Senior official stresses amphibious landings are difficult, but also reiterates US demands on Taiwan to boost defense spending.
United States National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien warned China on Wednesday against any attempt to retake Taiwan by force. He said amphibious landings were notoriously difficult and there was a lot of confusion about how the US would react.
O’Brien told an event at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas that China was involved in a major naval buildup that likely hasn’t been seen since Germany tried to compete with the British Royal Navy before World War I.
“Part of that is giving them a chance to push us back out of the western Pacific and give them an amphibious landing in Taiwan,” he said.
“The problem with this is that amphibious landings are notoriously difficult,” added O’Brien, referring to the 100 miles between China and Taiwan and the few landing beaches on the island.
“It is not an easy task, and there is also a lot of confusion about what the United States would do in response to a China attack on Taiwan,” he added when asked what US options China had, the Self considered. ruled the island part of its territory, tried to take control of Taiwan.
O’Brien was referring to a longstanding US policy of “strategic ambiguity” over whether to step in to protect Taiwan, which China has vowed to forcibly unite with the mainland if necessary.
Become a porcupine
The US has a legal obligation to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, but has not made it clear whether it would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese attack, which would likely lead to a much wider conflict with Beijing.
O’Brien’s comments come at a time when China has significantly stepped up military activity near Taiwan and US-China relations plummeted to their lowest point in decades ahead of President Donald Trump’s re-election on November 3 are.
O’Brien reiterated US demands that Taiwan spend more on its own defense and implement military reforms to help China understand the risks of attempting an invasion.
“You can’t just spend 1 percent of your GDP [gross domestic product]what the Taiwanese – 1.2 percent – have done in defense and hope to deter a China embroiled in the most massive military build-up in 70 years, ”he said.
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen speaks in front of a domestically-made F-CK-1 indigenous fighter plane during a visit to Penghu Air Force Base on Magong Island last month [Sam Yeh/AFP]Taiwan must “turn into a porcupine militarily,” he said, adding, “Lions generally don’t eat porcupines.”
On Tuesday, the senior US defense official for East Asia described Taiwan’s plan to increase defense spending by $ 1.4 billion over the next year as insufficient.
He said there was a need to invest in capabilities, including more coastal defense cruise missiles, naval mines, rapid attack vehicles, mobile artillery and advanced surveillance equipment.
Taiwan’s military has launched planes to intercept Chinese planes more than twice as often in 2020 as it did all of last year, the island’s Ministry of Defense said earlier this week.
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