thim is a Ph.D. candidate in the Taiwan Studies Program at the China Policy Institute (CPI), University of Nottingham, a member of The Center for International Maritime Security, an Asia-Pacific Desk Contributing Analyst for Wikistrat and a Research Fellow at the Prague-based think-tank Association for International Affairs. Michal tweets @michalthim.

Liao Yen-Fan is Taipei-based defense analyst specializing in airpower and Taiwanese military. He can be reached for comment at charlie_1701@msn.com.

The Potential for Panshih: Taiwan’s Expanding Maritime Role

Taiwan has long enjoyed a robust maritime force, intended to defend the island nation from threats both real and perceived across the Taiwan Strait. An arrangement under which the United States will deliver four Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates for use by the Republic of China Navy (ROCN) will only serve to further enhance the country’s maritime power. But perhaps the most interesting development for maritime affairs in the Asia-Pacific region so far in 2015 is the delivery of the ROCS Panshih.

With a total displacement of 20,000 tons and a range of almost 15,000 kilometers, the supply ship Panshih will greatly contribute to the ROCN’s expeditionary capabilities, allowing Taiwan to contribute meaningfully to disaster relief or humanitarian operations anywhere in the region. Historically, Taiwan has lacked this capability, fielding only the ROCS Yuen Feng, a troop transport. Although the ROCN has operated another supply ship for some years, ROCS Wu Yi, the Panshih is significantly larger and possesses much more advanced medical facilities. Reportedly, the Panshih is also only the first of its class – a second ship of an identical design is expected for the ROCN in the next few years.

These ships may soon cruise the seas in a Taiwanese effort to replicate the successes of China’s maritime diplomacy. The Peace Ark, a hospital ship in service with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN), has toured extensively since its commissioning in 2008. For example, the Peace Ark was deployed to assist the Philippines in recovering from Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013, and later was an important component of the Chinese participation in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC) 2014. Port visits and participation in such multilateral operations enhance China’s “soft power”, whereas observers note that Taiwan has been sidelined for the most part in regional diplomatic affairs. Pursuing a similar theme to China’s charm offensive could be just the remedy to Taiwan’s isolation.

A port of the flight deck on the Panshih.

Yet there is one catch to the Panshih’s particular design. The vessel boasts some offensive capabilities, including a Phalanx close-in weapons system, a 20mm Gatling gun, short-range Sea Chaparral surface-to-air missiles, several .50 calibre machine guns, and 30mm turrets. In contrast, the Berlin-class auxiliary ships employed by the Germany Navy, and which the Royal Canadian Navy will also soon employ as the Queenston-class, have only four MLG 27mm autocannons for defence. China’s Peace Ark is entirely unarmed. While the Panshih’s armaments grant it operational flexibility, they also undermine the vessel’s capacity to act as a soft power tool.

Perhaps the most ideal role for this vessel in the future will be to join relief operations in unstable environments. Taiwan has not contributed much in this area in previous years, with the ROCN focusing almost entirely on defending the Taiwanese coastline from threats across the strait. But there is one success story: in 2011, Taiwan initiated some participation in the European Union’s Operation Atalanta. This constituted an important contribution to international efforts against piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean. But this is the lone case of active engagement by the ROCN in any initiative beyond the Taiwan Strait. The Panshih could grant Taiwan more options in this regard, since the deployment of fully fledged combat vessels to an area like the Gulf of Aden could be viewed by domestic audiences as weakening Taiwan’s coastal defenses or otherwise as a misuse of Taiwanese defense resources. A supply ship could be more readily spared so far as the public is concerned.

Lending credence to the idea that the Panshih will be used to support humanitarian operations in failed or failing states, the vessel also has impressive hangar space, capable of storing up to three helicopters. The Taiwanese media has focused on the capacity for the ship to serve as a takeoff and landing platform for anti-submarine helicopters, but it is also certainly possible for the ship to serve as a base for transport helicopters ferrying supplies and specialized personnel to inland locations, while also bringing back patients requiring intensive care at the Panshih’s onboard medical facilities. The ROCN’s 19 Sikorsky S-70C(M) Thunderhawk helicopters offer some possibilities in this regard.

In any case, the ROCN now has in its possession a versatile ship. What remains to be seen are how the ROCN will put it to use in the coming years and to what extent this will reflect Taiwanese foreign policy priorities. With such a sophisticated vessel, it would be a shame for Taiwan to keep it docked as backup for a regional conflict that might never, and hopefully will never, come.

Paul Pryce is a Research Analyst at the Atlantic Council of Canada. His research interests are diverse and include maritime security, NATO affairs, and African regional integration.

