 Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today, Mr. Wendell Minick, joins us from Taipei, Taiwan. We're his senior Asia correspondent for Shepherd Media Military. He previously was Bureau Chief for Defense News and worked for James Defense Weekly. Hey, Wendell. Good to see you. Welcome to Asian Review. Well, thanks a lot, Bill. Appreciate it. My pleasure. My pleasure. Well, let's get right into it then. Now, every year you go to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, and this year you were there again. So what was your take of this year's Shangri-La Dialogue? Well, every year you go, it's a little different. This year there was a smaller Chinese delegation. There were some angry words expressed by the Chinese delegation members who were there, regarding General Mattis's comments regarding Taiwan arm sales. That was pretty much all the excitement that occurred at this particular one. That's interesting. Now, was anything said about Admiral Harris? Because it's pretty well known that the Chinese don't care for him. And in fact, there are some rumors that the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., Swayi Tiankai, requested to have Admiral Harris replaced. Was there any talk about Admiral Harris at the Shangri-La Dialogue? I don't understand the full reason why they feel like they have the right to tell anyone that we have to replace someone. That myths me too. I have to admit that one kind of gets me boiling. The Chinese are becoming a little more aggressive in what their demands are like. For example, recently they demanded that the South Koreans allow them to inspect the bad missile batteries. That is very strange. That's very cocky to tell another country that is technically your enemy that you want to inspect their missile batteries. It doesn't make much sense. No, I'm right with you on that. I think that is terribly arrogant of the Chinese. When they demand that the Pacific commander be replaced, and they demand an open inspection of the Thad, or what they call it, the Sada, in South Korea, I do hear the U.S. sort of countered and said, yeah, okay, fine, let us inspect your strategic missile forces or something like that. Yeah, they don't really understand quid pro quo. When you talk to the Chinese about reciprocal relations, they don't really understand it. They always use the expression that they are a poor nation that's learning the ropes, that the rules, international rules of behavior were written before they came along, therefore they weren't consulted, therefore they don't have to necessarily go by these rules, and they'll just go along with any way they feel like going. So that's a huge problem. They break the rules that they don't want to use, and they follow the rules that give them some advantage. I would agree with that wholeheartedly. Well, what's the talk in Taiwan about a new U.S. arms package to Taiwan? Now, when Obama, in the closing days of the Obama administration, it was said that the U.S. had put together an arms package and was going to get it delivered to Taiwan before Obama left office, and then that didn't happen. And Trump came in, and supposedly the arms package was still on, but now we don't hear anything about it. So what's the story around Taiwan? What are people concerned with defense issues in Taiwan saying about this arms package? They're looking at mid-year, which actually it is already mid-year. Chronically, I've been saying this for a while, but the problem is that many of the folks that that are supposed to be appointed to post have not been appointed yet, deputy secretary, under secretary, all these positions are vacant, largely for political reasons. And until some of these positions are filled and policy is made, there's going to be a hold up on a whole range of issues, not just Taiwan. But on items that they want to sell Taiwan, one of them is the M1 Abrams tank. This one has been going on for 20 years, the request. And the United States does have a large arsenal of M1 Abrams tanks. They continue to build for no reason at all. So I suspect that that will go forward. It's the wrong tank for Taiwan. Taiwan, as you know, is a high mountain range with low wetland coastlines. And the bridges are old, some of them, and they have earthquakes and mudslides. And a big tank like that doesn't move around very easily. And they use a completely different kind of ammunition, which costs more money. So what they still want them on Abrams tank, they're still pushing forward and it'll probably be released. Yeah, I agree with you on that. