 Welcome to Asia Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today is, Will Taiwan Fight Part Two? We had such a great show last week with Wendell Minick that we invited him back this week to continue the conversation we're having then. As you probably remember from last week, Wendell has lived in Asia for quite a long time, especially in Taiwan. He used to work for Jane's Defense Weekly. Then he was longtime Bureau Chief for Defense News and now he works for Shepard Media and Military. So we're really glad to have him back with us. Good to have you again, Wendell. Well, thank you. Great. Well, at the end of last week's show, we were talking about, when we ran out of time, as usually seems to be the case, we were talking about what would happen if China were able to, that is mainland China, were able to take over the deep water port of Suow, which is located on Taiwan's east coast. So I think maybe that's a good place to start. We'll just start there and see what your thoughts are about that. Well, just to back up a little bit, trying to seize the Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines is what is termed as the Great Wall of Sea. They don't have a direct line of sight to the Pacific for their Navy and Air Force. So they'll have to go around these geographic problems by going around Taiwan, around Japan. So they have to break through this chain and the best way to do it is to take Taiwan, either by peaceful means or military means, it doesn't matter. But once you establish PLA bases on Taiwan, you can project force into the Pacific and disrupt lines of communications, sea lanes of communication, up and down between Korea and Japan and Middle East oil, of course, which is what they they certainly could do it in the South China Sea. But if you look at Taiwan, yeah, they got some great bases on the west or east coast of the Pacific. One is called Sue Al. It's a deep water port that just drops into the abyss, but certainly would make a great submarine base for the time for the Chinese. Another one is Wally and Air Base, which is underground inside a hollowed out mountain. Another great opportunity for the Chinese to establish an air power over the Pacific. Other facilities along the mountain there, of course, you could establish signal intelligence, electronic warfare over the horizon radar, all kinds of things there. So it's it's a you know, losing Taiwan would really just rub US power in the region. You know, it seems to me that that's not significantly enough appreciated by the folks in Washington. Well, politics of change in America, it's almost unrecognizable. The Cold War is over and people moved on. It just seems to be a different world back home in terms of political strategic concerns. It's still Middle East terrorism and Middle East crisis. And the mainland Chinese have been very clever. They haven't really been that aggressive. They've been assertive of their territorial claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, but they've been careful to avoid the US Navy. So as long as we don't see them as a physical or existential threat to our power, what some scholars are called salami slicing, where you you slice off a small bit at a time, it goes unnoticed after a while. And before you know it, South China Sea is gone. This is something they're certainly attempting to do with Taiwan, not just strategically, but they're certainly trying to do it economically by buying property and investing and using surrogates for this sort of thing. So we could lose Taiwan, not just from the invasion, we could lose it through politics, economics, economic coercion. But anyway, we do lose it. We do lose a vital chain in that US US military line of line of I won't call it the battle line, but you know, keeps the Chinese encumbered from entering the Pacific. Good. But you talked about surrogates just a minute ago. Explain what type of surrogates? Who are the surrogates? Well, many of the folks here who are who will go unnamed, who are there are members of the legislature and the politics politicians here who own factories and businesses in China. There are people I've met on the Defense Committee on the legislature here that own property and businesses in China. So that sort of economic coercion is there. And that's a huge problem. China would have something like two million Taiwanese alone living in Shanghai. You know, they have their own little Taiwan town, if you want to call it. So there's tremendous amount of influence and interaction at the economic level. So it's very dark, actually, in terms of influence. The Chinese have been very clever. They don't actually know how to dangle the money in front of people, don't they? I'm not quite sure that came through. The mainland Chinese really know how they're dangle the money in front of people. That's right. They certainly do. It's money. It's they certainly have the capability of buying Taiwan. In some cases, that's already started. Property prices are rising here because of the potential speculation, real estate speculation that China will come in and begin buying property. So that's one of the reasons property is so expensive in Taipei and other places in Taiwan. It always shocks me that the rents are actually very cheap in Taiwan, but to buy some place is terribly expensive, especially in Taipei. Well, that's because the rents are not recorded as a tax. I pay rent to my landlord, but he doesn't record it. It's cash. Now, I'm not getting anybody in trouble, but, but everyone does that. And there's no tax on real estate here, property tax. So you can own land and set on it. You can own an apartment building and not rent it out to anyone. So when you drive through Taipei, you see a lot of empty buildings. They don't they're not forced to rent it out. There's no property tax. Hmm. Interesting. Well, um, okay, another big feature of the Taiwan military establishment is their quest to build a submarine and indigenously produce submarine. And I wonder what your view is on that. How's it going? Well, part of the arms package that the US is expected to release sometime this year, we'll have a lot of that equipment available made available to the Taiwanese, at least that's my understanding. But yeah, the Taiwanese are committed to building something like six to eight platforms. They have in their in their sites, possibly selling these platforms, continuing to build them and sell them elsewhere. But I don't think that the competition out there will allow that to happen. The US Navy is not really all that crazy about Taiwan building submarines. It just means more submarines in the water for them to track. A lot of countries in the region are buying submarines. And it just makes it just very underwater in terms of underwater congestion. There's gonna be an accident eventually, somebody's gonna run into somebody. So yeah, they're going to build the subs. There's I believe that they're going forward. After gosh, you know, 2001, when they finally, you know, Bush administration, finally release submarines to Taiwan. The package that you talked about, did you suggest that it's going to have parts and instruments and electronic components, etc, that Taiwan needs to build its submarine? Well, yeah, they lack a lot of these sort of sophisticated technical aspects of