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Beijing has announced an increase in its military budget similar to last year. But Taiwan is still feeling the pressure, as it prepares its troops for a potential cross-strait war. Photo: AP

China Military

Beijing’s military budget has increased at the same rate as last year – but Taiwan is taking no chances

Taiwan has said it does not want an ‘arms race’ with mainland China, as Beijing announced a rise in its military budget of 7.2%
But Taipei said it still wants to be ready for a potential conflict, so is planning more live-fire drills and training of troops

Taiwan

Lawrence Chungin Taipei

Published: 10:00am, 9 Mar 2024

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Despite Beijing’s annual military budget being set at the same growth rate as last year’s, Taipei has pledged more live-fire drills and training to prepare its troops for a potential cross-strait war.

At Tuesday’s opening of the annual legislature session, Beijing announced an increase in its annual military budget of 7.2 per cent, pushing it up to 1.67 trillion yuan (US$232 billion).

The rise is the same rate as last year, but higher than the country’s growth target of 5 per cent this year. It is also the world’s second-highest military budget, behind the United States – and 16½ times more than that of Taiwan.

Premier Li Qiang also pledged on Tuesday to “provide stronger financial guarantees for efforts to modernise our national defence and the armed forces on all fronts” as well as to “strengthen military training and combat readiness” to safeguard the mainland’s national sovereignty, security and development interests.

In response, Taiwanese Defence minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said on Thursday the island had no plan to begin an arms race with the mainland.

“We do not want to have an arms race [with Beijing],” Chiu said. “It is an undeniable fact that our enemy is bigger and more powerful.”

Chiu said the increase in the spending for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was due, in part, to its need to support its huge personnel and operation systems.

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“What we can do is to boost every aspect of our training,” he said, adding the island’s military needed to consider the “enemy’s situation, and our financial ability and national strength” in building up Taiwan’s forces.

By strengthening its training and the intensity of its drills through various war games and exercises, the island’s military would be able to bolster its war readiness and deal with the PLA according to different scenarios, Chiu said.

Under the plan, the island’s military would increase the frequency of live-fire drills so that its troops would be able to get more acquainted with a war situation in which real firepower is used.

A defence ministry report sent to the legislature on Wednesday also noted that all soldiers would be required to receive training simulating real battlegrounds to familiarise themselves with the actual fighting environment and atmosphere in the event of a cross-strait war.

Chiu said on Wednesday that the military held live-fire drills “at certain times of the year to limit its impact on aviation and everyday life”.

“Now we must consider boosting our training in response to the enemy’s situation,” he said, adding future live-fire drills would be spread throughout the year instead.

Chiu did not say when these drills would start, but local news media reported that the island’s military would kick off its live-fire missile exercises – usually held in August – from April 9 at Jiupeng military base in southern Taiwan. The island’s land-based Sky Sword-2 anti-air missiles, Thunderbolt-2000 rockets and US-made AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles would be used during the drills, involving the army and air force, according to the reports.

Taipei knows it would never win in an arms race against the mainland, with the PLA’s strength shown in tests such as this live-fire drill. But the Taiwanese defence minister wants his troops to be prepared should a conflict erupt. Photo: qq.com

Chiu also confirmed that the Taiwanese air force would resume midnight training for pilots as the PLA was reported to have increased its nightmissions around the self-ruled island.

According to the Taiwanese air force, the Indigenous Defence Fighters based in the southern city of Tainan and French-made Mirage 2000 jets in the northern county of Hsinchu as well as US-made F-16s in the eastern county of Hualien would be involved in the training.

The air force stopped its midnight training in 1993 due to complaints by residents that the take-offs and landings disturbed their sleep.

Observers said the increase in the defence budget at a time of a weak economy on the mainland could help maintain President Xi Jinping’s control of military power domestically while seeking to expand the maritime power of Beijing in the region.

“It is not necessarily a move targeting [Taiwan] especially,” said Ying-yu Lin, a professor of international relations and strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei.

He said the 7.2 per cent increase “indicates that despite the poor economy and increase in unemployment, the Chinese communists still take note of the need to maintain a sizeable budget for the military”.

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Aside from the military hardware, the PLA needs big spending to support its personnel operations, including their welfare and benefits, to attract jobseekers to join the armed forces in the face of a declining birth rate and widening unemployment, Lin said.

Su Tzu-yun, a senior analyst at the Institute for National Defence and Security Research, a government think tank in Taipei, also said the “budget growth should not be necessarily viewed as the major reason for Beijing’s attempt to control the Taiwan Strait”.

“Expansion of its maritime power to regions outside the Taiwan Strait should be Beijing’s primary concern,” Su said, adding the PLA was expected to spend a large amount in building up its air and naval forces, including its carrier fleet.

Chieh Chung, a security researcher at the National Policy Foundation, a think tank affiliated with Taiwan’s main opposition Kuomintang party, said under the backdrop of Beijing’s military expansion, the plan of the island’s military to increase the intensity of its drills and training for its soldiers was highly necessary.

“They can effectively improve the combat skills and weapon operations of our soldiers while training them how to respond in an abrupt situation, thereby raising their confidence in fighting off the enemies,” he said.

Beijing – which views Taiwan as part of its territory, to be reunited by force if necessary – has pressured the island with growing military threats and diplomatic squeezes since Tsai Ing-wen, of the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, was elected president in 2016 and refused to accept the one-China principle.

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In addition to increasing the frequency of live-fire drills, the military will also strengthen the intensity of training, including combat skills and weapons use for active soldiers and conscripts, according to the ministry’s report.

It also said the military would extend the tabletop portion of this year’s Han Kuang exercise – the island’s annual major drills – from five days to eight.

On Thursday, Chiu told lawmakers the extension was due to “changes of the enemy’s situation and threats” and there was a need to prolong the tabletop war games to work out countermeasures to deal with different combat scenarios.

Such changes include the PLA intensifying its military operations around Taiwan and grey-zone warfare against the island, he said, referring to the irregular tactics the PLA had used to exhaust Taipei without resorting to open war.

Chiu said this year the US would continue to send a group of officers and experts to observe the tabletop war games and offer advice to the island’s military – as it had been doing so for years.

Like most countries, the United States – Taiwan’s informal ally and largest arms supplier – does not recognise the island as an independent state but is opposed to any unilateral change of the status quo by force.

With hostility continuing to rise across the strait, Chiu said the situation was so “stringent” that he could not “sleep well at night” as he “worries” that war could break out unintentionally.

“No one can say for sure” that the PLA would not attack Taiwan in the near term, he said.

“Hostility has continued to rise and there are many unexpected situations that could trigger unintended incidents.”

Chiu was referring to a recent row between the two sides over the deaths of two mainland fishermen. The two died last month when their unlicensed speedboat with four crew members capsized during a pursuit by the Taiwanese coastguard in waters off Quemoy – a Taiwan-controlled defence outpost close to the mainland city of Xiamen.