This article can be found in its original form at offiziere.ch and was republished by permission.

Navigating the Black Ditch: Risks in the Taiwan Strait

As a Christmas gift from our friends at Risk Intelligence, we’re sharing two free articles from the publication Strategic Insights by CIMSECians. This first (also available in Pdf form), by myself, originally appeared in the September 2014 issue and provides a background and maritime risk analysis on the Taiwan Strait.

The author’s sole experience transiting the Taiwan Strait was not a pleasant one. Like many on his ship, a US Navy destroyer, he had earlier in the week gone to sleep expecting to awake anchored in Hong Kong harbour for a few days of liberty to celebrate the American holiday of Thanksgiving. Instead, the Chinese government rescinded permission for the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk Strike Group to enter port, causing the aircraft carrier and its escorting vessels to chart a course back to Japan and leave behind many loved ones who had flown to town to rendezvous. Typhoon-spawned weather heightened the crew’s enjoyment as they headed for the Taiwan Strait to undertake a ‘freedom of navigation’ transit. Seven years later, the relationship between China and the United States has not much improved. But that between China and Taiwan has softened markedly, even as 1,600 Chinese missiles remain arrayed against targets in Taiwan. In fact, this change has resulted in a shift in the geopolitical dangers facing those who ply the strait’s waters. This article will examine the outlook of these threats.

Geography of the Taiwan Strait

Until 10,000 years ago, a land bridge connected the Neolithic people of Taiwan with those of mainland China, until rising sea levels from melting glaciers at the start of the Holocene epoch created the strait. As described by the late Harvard professor Kuangh-chih Chang, over the subsequent ten millennia the strait’s width expanded and contracted in a series of six ‘sea invasions’ and six ‘withdrawals’ as the waters rose and fell. Today the strait runs 330 km north-east to south-west, and ranges in width from 220 km at its widest to 130 km at its narrowest, with an average width of 180 km. It is bounded in the north by the East China Sea and in the south by the South China Sea, circulating waters between the two bodies with an average depth of 60 m. At its deepest in the Penghu Channel the strait reaches 177 m and is a mere 25 m deep at its shallowest near the centre of the strait’s southern mouth – the ‘Taiwan Shoal’ or ‘Taiwan Banks’.

Taiwan_Strait

Seasonal environmental variation has a large impact on the navigability of the strait. The China Coastal Current flows southward in the western part of the strait from a maximum strength in winter months, backed by the northeast monsoon, to its weakest point in the summer. On the eastern side of the strait the northward flowing Kuroshio Branch Current is turned back by the north-east monsoon in the winter after exiting the Penghu Channel, but continues the rest of the year, while reaching its maximum strength in the summer. Each year from July to September, an average of six larger (and, thus, named) tropical storms and typhoons impact the strait. Year-round, the strait is known for strong winds, wave swells, and fog (156.3 days a year of level 6 or higher on the Beaufort Scale), but these effects are amplified during the winter months. Fang Xu and Pingping Chen, writing in Securing the Safety of Navigation in East Asia by Keyuan Zhou and Shicun Wu, note that these conditions impact “not only challenges to safety at sea but also obstacles for efficient search and rescue.”

The largest group of islands in the Taiwan Strait – and the group most impactful to navigation – is the Penghu Islands, consisting of 64 islets of volcanic origin, also known as the Pescadores for the fishing communities the Portuguese encountered in the 17th century. Situated 120 km from the Chinese mainland and separated by the 45 km-wide Penghu Channel from the south-west Taiwan coast, the Penghu Islands total 127 km2, with the namesake island accounting for roughly half that total area and 70 per cent of the total population of 100,400 inhabitants.

PRC forces on Yiangshan
PRC forces on Yiangshan

Another archipelago of note – the Kinmen Islands – lies just 2 km from the south-eastern coast of Fujian Province in mainland China, yet is also controlled by the government in Taipei. Consisting of 13 islets of 151 km2 and 120,713 people, the Kinmen, or ‘Quemoy’, are low and flat except for hilly Kinmen proper. These islands, along with the 36 Matsu islets at the north end of the strait, were the scene of fierce artillery duels between forces of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and those of the Republic of China (ROC) in the 1950s during the First and Second Taiwan Strait Crises. Unlike another pair of island groups in the Taiwan Strait that the ROC controlled at the start of these crises, the Tachen and Yijiangshan islands, the Kinmen and Matsu islands remain under Taiwanese administration.

