Taiwan improves missile production

off China in asymmetrical warfare, said Alexander Huang, strategic studies professor at Tamkang University in Taiwan. The term refers to effective resistance of an enemy with targeted firepower rather than overwhelming force.

“Taiwan with limited resources can only invest in the area that would create some kind of asymmetrical advantage, which would dissuade the Chinese from taking actions,” Huang said. “President Tsai has committed more or at least expressed willingness to invest more in the asymmetrical capability.”

The two sides have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, and China still claims sovereignty over Taiwan. Beijing has not ruled out using force to unify the sides, a threat it has highlighted amid Tsai’s continuing rejection of its demand that both interact as parts of a single Chinese nation.

Hsiung Feng IIE missiles built in Taiwan have been deployed to hit military bases in China up to 932 miles away, said David An, senior research fellow with the policy incubator Global Taiwan Institute in Washington, D.C.

Those missiles also underwent a “substantial upgrade” last year to increase their effectiveness against ships, An said.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has stepped up production of its indigenous Wan Chien air-to-ground cruise missiles by about 100, An added.

Backing up those improvements, the locally developed Tien Kung system can now intercept Chinese missiles at ranges of up to 124 miles, An said. PAVE PAW, a U.S. long-range early warning radar system located in Taiwan’s high central mountain range, would track incoming missiles or aircraft.

Taiwanese Defense Ministry spokesman Chen Chung-chi declined to confirm deployment of the Hsiung Feng IIE missiles after the military news website Kanwa Defense Review posted photos indicating they were situated about 31 miles west of the capital, Taipei, near the island’s major international airport.