Taiwan holds live-fire drill on Kinmen, while Pratas faces “pressure without invasion”

Taiwanese forces held a live-fire exercise on Kinmen before dawn on Tuesday, November 3, with simulated threats from the sea and the air. The Kinmen Defense Command announced that the garrison’s armour and artillery fired at simulated targets from forward positions in the south-western part of the island and towards the waters off the south coast. Kinmen lies less than 10 kilometres from China’s south-eastern coast and about 190 kilometres from the main island of Taiwan, and is regarded as a bulwark against a possible Chinese invasion.

From 20 mm guns to eight-inch howitzers

Units of the Kinmen Garrison Battalion ran a series of combat scenarios, including support for friendly units, reinforcement operations and repelling enemy special forces. The command added surprise scenarios with enemy amphibious landings and commando operations to the programme, so that troops could train against “gray zone” threats. Photos from the CNA agency show an M60A3 tank firing towards the sea.

The exercise used 20 mm guns, 42 mm and 120 mm mortars, 105 mm howitzers, 105 mm tank guns, 155 mm guns and eight-inch howitzers. The weapons were deployed in many dispersed positions to create overlapping fields of fire covering the movements of armour. Air-defence units and the Beiding garrison also took part, providing fire support and coordinating defence with the battalion. For communications and command all units used the Team Awareness Kit (TAK) system. For the recent large army exercise on the main island, see our report on Lu Sheng 2.

Pratas and pressure without invasion

Much farther from the main island is the Pratas atoll (Dongsha for Beijing), in the northern South China Sea, more than 400 kilometres from Taiwan and about 260 from the Chinese mainland. Its above-water part has an airstrip and two piers, and the coast guard and army garrison depends entirely on access by ship and aircraft. Analysts who spoke to Radio Free Asia estimate that China could erode Taipei’s control of the island without imposing a full blockade and without invading.

“China could reap significant strategic benefits without imposing a full blockade or forcing Taiwan into an immediate withdrawal,” said Benjamin Blanden, a researcher at Taiwan’s Institute for National Defense and Security Research. He describes three overlapping stages: establishing the Chinese naval presence as normal, asserting jurisdiction and, finally, real control of access. Demands for identification, inspections or rerouting of resupply missions would show Beijing moving to the exercise of authority. Sylwia Gorska, a PhD candidate at the University of Central Lancashire, notes that making the Taiwanese presence untenable would require much wider restrictions and that repeated obstruction of escorted ships or aircraft could trigger a wider crisis in the Strait.

On Saturday, October 31, a Chinese coast guard vessel entered a restricted zone near the atoll, and a Taiwanese patrol boat approached to within one nautical mile, asking it to leave. Taipei denounced “harassment” on Sunday and spoke of the 13th such intrusion this year, the third in October after the 1st and the 18th, while Beijing described a “routine law-enforcement patrol”. Taiwan has strengthened its presence, with a renovated pier that since July 1 allows newly built 100-tonne patrol boats to be stationed there. For Chinese naval activity near Taiwan, see our report on the more than 50 Chinese ships tracked.