A unique, informal feature of the Taiwan Strait helps keep the peace between ROC and PRC air and naval forces and prevent misunderstanding by encouraging them to remain on ‘their’ side of the strait. Referred to variously as the Taiwan Strait ‘middle line’, ‘centerline’, or ‘Davis Line’, the 1950s origins – and exact boundary – of this division are murky, but most sources point to its first appearance in 1955 as an incidental by-product of designated American patrol areas. Since the 1958 Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, both sides have in practice mostly followed what remains a tacit understanding between China and Taiwan to prevent their warships and military aircraft from crossing to the other’s side of a line roughly bisecting the strait.

Following remarks by then-Defense Minister Lee Jye in 2004 threatening to shoot down Chinese aircraft crossing the middle line, the Taiwanese Defense Ministry released co-ordinates for their conception of the line. Today, the midline also functions as the jurisdictional boundary for a range of other regimes including the division of responsibility for search and rescue services, although increased cross-strait co-ordination and collaboration is blurring its importance.

Geopolitical Background

While most now know it as the Taiwan Strait, or Strait of Taiwan, the waterway’s aliases are a reflection of its history. The first, ‘The Formosa Strait’, comes from the former Portuguese name for Taiwan, the ilha formosa or ‘beautiful isle’. The origins of this name are shrouded in fascinating tales of doubtful veracity, as depicted in Jonathan Manthorpe’s Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan, but the popularisation – of both the name and the discovery of the island – by Dutch spy Jan Huygen van Linschoten in the 1596 book Iteneratio marked a transition. Whereas the 16th century was filled with Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and pirate expeditions and warfare in the strait, the exposure of Portugal’s secret trade routes brought Dutch and Spanish traders into that mix in the 17th century, as well as their attempts at colonisation.

Siege of Zeelandia
Siege of Zeelandia

The European colonisers were soon followed by Chinese forces. Robert Kaplan notes in Asia’s Cauldron: The South China Sea and the End of a Stable Pacific that although several Chinese dynasties launched earlier expeditions, it wasn’t until the Ming dynasty in the 17th century that an “organic connection” between Taiwan and the mainland was forged. This was achieved first with Cheng Chih-lung’s resettlement of thousands from mainland China’s Fujian province and later with his son Cheng-Kung’s 400-ship, 25,000-troop force to drive out the Dutch, culminating in the 1662 successful siege of Zeelandia.

The second alias for the Taiwan Strait, ‘The Black Ditch’ or ‘Black-water Ditch’, came into use by cross-strait traders by at least the late 17th century. This period, stretching through the 18th century, was a time of increasing integration and trade with mainland China, and the name derived (along with red, white, and green-water ditches) from the colour of the currents crossed during these voyages. In fact, there appear to have been several regional stretches of water called the black ditch, including on either side of the Penghus. One of these is the Penghu Channel, which an 1807 text calls “the most dangerous place in all the ocean. Its depth is unfathomed, and the water is as black as ink,” – but the term has since been applied to the whole of the strait. (For an exploration of the origin of the term ‘The Black Ditch’ and its physical basis see Michael Turton’s online article The Black Water Ditch and the Chinese Claim to the Senkakus from which this quote was taken.)

In the late 1800s, a punitive Japanese military campaign on Taiwan and later French blockade of its ports presaged China’s cession of the island and the Penghus to Japan in 1895 at the end of the Sino-Japanese War. Japan’s administration of the island ran until the end of World War II, when Taiwan was returned to Chinese rule under ROC control and has served as the ROC’s seat of government since its 1949 evacuation from mainland China.

The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis occurred 40 years after the first two, raising the spectre of armed conflict in the strait as PRC military exercises and missile launches were countered by American naval movements over the course of 1995-1996. Following a rocky relationship under Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP, 2000-2008) and fears that he would precipitate a crisis through an unilateral declaration of independence, cross-strait ties have notably warmed with the election in 2008 (and 2012 re-election) of Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang party (KMT).

In December of 2008, direct cross-strait flights and postal services restarted for the first time in 59 years. More importantly for this paper, the ‘third link’ – direct shipping – also resumed and, according to the US Library of Congress’ Global Legal Monitor, now connects 72 mainland ports with 13 in Taiwan. In 2010, China and Taiwan negotiated and signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) – covering specific tariff reductions and a general understanding that the two sides will work to further lower trade tariffs and investment barriers across a broad swath of the economy. In the most recent sign of friendlier ties between Beijing and Taipei, the director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, Zhang Zhijun, met for the first time with Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Minister Wang Yu-Chi in June.