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, because as you suggested, the Abrams is really heavy. And probably Taiwan's bridges after being weakened by so many earthquakes and typhoons really probably can't hold them up, can't support them. And I think Taiwan needs a medium sized tank. Well, they have them 60s and then 48s they built here. And they switched turrets on them and they've done all kinds of things with them. They're not going to have a land battle here with the Chinese when they invade. And that's not going to happen. So why they want these M1 Abrams is unclear. You know, I can certainly understand why they would want Paladins or something, you know, a mobile artillery force in that range of 105. But a tank is a whole different matter. You have to have a lot of maneuverability. And they only have one or two places left in Taiwan where they can maneuver. They have tank bases. A lot of land is being scooped up by developers. They only have one artillery range now. Artillery places along the coast and for the water, but they only have one land based one. So the military here is sort of falling apart in terms of where to go to train. Singapore has sent troops here to train. But Taiwan still needs more room. Well, let me ask you this about this arms package. Rumors that, well, I guess it's more than a rumor is Taiwan really would like to have in the F-35s. Is there any chance of them getting the F-35s? You know, my crystal ball is broken on that one. You know, I have some of the original paperwork from the Defense Security Corporation Agency. And the ones who handle the FMS, I have some of this material. I probably shouldn't have it, but I have it. And it talks about 120 F-35s and 60 F-35Bs. So that's an A and a B. And that was 20 years ago. So they certainly have a requirement because we expect the runways to be destroyed by China's service short range ballistic missiles. And Bunker Busters will knock out a lot of the what was thought originally as impenetrable bases like Wall-In air base, which is all inside a mountain. You know, Taiwan's a very interesting place. A lot of their bases are inside mountains. It has a very James Bond sort of feel to it. You expect to see a guy with a white cat in a wheelchair will roll around the corner. But they have a pretty good defensive mindset. Unfortunately, technology is offsetting that considerably. You know, I was reading something the other day, and it was an evaluation of the F-35 and was a pretty dim evaluation. It was saying that really the plane is way overrated. And if you take an F-35 and you compare it to an F-16C, an F-16 Charlie, that actually the F-16 Charlie comes out a lot better. Now, I know Taiwan only has the A's and B's, but it wasn't too long ago, they were really screaming for the C's and D's. 51's, yeah. Yeah, that was a really sad story, too, because they could have had those CDs before. Well, what they got was a refurbishment package for their current A's. And that's going to take a long time, five, something like five years per squadron. So, you know, it's going to be 20, 20 years, 25 years before they'll have all the refurbishments done. That's a terrible waste of time. And China's coming, so you don't really have time to mess around with refurbishment of these aircraft. The F-35B, the problem with the F-35B is that it's really an untested platform in combat. Since it first came out, technology has advanced, and our ability to see these aircraft in the air has advanced. And the F-35's, you know, they're built all over the world, the parts manufacturing, and I have countless files in my file cabinet of F-35 spy stories that involve the mainland Chinese. So, I suspect the platform has been completely well acquired and may very well be flying around as the J-31. That's an interesting comment, because when you see pictures of Chinese combat aircraft, they have a striking similarity to either the F-22 or the F-35. The J-31 particularly, the single-engine was the original design, and there it is, flying around. I've seen both aircraft fly in China. The bigger one, the J-20, doesn't have much maneuverability, and they're most likely what will be used for strike, long-range strike missions like Gwang or maybe Hawaii. They can get past the air defense, I doubt it, but definitely a long-range strike weapon system. Yeah, Hawaii is really becoming more and more in adversaries' gun sites, isn't it? North Korea, as you're suggesting, possibly the Chinese. We better hunker down here. Be careful. Well, you know, something, I gave a talk at Paycom recently, and talking about some of the research I did at Academia Seneca Institute of Taiwan History while in Taiwan last year, and talked somewhat about military affairs as well. And the big question the folks out there had for me was, what is Taiwan's will to fight? So what's your take on that? How would you respond to that? What is Taiwan's will to fight? Well, I would have to say that it is nothing like the American perspective. Taiwan has a Marine Corps, and Taiwan has a special forces group. Army, Navy, and Marines have special forces. And though they're very proud of their tradition, they have no experience. And you have to have some experience, and you have to have some training with other nations. And there's very limited training opportunities for these units with America. That's a big problem. If you get down to the regular infantry, you might as well just forget it. You know, I talked to these kids, you know, I'll go to a local bar here, and just sit down and chew the fat with them and talk to them. And then, you know, they'll say, well, I'm one or two of them are in the Army. And they'll say, actually, though, I'm AWOL right now. Let me break in here a second. I'm being told we need to take a break. Let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll pursue this topic, because I think this is a topic of interest to a lot of people. Sure. You're watching Asia and Review. My name is Bill Sharp. My guest today is Wendell Minick. He's the Senior Asia Correspondent for Shepherd and Media and Military. He's been living in Asia for over 20 years, especially Taiwan. He is a real expert on military affairs. And we'll be right back. This guy looks familiar. He calls himself the Ultra Fan, but that doesn't explain all this. He planned this party, planned the snacks, even planned to coordinate colored shirts, but he didn't plan to have a good time. Now you wouldn't do this in your own house, so don't do it in your team's house. Know your limits and plan ahead so that everyone can have a good time. Well, okay, we're back. Welcome back to Asia and Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today is Taiwan's Will to Fight, and our guest is Wendell Minick. Wendell is the Senior Area Correspondent for Shepherd and Media and Military. He is a real specialist on military affairs. He's lived in Taiwan for 20-some years and travels all over Asia reporting on various military affairs. Just before the break, we were talking about Taiwan's Will to Fight, and so let's pick it up from there. And I think I know where you're going on this, because a big question I asked people when I was in Taiwan last year is, well, tell me about your military service. And I heard so many times it was a total waste of time. I wasted whatever period of my life that I was in the military. It was boring. The living conditions were horrible. And it just kind of went on and on and on. And then I asked people, well, now let me see. You served in the military nowadays for four months, and you're supposed to go to reserve training. So have you gone to reserve training? Oh no, they never called me. And I've been told by other folks, and these are retired flag officers because they're a little more talkative, right, that even if Taiwan mobilized all its two million plus reservists, they probably, their training probably won't be up to standard, and they probably won't have enough equipment to equip them all. Is that your take as well? I'd say that's a nice way of putting it. The rude way to say it is that China would rape Taiwan in a war. It does not have the will to fight. Its infantry is made up of kids who have no leadership from their sergeants who have no experience in warfare. There is open talk that everyone has cell phones now that when the flag goes up, that parents will just go drive to the base and tell their kids to get in the car and we're going home. There will be a lot of no-shows. There will be a lot of AWOL. People will simply not show up. They'll just disappear. That's pretty grim. That's really grim. Well, they don't expect to. There's no nationalism here. It hasn't yet transformed to an independent Taiwan identity. It's certainly moving in that direction, but they still use the same flag in the KMT, and the uniforms still have KMT symbolism on it. We're talking about the sun. I know. It's a target not here. It's other symbols. They need to remove these names and things on there and put Taiwan symbols on their flags, on their patches, stop naming their ships after some river in China. And start thinking in terms of what it means to be Taiwanese and try to develop a military culture that is Taiwanese-based. Part of this area might be the Aborigines here. They could certainly introduce some new symbolism. The Taiwan Special Forces is full of Aborigines, mountain peoples that are about the only ones who can handle this kind of training, and they don't look Chinese. They certainly look more Philippine, Indonesian. They have a joke amongst them that the first Chinese that they would shoot during an invasion would be their own officers. Gosh, that's telling. That is really telling. So let me ask you this. I think that you indirectly answered it already, but just so we don't make any mistakes here. What's the morale level in the military? I think people are comfortable. I mean, in four months that they serve now, I think people are fairly comfortable. They don't have a lot to complain about. I don't think that people, you don't hear the horror stories that you used to hear of people being abused unnecessarily. You have basic training where you have people coming to you and making sure is the food okay. Your mom called the last night angry about something. Can you tell us what it was so we can fix it right away? You hear a horror story after a horror story of parents interfering in the training of their children in basic training and later infantry school, which is absolutely mind-boggling. There's something else about the culture here. If you go to Korea and you meet a young man, it's about to go into the Korean boot camp system. You make friends, but when he gets out, you don't. You're not friends anymore or something. Something has changed. The boot camp that he goes into has changed. The guys are going to boot camp here come out angry that they had to go to boot camp and they don't feel particularly they don't feel more nationalistic and that's what boot camp should at least try to instill is a