Taiwan does not seek war with Beijing, and its policy is to build a multi-level deterrent defense capability to make it difficult for China to conquer the island, Taiwanese Defense Minister Wellington Ku said today, quoted by Reuters.
Democratically ruled Taiwan, which China views as its territory, is facing a campaign of intensifying military and political pressure from Beijing to accept sovereignty claims that the government in Taipei rejects outright.
Taiwanese President William Lai said yesterday that China considers the annexation and "elimination" on the island for his great national cause, telling Taiwanese military cadets not to succumb to the defeatist notion that "the first battle is the last" - a theory that Taiwan could collapse as soon as China launched an attack.
Asked by reporters in parliament how long Taiwan could hold out without the support of the United States in the event of a Chinese offensive, Ku said that was not the point of their strategy.
"The question is not how long we will last. Our strategy, our hypothesis, is asymmetric warfare to build our deterrence in many areas and in the process weaken" China's ability to invade, he said.
As part of ongoing military reforms, Taiwan is promoting the idea of "asymmetric warfare" to make its forces, which are many times smaller than China's, more mobile and harder to attack, for example by equipping them with vehicle-mounted missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.
China claims Lai is a "dangerous separatist" who risks conflict by pushing for formal Taiwan independence. For his part, Lai maintains that only the Taiwanese people can decide their future, and has repeatedly made proposals for negotiations with Beijing that have ended in rejection.
Ku said it was China that was "making trouble" and provoked tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
"We have never sought war. We state very clearly that our entire strategy is about defensive operations," he added.
US President Joe Biden has troubled the Chinese government with recent comments on the subject that appeared to suggest Washington would defend Taiwan if attacked, a departure from the long-standing US policy of "strategic uncertainty" on the matter.
Ku noted that the point of US strategic uncertainty is to complicate China's plans for an eventual invasion of Taiwan. "They will never be able to completely rule out the possibility of American military intervention," he said.