Activity in the Strait

The Taiwan Strait is sometimes touted as a vital shipping route, connecting Asia with the energy supplies of the Middle East. Yet its importance should neither be overstated nor viewed in isolation. Except for cross-strait transits and vessels calling at a port in the immediate vicinity of the strait, the closure of the strait would result in only minor disruptions to Asian and global trade as most international traffic could be re-routed through the Luzon Strait to the west.

maplngbig

What determines the severity of disruption is whether the Taiwan Strait is closed alone or in conjunction with the Luzon Strait. A paper by Henry Kenny for the US government-sponsored think tank CNA (formerly Center for Naval Analyses) describes what a blockade of Taiwan might look like, with “exclusion zones for normal commercial shipping, as well as harassment of ships that approach the exclusion zone. Mines are another possibility, as is strafing of ships that intentionally or inadvertently approach the island.” It too notes that “disruption might be minimized if shipping to and from Northeast Asia steered clear of Taiwan on a wide berth … of the island, entering/exiting the South China Sea off northern Luzon.”

Other analysts focus not on a conflict in the strait but its potential resolution, arguing that a PRC-controlled Taiwan would enable China to extract concessions from Japan by threatening to close the Taiwan Strait and neighbouring Luzon Strait and thereby cripple its economy. Writing in Asia’s Cauldron, Robert Kaplan says Taiwan’s “de facto independence is key to the integrity of the Taiwan Strait that guarantees Japan’s trade routes.” While both the likelihood of these contingencies and their effects are debatable, a PRC in possession of Taiwan and in conflict with Japan would indeed cause serious disruption of Japan’s trade routes. Former Japanese diplomat Hisahiko Okazaki stated in 2003: “In case of emergency, the only safe [shipping route] for Japan in Asia will be the passage through the Lombok Strait in Indonesia through the east coast of the Philippines.” Kaplan is wrong that the Taiwan Strait guarantees Japan’s trade routes, but Taiwan’s de facto independence does keep them affordable.

This is not to say traffic in the strait is negligible. By 2008 the Taiwanese government counted 400 ships transiting the strait every day, along with 5.4 million barrels of crude oil and 0.6 trillion cubic feet of liquid natural gas (LNG) as of 2011 in an analysis by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). In comparison, the EIA showed another 5.6 million barrels of oil and 4.8 trillion cubic feet of LNG headed to South Korea and Japan through the Luzon Strait.

Traffic patterns in the strait have changed since the 2008 resumption of direct shipping. Much of today’s cross-strait traffic used to flow through the strait to enter China indirectly via Hong Kong. Now, not only has crossstrait traffic increased by 10% every year since 2008 as annual bilateral trade between the mainland and Taiwan has risen to nearly $200 billion, the overall traffic density has also reportedly increased, swelling the risks of collision. To handle this increase, the Chinese Ministry of Transport is exploring options for managing vessel traffic in the strait, including traffic separation schemes that may be implemented in the next few years.

Scope for Increased Activity

As busy as the strait is today, there are several possible scenarios that would increase congestion further. The South China Morning Post reports China may attempt physically to bridge the strait, having approved in 2013 two such highway projects, although whether the connections would involve bridges or tunnels in unclear. It is also unlikely that this project will come to fruition until much later stages of political and/or economic integration – according to independent intelligence firm Stratfor, the nearterm prospects for the link remain “largely illusory”. But if at some date it does proceed, the project could have an appreciable impact on strait traffic; on the other hand, once completed it would also divert some of the of crossstrait shipping traffic.

Far sooner than any such infrastructure, two follow-ons to the ECFA are likely to increase cross-strait traffic. The first, the Cross-Strait Services Agreement (CSSA), was signed last year and awaits ratification by Taiwan’s legislature. According to The New York Times, the CSSA opens 80 industries to investment in China and 64 in Taiwan. Although these are primarily service-sector openings, the CSSA does include the potential to boost the cross-strait travel industry. The second ECFA follow-on is the Cross-Strait Goods Agreement (CSGA), a tradein-goods pact still under negotiation that would have an even greater impact on vessel traffic.

Lastly, the EIA reports that Taiwan is working with China’s state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) to explore for oil and natural gas in the strait. While these efforts have yet to make any substantial discoveries, and have failed in earlier attempts, any such finds would complicate the strait’s already crowded transit conditions.

Geopolitical Risk Assessment

ROC Marines
ROC Marines

The current state of reduced tensions between China and Taiwan is likely to continue until at least the next presidential administration in 2016, and cross-strait economic integration is unlikely to abate in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless the risks of a future military conflict in the strait remain real. Scott Kastner of the University of Maryland notes that while even a return to power of the DPP would not dampen the current spirit of co-operation, “the cross-strait relationship has not been fundamentally transformed.” Although economic incentives are increasing for both sides to continue the peaceful status quo, especially given Taiwan’s pragmatic acceptance of ambiguous sovereignty, this does not forestall the potential of a determined policy shift to resolve by force or decree what remains a matter of uncompromising principle – nor of a domestic contingency resulting in an attempt to use the flashpoint issue for political advantage.