different kind of nationalism pride. That's really something. Now let's let's move on here because time always races on here and as we were a couple more things we really want to touch on the Ministry of National Defense's QDR comes out every year. I guess it is this year. I went through it in preparation for our talk today and they seem to put a lot of emphasis on improving living conditions. Are there living conditions on Taiwan military bases? Well, how are they? I mean, you've seen them. Yeah, I've been in them. I've slept in them. Look, come on. Everyone has the internet on their phones. Everyone can use wireless and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. And when you go into these dormitories, you're stacked bunks. You have no air conditioner and you have one of these mosquito coils. I don't think she would like them with a match and there is no internet and you're basically isolated from your family and friends. Well, that's okay in boot camp, but that's not okay in regular army. There is no married housing. If you get sent to Punghu and you're from Taipei, your family doesn't go with you to Punghu. You don't get to see them, but every few months. So the military here really is just destroyed families. And who wants to join the military when their buddies are working for computer companies here in Taiwan and they're having fun and they're enjoying their lives? And then you say, well, I'm protecting Taiwan from something. And they say, well, Taiwan will become part of China. Don't worry about it or be an economic integration of some sort. I think I see where you're coming from. But since time is always an issue here, let's move on because there are a couple of things I'd like to talk about before our time's up. We have about four minutes left here. The Hanguang, the annual military exercise. Now you attend every year, right? Yes, I try to. And sometimes they do this all on computer and sometimes they have a computerized portion and mixed it up with a live fire portion. It's divided into two. Okay. I read some comments someplace. I wonder if this was something you wrote that this year's Hanguang was more or less a dog and pony show for the benefit of President Tsai Ing-wen. Did I say that? Well, if it wasn't you, I'd take that back by then with somebody else. But if you want to own up to it, I'll let you right here on air. All of the press and media shows that attend the Hanguang are basically just shows, a dog and pony shows. That doesn't mean that they're not real. They are certainly real. They fire their weapons. They demonstrate their helicopters and their all their abilities are there. It's quite a show. It's just like watch a movie. And that's what you have to sort of remind yourself that this is a choreographed attempt to impress the media. And the media takes all this footage and they put it on the wires and they show the world that Taiwan is ready to fight. But Hanguang is actually a much larger exercise that expands all over the island and involves a computer simulation. It involves a live fire and involves all kinds of different kinds of drills. It's a nationwide drill basically. So my making fun of the once again, here we are again back here. Oh my God, here they do. You can basically set your clock to the next event. So yeah, they have exercises every week that I simply just don't go to. They'll have a drill or exercise. I'm just, I just don't want to get up at four in the morning to go to. So yeah, they work very hard to impress people with these Hanguang. These are the media shows, not the overall effort. Think of a Hanguang as a larger effort, a larger program, island-wide basically. Now, I know that you wanted to talk about, we've got about a minute left here, so we're going to get this in. How will China might use Su-au, port city on the east coast of Taiwan, to dominate the Asia-Pacific region? Well, real quickly, let me explain what the problem is that people in Washington don't understand. China is expanding its influence. South China Sea is pretty much gone. It's got some land chains, it's building bases, it's got air defense ID, ADIZ, Air Defense Identification Zone there. East China Sea, they have an ADIZ there that encompasses Sanctuary Islands, that's the Japanese islands. Our time is just about up here. I think I could sum up what you're saying here. If China controls Su-au, a port on the eastern coast of Taiwan, it has an ability to exercise great control into the western Pacific. Because of the depths, the water depths or submarines. The evil clock has caught up with us again. It does this every week, unfortunately. We're just going to have to have a slow that clock down one way or the other. But hey, thanks for joining us. You're a wealth of information. I wish we had some more time to talk. We'll have to invite you back here real soon just to continue this conversation because I think we're just getting started. I always enjoy talking. Please tell me when this will be on so I can watch it. I will send you an email with the link and we'll be in touch. Thank you very much for watching today. It was great to have you with us. We'll see you again next week. Thanks, Bill. You bet. Thank you.