Ukraine showing Taiwan the way on fighting much bigger army if PLA attacks

Name: Ukrainian forces train with newly delivered anti-tank weapons
Uploaded: 2022-03-19T22:00:22.000Z
Duration: 1 min 30 s
Description: Ukrainian forces train with newly delivered anti-tank weapons

Invasion of Ukraine has sparked speculation that the PLA might be inspired to attack Taiwan

Ukrainians’ dogged defence against far mightier Russian army seen to offer lessons on asymmetric warfare and the power of reservists

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Ukrainian forces train with newly delivered anti-tank weapons

Lawrence Chung

Published: 6:00am, 20 Mar 2022Updated: 5:35pm, 20 Mar 2022

Ukraine’s fightback against the Russian invasion offers Taiwan lessons on building up effective asymmetric capabilities to defend against an attack from mainland China, Taiwanese officials and analysts said.

They also urged Taiwan to learn from the way Ukraine has mobilised its people to join the military in an all-out resistance effort.

When Russian troops invaded Ukraine on February 24, many thought it would be a matter of days before the much mightier army prevailed over Ukrainian forces. However, the war is well into its fourth week and Ukrainians are still fighting back hard.

“The lesson we can draw from the Russia-Ukraine war is that, despite its military disadvantages, Ukraine is still able to use the uniqueness of its domestic battlefield and asymmetric capabilities to resist a giant enemy like Russia,” Taiwanese Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said.

Addressing a legislative session last week on the security implications of the war in Ukraine for the Taiwan Strait, Chiu said Taiwan was studying how Ukrainians were keeping Russian aggression at bay with “asymmetric warfare”, a reference to the use of movable and easy-to-operate weapons.

Beijing sees self-ruled Taiwan as breakaway territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. Tensions have escalated in recent years with the People’s Liberation Army sending warplanes into Taiwan’s air defence zone and staging war games nearby, as Beijing tries to ramp up pressure on the island’s independence-leaning leader Tsai Ing-wen who has rejected the one-China principle.

01:15

Taiwan deploys its most advanced F-16V fighter jets amid rising military tensions with Beijing

Speculation has been rife since the invasion of Ukraine that Beijing might be inspired to launch its own assault across the Taiwan Strait, though both sides have stressed that the two issues are not comparable.