PRC Marines
PRC Marines

For Taiwan, the growth of economic interdependence and the strength of China’s military have driven the cost of an attempt to alter the status quo to a rationally unacceptable level if it would knowingly invite an armed response from China (see Scott Kastner’s draft paper A Relationship Transformed? Rethinking the Prospects for Conflict and Peace in the Taiwan Strait for an excellent analysis of rational calculations and redlines, from which his prior quote was taken). A declaration of independence is highly unlikely in the next decade, yet a future Taiwanese leader may nonetheless face, or believe he/she faces, what Thomas Christensen writing in the journal International Security terms as a “closing window of opportunity” to maximise Taiwan’s position in respect to its freedom of action and international status. Analysts have given a range of dates when China will be able to defeat Taiwan alone or in conjunction with American assistance, with Taiwan itself (and self-interestedly) predicting a lost edge by 2020. All such assessments are a moving target and based on assumptions about military investments that may not hold true, but they might reinforce a perception that the time for Taiwan to act – even modestly – is sooner rather than later.

RisksFor China’s part, this shift in the balance of power in its favour recommends patience. But such patience has its limits. Given the recent perceived violations of promises regarding Hong Kong’s governance and electoral future it is unlikely for a Taiwanese ruler to agree to an accord along Hong Kong’s model of ‘One China, Two Systems’. Further, as the same balance of power increases in China’s favour it places downward pressure on the cost for China of settling the matter by force. Kastner remarks that if this pressure outweighs the countervailing upward pressure from economic integration it could have the destabilizing effect of tempting future decision-makers to act. This is especially so if coupled with beliefs that work towards a peaceful settlement will be an effort in vain. But, as Zachery Keck of The Diplomat points out, if China is acting rationally it also must include in its calculations the likelihood and cost of armed resistance and pacification after the defeat of Taiwan’s armed forces. On balance then, short of internal domestic upheaval in either polity, the strait will remain the premier demonstration of John Mearsheimer’s “stopping power of water” and locus of anti-access, area-denial capabilities – with China’s arrayed to deter the US Navy from entering the strait and Taiwan’s arrayed to prevent China from crossing it – and this arrangement will remain peaceful.

Conclusion

In its current incarnation, the Taiwan Strait is simultaneously a trade super-highway and a moat. As such, its value is undeniably greatest for Taiwan, but its criticality can be overstated for international trade beyond the ports and economies in the immediate strait region, due to the readily available Luzon Strait route as an alternate.

Scott Cheney-Peters is a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the former editor of Surface Warfare magazine. He is the founder and president of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC), a graduate of Georgetown University and the U.S. Naval War College, and a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.

Taiwan Builds a Very Different Cutter X

It’s always nice to see what others are doing.

We have talked about a cutter X before, that is, a cutter larger than the U.S. Webber class, but smaller than the Offshore Patrol Cutter, that would allow more days cruising at a distance from their home ports than is possible for the Webber class.

Focus Taiwan is reporting (it is their video above) that Taiwan is building ships in this class but in a very different form, for a very different purpose. It measures 60.4 meters in length and 14 meters in width, with a crew of 41. It is fast at 38 knots and has a range of 2,000 nautical miles (this is actually less than the range of the Webber class, but if this is quoted for a higher cruise speed, the range could actually be greater than that of the Webber class at the same lower speed). The great beam is the giveaway, the hull is something unusual.

Janes.com has pictures of the hull out of the water. A separate Janes report lists the armament as eight Hsiung Feng II (HF-2) and eight ramjet-powered Hsiung Feng III (HF-3) anti-ship missiles, an “Otobreda 76 mm gun, four 12.7 mm machine guns for close-range ship defence and a Mk 15 Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS) to defeat incoming projectiles and hostile aircraft.”

We have seen a similar hull form before.

This article originally appeared at Chuck Hill’s CG Blog and was cross-posted by permission. Chuck retired from the Coast Guard after 22 years service. Assignments included four ships, Rescue Coordination Center New Orleans, CG HQ, Fleet Training Group San Diego, Naval War College, and Maritime Defense Zone Pacific/Pacific Area Ops/Readiness/Plans. Along the way he became the first Coast Guard officer to complete the Tactical Action Officer (TAO) course and also completed the Naval Control of Shipping course. He has had a life-long interest in naval ships and history.