Ministry Of Defense Says China Doesn't Have The Ability To Carry Out Attacks On Taiwan

Taiwanese missile destroyer ROCS Kelelung (DDG-1801) overshadowed China's Shandong aircraft carrier (CV-17) while sailing in the Philippine Sea in September 2023. (Wikimedia Commons/Ministry of National Defense)

JAKARTA - China does not yet have the ability to "completely" attack Taiwan because it has no equipment, but is using advanced new weapons and has other options to threaten Taiwan, such as inspecting foreign cargo ships, the island's defense ministry said.

In China's annual threat assessment sent to lawmakers on Friday, a copy reviewed by Reuters, Taiwan's Ministry of Defense said Beijing continues to hone skills such as joint command operations.

"However, the use of tactics and strategies against Taiwan is still limited by the natural geographic environment of the Taiwan Strait and landing equipment and inadequate logistical capabilities," he said.

China "does not yet fully have the formal combat capability to carry out a comprehensive invasion of Taiwan".

However, China accelerated the development of a number of new weapons, such as H-20 bombers and hypersonic missiles, as well as increasing the number of nuclear warheads, while testing new tactics, the ministry said.

The report further said that when Beijing held war games around Taiwan shortly after Lai Ching-te served as the new president in May, Chinese coast guard vessels were sent for the first time in interception and inspection exercises off the east coast.

China's goal with these exercises is to practice cutting off communications with the outside world and blocking Taiwan, and boarding foreign cargo ships is an option China can take, in addition to open conflicts, the ministry said.

The waters around Taiwan, including the Taiwan Strait, are a busy international shipping route.

China's Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At a regular press conference in Beijing on Thursday, the ministry said as long as Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party was "involved in (an attempt to) 'Taiwan independence', there would be no peace".

"The more they provoke, the sooner they will lose," spokesman Wu Qian told reporters.

Taiwan's proposed defense budget will rise faster than expected next year's economic growth, as Taipei builds more missiles, submarines, and other weapons to deter China.

President Lai, who Beijing calls "separatist", has repeatedly offered talks with Beijing, but has been rejected. He said only the Taiwanese could decide their future.

"The peace achieved with power is true peace," President Lai told officials at the Ministry of Defense on Friday.

"We will continue to improve our self-defense capabilities and show the world, we are united as a nation and determined to protect our country," he said.

China, which views democratically-ruled Taiwan as its own territory, has stepped up military and political pressure over the past five years to assert its claim, which Taipei has rejected.

China has never abandoned the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. The defeated Chinese Republican government fled to Taiwan in 1949, after losing a civil war with communist Mao Zedong. No peace treaty or ceasefire has ever been signed by either side.