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6 months ago
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TAIWAN is gearing up for a destructive war against their Chinese aggressors as a top official warns China is plotting a surprise offensive.
Foreign minister Joseph Wu is worried a looming Chinese attack is imminent as president Xi Jinping continues to take inspiration from his despicable pal Vladimir Putin’s terrifying invasion of Ukraine.
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China has lurked around Taiwan for decades now with threats recently ramping up of a invasion in recent months.
The nation’s feared tyrant leader Xi Jinping’s has allowed for enormous army taunts against their smaller neighbours with worrying invasion rehearsals.
Beijing considers the self-governing island its own domain – and has vowed to take Taiwan by force if need be.
Taiwan, however, insists it is an independent nation after splitting from mainland China in 1949.
The Taiwanese foreign minister Wu said: “We should not give authoritarian China any excuse to launch a war.
“What the Chinese are doing to us right now is trying to pressure Taiwan to its maximum capacity so that Taiwan would cave in to the Chinese pressure.
“And at this stage, I think Taiwan needs to stand very firm.”
The war may sometimes happen in a very surprising way, and I’m sure Beijing is planning for a surprise attack against Taiwan
Joseph WuBut Wu is still fearing “a surprise attack” by China could be inevitable.
He told The Kyiv Independent: “The war may sometimes happen in a very surprising way, and I’m sure Beijing is planning for a surprise attack against Taiwan.”
Some experts believe China are planning to use sea blockades to cut off the island from any support, forcing them to ultimately give in when their military supplies dwindle.
Others think Beijing is set to pour its forces onto Taiwan’s “red beaches” and attack on land.
Security analysts at the British military think tank International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) said Beijing has been ramping up flights into Taiwan’s air defence zone.
With military activities nearby also soaring – setting a precedent for an escalation of war.
US intelligence estimates, Xi has ordered China’s military to be ready to annex Taiwan as early as 2027.
As other experts have warned The Sun that there are fears that one “misunderstanding” could spark “uncontrolled escalation” – leading to all-out war in the region.
The foreign minister is aware of these grim possibilities and has called on the whole international community to help out Taiwan sooner rather than later.
He compared the current bleak situation with Russia‘s 14-years of plotting that started with the taking of Georgia in 2008.
He feels that the moment Georgia was on Putin’s mind the West should’ve stepped in to ask questions.
But instead they allowed the Kremlin to go one step further and snatch Crimea in 2014 – loosening Ukraine‘s stronghold.
Wu said: “Because the Western countries did not help Ukraine in stopping Russia at the time, Vladimir Putin was encouraged to do it (invade in 2022).”
How China is waging a cyberwar against Taiwan
By Imogen Braddick
China is said to be waging a relentless secret cyber war on Taiwan to pave the way for a full-scale invasion.
Beijing has long used Taiwan as a testing ground for its cyber warfare capabilities – but attacks have been increasing at an unprecedented rate.
According to Taiwanese parliament member Wang Ting-Yu, the island is hit by a whopping 20million cyber attacks every day – and Chinese hackers are responsible for the majority of them.
In a chilling warning in November, former Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen said the island was “facing mounting military intimidation, grey-zone campaigns, cyber attacks and information manipulation”.
Kitsch Yen-Fan, the assistant director for the Global China Hub at the Atlantic Council, warned “we are already at war”.
“This is a constant thing,” he told 60 Minutes.
“Fake news on social media is a way for [China] to pave the way for their eventual operation.
“They want to basically sway public opinions, demoralise the public, to make their eventual takeover that much easier, which is actually what the Russians were trying to do in Ukraine.”
Several cyber attacks have also plagued the West.
With Taiwan looking to defend itself, yearly defence spending has seen significant rises in recent times with it now sitting at around $20billion (£16billion).
Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen told The BBC: “Our military capability is much strengthened compared to eight years ago.
“The investment we have put in to military capacity is unprecedented.”
But it fails to live up to China’s seemingly unstoppable military regime believed to be worth a formidable £175billion.
Tsai also bought back mandatory military training for all men over the age of 18 saying the move would be “worthwhile”.
China already boasts over two million troops preparing for war making them the largest armed forces in the world.
Taiwan has only 169,000 active fighters, according to data from the IISS.
FOLLOWING UKRAINIAN FOOTSTEPS
Taiwan is said to have been closely looking at how Ukraine has bravely strategised their attacks and defensive tactics since the harrowing first assault in 2022.
They have already spent the last few years since Russia’s invasion stockpiling up a huge amount of weapons.
The nation is believed to have invested a lot of time and money into building its own drones after seeing how successful they have been for Ukrainian troops.
Ukraine has been deploying kamikaze drones almost non-stop on Russian targets causing huge blasts and roaring fires across Russian-controlled regions of the warzone.
Much like their Ukrainian counterparts Taiwan is fully focused on showing China they are up for a fight as a war with their major rivals looms.
We need to build up our defence, and defence capability is the first deterrence against the aggression by the authoritarian country
Joseph WuThe more weapons they feel they can obtain and develop the longer China will wait to attack and the better they can fend off the Chinese onslaught.
Wu said: “If Russia can do that to Ukraine, China might do the same to Taiwan.
“We need to build up our defence, and defence capability is the first deterrence against the aggression by the authoritarian country.”
Taiwan reportedly aims to produce more than 3,200 military drones by mid-2024 – ranging from small short-range variants to 150-kilometer-range surveillance drones.
In comparison, China has a chilling arsenal of over 50 types of lethal drones far greater than Taiwan.
The minister also warned that Taiwan won’t be the only country who faces Chinese aggression if President Xi Jinping gets his way.
Wu said any neighbouring nation could be at risk, particularly the Philippines, due to Chinese “harassment”.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping, an authoritarian tyrant, has ruled China for more than a decade with an iron fist and has long had his sights set on world domination.
Similar to grave concerns that Putin sees Ukraine as a mere stepping stone for his Russian revolution.
A war expert told The Sun in April that a win for Putin in Ukraine will only fuel his terrifying ego and make him think he is unstoppable.
Ex-Ukrainian politician, Aliona Hlivco, believes a power hungry Putin’s next step will see him attack the Baltics.
She told The Sun: “In terms of Baltic states, in my opinion the threat is real.
“Not just in terms of hybrid attack by weaponisation of migrants or a cyber attack to demobilise critical infrastructure but also a kinetic attack with missiles etc.
“We have already seen debris of Russian missiles falling onto Nato territory (Poland and Romania) with no strong response.
“So I think Russia will seek to capitalise on that and try out Nato’s resolve in the North.
“The Baltic states have already been fortifying their borders with Russia where possible and mobilising their population to be ready to defend their country if the need comes up.”
Former military man Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon says Latvia or Lithuania are most likely to be in Putin’s firing line first.
“If Putin succeeds in Ukraine he will go to war with the West,” Hamish said.
“He will attack Latvia and Lithuania first – and they are both Nato.”
If Vlad attacks a Nato country it would trigger the feared Article 5 by the organisation.
This would mean other nations in the alliance, including the UK and US, would come to their ally’s aid and fight against Russian brutality.
Leading to an all-out war with the West that spans across continents.
Alongside studying Ukrainian tactics, Taiwan has also provided more than $110million in aid since February 2022 to the battling country.
Wu has called for a “long-term friendship” between the two countries.
Saying that an alliance would “tremendously benefit the bilateral relations”.
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