By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
“Surround Taiwan” and “block escape from the East” were the phrases Chinese military experts used to describe the People’s Liberation Army – Navy’s recent large-scale warship patrol through the Taiwan straights in what was an overt, close-in effort to “encircle” and intimidate the island.
China’s operational Shandong aircraft carrier, supported by a large PLA Carrier Strike Group of destroyers and flotillas traveled just 60-miles SouthEast of the Southern most point of Taiwan and sea-launched surveillance planes and J-16 fighter jets in violation of Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone, according to the Chinese government-backed Global Times newspaper. Chinese violations of Taiwan’s ADIZ are by no means new or unprecedented as they have in fact tripled in recent years, a large-scale air-surface, carrier-supported effort to “encircle” Taiwan very close in seems to indicate an escalation.
The Chinese paper quotes a military expert saying “the carrier Shandong will likely continue to practice surrounding the island of Taiwan from its east, cutting down potential escape routes of “Taiwan independence” secessionist forces and keeping external interference forces at bay.”
The use of the term “surround” may be quite deliberate as China may be inclined to think it could quickly surround, overwhelm and “annex” Taiwan faster than any forces defending the island could respond. Pentagon annual reports on China call this a “fait accompli,” referring to a potential Chinese strategy which would seek to take the island quickly and make it simply too costly in lives and dollars for any force to attempt to “extricate,” “dislodge,” “remove,” or “defeat” an occupying Chinese force.
The Chinese paper uses another significant term referring to Taiwan-allied forces, suggesting the large PLA Navy presence would “cut-down” escape routes for what it calls “secessionist” forces. Certainly Chinese papers regularly use the term “secessionist” often to refer to US and other Taiwan-allied forces, but the language saying Chinese forces would shut-off “escape” routes for forces defending Taiwan seems significant. Tactically speaking, it suggests that China may indeed seek to encircle and occupy Taiwan by destroying and “blocking out” any forces seeking to defend Taiwan. This thinking would indeed suggest that the prospect of a “fait accompli” may be fundamental to the PRC’s strategy to take the island. This would also be consistent with China’s long-established A2/AD strategy to “deny” access to incoming forces with long-range weapons, Naval forces and air power. A big concern with this relates to hypersonics, because if China does operate with a margin of superiority or “overmatch” with the US and its allies in the realm of hypersonic weapons, it may seek to move earlier than planned on Taiwan to exploit or leverage its superiority. If the PLA Navy, which has deck-fired hypersonic weapons from warships on several ocassions, truly be in front of the US Navy on hypersonics, such a deficit will not last long. The US Navy is already making rapid progress starting to integrate its ship-launched, hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike weapons onto its Zumwalt-class destroyers.
At the same time, aside from hypersonics possibilities and ship-fired weapons, China’s carrier-based air operations also included a massive air effort to blanket, encircle and overwhelm Taiwan’s Air Defenses Identification Zone with land and carrier-based fighter jets and KJ-500 surveillance planes. According to the Chinese paper, the exercise included a large number of drones and, quite significantly, were suppported by Russian-built Su-30 fighters. However, while China is known to operate the well-known and extremely dangerous Russian-built Su-30s, the jet cannot take-off from the ocean and is land based. Therefore, were Su-30s supporting the mission, they must have come from mainland China. This is quite realistic as the island of Taiwan is only 100 miles from the Chinese mainland. As an upgraded variant of the Su-27, the Russian-built Su-30s are known to be an extremely fast reaching speeds of Mach 2, maneuverable, capable aircraft able to operate with a strong thrust-to-weight ratio.
Kris Osborn is the President of Warrior Maven – the Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
