Strengthening the Porcupine - Why Supplying Taiwan With Arms Now Matters

Supplying Taiwan with weaponry is essential to deter a Chinese invasion, and if deterrence fails, successfully defend the island.

On 28th July it was declared that the United States would provide Taiwan with a $345 million military assistance package, as part of the $1 billion military aid Washington shall allocate to the island in 2023. Effectuated under the Presidential Drawdown Authority, the package is to come directly from the Pentagon’s stockpiles. The recently announced provision is not an individual case in US policy towards Taiwan, but a continuation of a longstanding strategy of American help for Taipei. During Trump’s administration the USA sent $18 billion worth of arms to the island, and Joe Biden, who has reiterated America’s rock-solid commitment to Taiwan, is definitely building on his predecessor’s approach to Taiwan.

Such aid comes at a time of nearly permanent tensions and various incidents in the Taiwan Strait, exacerbated by the specter of a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Although Beijing’s plans and demands for Taiwan’s unification with mainland China have been a recurrent theme in cross-strait relations since 1949, recent years have brought a heightened risk of a People’s Liberation Army invasion on the island. This threat may be inferred from US intelligence concerning Chinese considerations of an attack by 2027, Chinese officials’ declarations about the need for reunification even by coercive means if necessary, and the PLA’s extensive modernization and development.

While it is not certain that Beijing will choose a military option to resolve the Taiwan issue, it is of utmost importance for Taipei, Washington and other allies to ensure the island’s security and oppose any attempts at unilateral changes of the regional status quo. And in this context a key role is played by the supply of arms to Taiwan sanctioned by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.

Maintaining peace whilst having a hostile neighbour relies fundamentally on deterrence by convincing adversaries that any attack will trigger an immediate and substantial retaliation, with the costs of the attack exceeding the gains. Effective Taiwanese and American deterrence can eliminate any risk of invasion on Taiwan, and such deterrence can be enhanced by the provision of weaponry to the island. In the last few years efforts have been made to develop Taiwan’s self-defense capabilities in accordance with the so-called “porcupine strategy”, a strategy of asymmetrical warfare first formulated by then-chief of the Taiwanese military forces Lee Hsi-Ming in 2017.

The tactic focuses on stockpiling low-tech and mobile anti-aircraft, anti-tank and anti-ship weapons, making Taiwan able to inflict major losses on the PLA, and hence increasing the cost and duration of a potential Chinese attack. The USA has been looking favorably towards equipping Taiwan with arms such as shoulder-held anti-aircraft and tank missile launchers, as well as attack drones, since assisting Taipei in improving their “quills” reduces equally the likelihood of a potential invasion without the requirement for a clear American commitment to defend the island.

While there is a lack of support for the “porcupine” approach from the conventional defense advocates claiming it is acquisition of big-ticket arms such as jets that should be prioritized, proponents of the new strategy accentuate another advantage of asymmetric weapons. They underline that in case of an actual invasion Taiwan’s primary goal should be the capacity to effectively resist Chinese assaults until the arrival of US forces, and that in turn can be better achieved with smaller and easily movable arms. In an invasion scenario a sine qua non of a successful defense of the island, even with a direct US intervention, is the will and capability of Taiwanese forces, including normal citizens, to fight. A 2017 RAND Corporation report showed Taiwan has 2.5 million men in the military reserve system and 1 million civil defense volunteers who would assume a critical role in guerilla warfare and conflict on the island alongside Taiwanese regular armed forces. Therefore, it is crucial to provide them with military equipment necessary to withstand Chinese attacks,

What ought to be urgently resolved are the delays of weaponry transfer to Taiwan from the USA - in December 2022 the balance of belated arms delivery totalled $19 billion. However Taiwan’s arms backlogs do not go beyond normal delays. They result from, among others, limited capability of the US defense industrial base to meet rising demands from US partners and the Department of Defense, and the possible prioritization of larger customers and big-ticket systems.

Washington needs to ensure that Taipei receives military assistance on a reasonable timeline and during times of peace. That is because if China were to launch an invasion on the island, it would presumably establish a naval and aerial blockade around Taiwan disrupting supply lines and reinforcements. Then, providing help for the island, unlike for Ukraine at present, would be significantly impeded, if not impossible.

Author: Jakub Witczak