Taiwan reveals plans for live-fire drills at islets near Chinese mainland

Drills to include islets of Dongyin and Quemoy, close to mainland cities of Fuzhou and Xiamen, and will simulate repelling an invasion
Some observers believe the mainland is more likely to try to seize one of the islets, to force talks, than launch an all-out war

Taiwan

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 12:00pm, 20 Feb 2022

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Taiwan will stage a series of live-fire drills next month at several islets under its control, including two close to the Chinese mainland, to test the combat readiness of its forces there.

The drills come amid growing concerns that cross-strait conflict could become imminent if the mainland’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were to seize one of the islets to force self-ruled Taiwan to the table for reunification talks.

According to notices issued by the island’s armed forces to alert ships and planes not to approach the live-fire sites, Taiwan’s artillery, missile and other troops stationed in Dongyin, Quemoy (also known as Kinmen) and Penghu (also called the Pescadores) will stage the exercises on March 16 and 17.

Under the plan, the drills will run in the morning and at night, simulating scenarios in which warplanes and amphibious landing craft attack the islets.

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Dongyin and Quemoy are frontline islets situated close to the mainland cities of Fuzhou and Xiamen, respectively. Penghu is midway between the mainland Chinese province of Fujian and the Taiwanese city of Chiayi.

Taiwan has deployed a large number of missiles to the three islands, including locally developed Tien Kung (Sky Bow) surface-to-air ballistic missiles, Hsiung Feng (Brave Wind) anti-ship missiles and Wan Chien (Ten Thousand Swords) air-to-ground subsonic cruise missiles, in addition to powerful cannons and other weapons.

The island is expected to take delivery of a batch of Harpoon anti-ship missiles from the US later this year and deploy them on Penghu.

The Taiwanese coastguard also said it would stage annual live-fire drills on March 26 and 31 at the Pratas Islands (known in Chinese as the Dongsha Islands), shooting at the sea and air from the South China Sea islet.

These islands, which lie 450km (280 miles) southwest of the Taiwanese port city of Kaohsiung, have been seen by some experts as one of the most feasible targets for attack by the PLA, which is believed to prefer to seize the islet cluster to force the Taiwanese to the table without having to launch an all-out war.

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The coastguard officers, who are to be joined by troops from the Taiwan Marine Corps’ 99th brigade, are expected to test-fire the Kestrel rockets used for repelling amphibious landing craft and any assault by sea, as they did in previous annual live-fire drills.

The rockets have a range of 400 metres (1,300 feet) and can be fitted with warheads capable of piercing the surface of a tank or a 30cm-thick concrete wall.

Previous drills also included the coastguard test-firing weapons such as 120mm (five-inch) mortars, 40mm guns and 20mm cannons.

Taiwanese commentator Arthur Chi said Dongsha was strategically more important than Taiwan’s other defence outposts, given its access to the Taiwan Strait, Bashi Channel, the mainland-controlled Paracel Islands (called the Xisha Islands by Beijing) and the South China Sea.

“If the Chinese communists plan to attack Taiwan, they are likely to first take control of Dongsha before launching an all-out strike against Penghu and Taiwan proper,” he said, adding that Beijing could use a move on the islet to intimidate Taiwan into agreeing to negotiate.

Cross-strait tension has shown no sign of abating in recent years after Beijing suspended official talks and exchanges with Taipei.

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Beijing considers Taiwan a breakaway province that must be taken under its control, by force if necessary. It has sent a flurry of warplanes to Taiwan’s air defence identification zone almost daily and staged war games nearby to ramp up pressure on Taipei, aiming to force Tsai Ing-wen, the island’s independence-leaning president, to accept the one-China principle and agree to talks.

On February 5, a mainland civilian plane – a Y-12 transport plane – was reported to have flown very close to Dongyin, a frontline islet in Taiwan’s Matsu Island cluster, which is 16km from Fuzhou on the mainland coast.

A week later, Taiwanese media reported that a mainland J-16 fighter jet had flown close to Pratas Island, Taiwan’s southernmost outpost.

Taiwan’s defence ministry confirmed that the civilian plane did fly close to Dongyin, possibly to test surveillance systems and defence alertness, but it rejected the reports about the fighter jet.

Ministry spokesman Shih Shun-wen said the military would step up combat preparations and improve surveillance systems on the islets, but said the live-fire drills had been “scheduled well ahead” of the fly-bys.