By Ben Blanchard

TAIPEI, Reuters – Taiwan’s military strategists are studying Russia’s invasion in Ukraine and its resistance to determine the island’s battle strategy for the eventuality that its big neighbour China threatens them with force.

While Taiwan’s government is not reporting any unusual activity from the Chinese military on the island, Taipei raised their alert level.

Security circles in Taiwan are closely monitoring Russia’s precision missile use and Ukraine’s well-thought out resistance, even though they are outmanned or outgunned.

TsaiIng-wen, Taiwan’s President has embraced the concept of “asymmetric warfare”, which makes its forces less mobile. This is done by using vehicle-mounted missiles.

Ma Cheng Kun is the Director of Taiwan’s Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies. He said that Ukraine has used mobile weapons with the same idea to disarm Russian forces.

Ma, a China policy advisor, said that Ukraine’s military is making use of all asymmetric warfare and thus far has successfully resisted Russia’s advance.

“That’s exactly what our armed forces have been proactively developing,” he said, pointing to weapons like the lightweight and indigenously-developed Kestrel shoulder-launched anti-armour rocket designed for close-in warfare.

“We can learn a lot from Ukraine’s performances and be more positive about our own.”

Taiwan has also been working on other missiles capable of reaching China.

The defense ministry announced last week that it will more than double the annual missile production to nearly 500. This includes the Hsiung Feeng IIE missile upgrade, which is the long-range Hsiung Sheng Land-attack Missile. Experts believe this missile can hit targets farther inland in China.

Taiwan’s Defence Ministry claims it has an “intense grasp” of international security and is striving to improve its “armaments and national defense combat capability every time”. However, the ministry says that Taiwan is not provocative.

NATURAL BARRIER

However, there are significant differences between Taiwan’s and Ukraine’s positions. This has provided some reassurance.

The government of Taiwan has repeatedly emphasized, among other things, that the Taiwan Strait is the natural barrier which divides the country from China. Ukraine borders Russia on a long, land-line.

Strategy experts say Taiwan can detect Chinese military movements easily and prepare ahead of any invasion. China would then need to mobilize thousands of soldiers, equipment and ships that could be targeted by Taiwanese rockets.

China must cross the strait to get boots on the ground, if it wants to put troops there, Su Tzuyun, an associate researcher at Taiwan’s most powerful military think tank, The Institute for National Defence and Security Research, explained.

Hardware is not all that matters.

The perennial dispute – brought to the forefront by the Ukraine conflict – over whether U.S. forces should ride to Taiwan’s rescue in case of an attack from China is also present in the background. Washington’s “strategic uncertainty” regarding the topic is not clear.

Lo Chihcheng (a senior member of the Democratic Progressive Party) said that the Biden government sending a delegation made up of high-ranking former officials to Taiwan in the week following the invasion should be dispelled as a sign the United States cannot be trusted.

On Tuesday, he said, “At that time, it sent a message the other side, to Taiwanese’s people that the United States was a trustworthy country.”

Taiwan is a large semiconductor producer and hopes that its supply chain significance will make it stand out from Ukraine.

However, some Taiwanese are uneasy at the Biden administration’s insistence on not sending troops into Ukraine.

“Do Taiwanese people really think that the West or the United States can save us?” Chao Chienmin is a former deputy chief of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council, now at Taiwan’s Chinese Culture University.