???? Is Taiwan prepared for war?
Discover crucial insights from a high-stakes war game and find out just how prepared Taiwan may (or may not) be. Kwangyin Liu 劉光瑩 , CommonWealth English 天下雜誌英文網 editor.?
What Can We Learn from Taiwan's First Civilian-led War Game?
The results are in from Taiwan's first war game initiated by retired high-ranking military officers. What does it tell us about Taiwan's readiness for war?
By Silva Shih
Four months ago, Taiwan's retired high-ranking military officers held Taiwan's first civilian-led war game, the "2023 Regional Security Military Simulation." The initial results are now out.
Surprisingly, the key finding turned out not to be how China might plan a military invasion or the losses that would be incurred by China, Taiwan, and the United States. The consequence and impact of an armed conflict would hinge on Taiwan's own tenacity.
Rewind to July of this year. China sent a record number of warplanes into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone. Concurrently, a simulated war in the Taiwan Strait was being played out in the Center for Public and Business Administration Education at National Chengchi University.
The two-day closed-door war game involved dozens of participants ringed around a map of Taiwan. They're broken into groups of consultants and analysts, as well as six groups representing the interested parties in the region—Taiwan, China, the United States, Japan and Korea, Australia and India, and ASEAN. They played out eight different scenarios in which China launched a military invasion of Taiwan.
Observers included retired high-ranking military officers, diplomats, and defense-related think tanks. Representatives from the semiconductor and shipping industries were also present.
"All of this year, we've been trapped in a 'D-Day' mentality," says Chen Yeong-kang (陳永康), the former Vice Minister of National Defense who was the initiator of this civilian-led program.
Taiwan needs to get rid of its "D-Day" mentality
For more than a year, the Taiwan Strait has been called "the world's most dangerous place" by members of the foreign press. Escalating tension between China and the U.S. has led to speculation that conflict might break out between 2025 and 2027.
Recently, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Bonnie Glaser, an American expert in China affairs, titled "No, Xi Jinping Is Not About to Attack Taiwan ." In it, she listed the reasons why China is unprepared to launch military operations against Taiwan. In an interview with CommonWealth Magazine, Glaser explained that while different interest groups might present their own timelines for a hypothetical Chinese invasion, the main cause of escalation this year was the publication of a memo by U.S. Air Force General Michael Minihan.
In January, Minihan predicted in his memo that the U.S. will engage China in an armed conflict over Taiwan in two years—that is, in 2025. Although it did not represent the American government's official position, it had the effect of heightening tension in the Taiwan Strait.
"When Americans talk about conflict in the Taiwan Strait and an amphibious assault by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the data they're using is unfortunately outdated," says Chen. During the first half of this year, when he was invited to attend security councils in Washington, D.C., he was shocked to see that war simulations spearheaded by foreign interest groups were working with inaccurate information.
This is why he's determined to hold civilian-led war games in Taiwan.
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