submarines. So they'll be my understanding is will be requesting periscope stuff. And yeah, where they're going to test these submarines, I don't know. The US has a testing facility. Maybe they'll allow them to do it. But yeah, to build four to eight submarines is really very expensive endeavor. It's much easier to buy used ones and refurbish them. And but they refuse to do that, even though they've had several opportunities to do so. Who's been willing to sell them secondhand submarines? There was about 10 or 12 years ago, there was an offer from a European country to sell them refurbished submarines. Was that Italy? Italy, right? I believe it was Italy. I don't want to say the country for sure. But today, that would be impossible with China's economic influence in Europe. But that was their last opportunity to get submarines from another country. After that, there really wasn't any opportunities in the United States doesn't build these electric submarines. We certainly could do it. But and there's certainly some folks in US Navy that would might like to have diesels. They are quieter. Do we really need a long range patrol? You know, we can use more short range patrols, rather than go nuke all the way. There's a there's a there's huge debate within the US Navy about this issue. Let's take a break here. You're watching Asian review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today again, he was with us last week is Wendell Minnick. He's a wealth of information on Taiwan defense issues. We'll be right back. Don't go away. Is Raya Salter and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii, which you can see live from one to 130 every Tuesday at thinktechkawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist. And on Power Up Hawaii, we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future? To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum from clean energy technology folks to community groups to politicians to regulators to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for Power Up Hawaii. This guy looks familiar. He calls himself the ultra fan, but that doesn't explain all this. He planned this party, plan the snacks, even plan 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. Welcome back to Asian review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today is we'll Taiwan fight part two. I guess again, joining joining us again from Taipei, Taiwan via Skype is Mr. Wendell Minnick. He is the senior Asia correspondent for shepherd media military. Well, let's just finish up on the submarine thing. Now, I've heard that lots of folks have advocated that Taiwan acquire build miniature submarines, something like the this is almost dangerous to say the North Koreans have or the Iranians have. And but they don't seem to go along with that. Taiwan military is still a conventional minded military and asymmetrical and unusual operations. That's why they want Aegis combat systems on a destroyer, even though they have no practical use for them. They're not an international Navy. They only have to fight in the Taiwan Strait and around the Taiwan Strait. So they they still think in big terms and big equipment. They want the F 35s, they want submarines, they want Aegis combat systems for their their destroyer. It's not clear why they want destroyers. They're very big platforms today, and they're so close to the mainland already that the anti ship missiles can hit them very quickly from land based and air air launched from China. I don't know. And sometimes it's sort of an ego thing within the military to get these systems, these bigger systems. I've heard it said that the Taiwan Navy sees itself as a miniaturized US Navy. And I guess that goes along with what you're saying. You know, last week, we were talking about Taiwan's will to fight, which is, incidentally, the title of today's show. You had a pretty dim view of that. And some folks I've been talking to say, well, the army might lack a will to fight, but the Navy is much more professional as much more gung hoe. Would you buy into that? Absolutely. Yeah, sure. Yeah, when I was talking about the will to fight last week, I was talking for the most part, the conscription of these folks in the army, and how the how these kids don't really want to get involved in this. Air Force and Navy are more technical. And yet, you know, they're smaller, and they get to, you know, they get they interact with us a great deal more than the army does. There's no question. But the problem with the Navy is that, what are they going to do in war? Or are they going to deploy to, you know, only take seven minutes to cross the Taiwan Strait in a fighter jet? What are these ships going to do? Are they going to? I mean, you've got eight Perry class frigates, you've got four kid class destroyers, you've got, you can get these old Knox class frigates, you have control boats, of course. You have eight or nine Knox, sorry, Lafayette class frigates. Yeah, they have a lot of ships. But what are they going to do during a war? Exactly. What is their strategy? They're not projecting force beyond the straits. If they want to go to the South China Sea, they have to deal with the Chinese Navy. You know, they really should focus on a smaller Navy capable of using smaller missile patrol boats, Corvettes, like the one they just built, the stealth Corvette they built. Right. That was an excellent platform armed with anti ship missiles. But a bigger platform than that, I honestly don't think they need anti ship missile technology in China is advanced at a rate that is mind boggling. They now have ballistic missile capability for anti ship. Not that they'll bother using it on on the Taiwan ships, but that is for the US Navy and anybody else who wants to interfere with us with the Taiwanese invasion. But yes, the Navy, the Taiwan Navy is the more professional as is the Air Force. Okay, sounds good. Let me see a couple ways that can go here. There's some talk. I saw an article recently and I forget just where I saw it. And it was written by a unique wool. And he was who I'm sure you know, because you introduced me to him, actually. And he was advocating a return of conscription to Taiwan full fledged conscription, not this four months and go home stuff and then show up for reserve meetings. If you think there's any and you know, from what I understand, saying when is not adverse to that idea, but it's very hard for her to push ahead on that because a large part of her base as young people who as you've said are not particularly enthused with military service. But is there any possibility that Taiwan might bring back a more traditional conscription? I think that he is right that they need, they need bodies to fill these positions. But like I also said last week, they also need to improve the quality of serving in the military. And that means living a normal life, like regular US military people do their families in family housing and, and with the educational opportunities and other things they don't have here in Taiwan. That's the only way you're going to keep good people in the military. The horror stories I hear about the NCO program are pretty scary. You know, many of them should be let go. It is also the generational shift issue from the old KMT leadership now to more Taiwan identity mindset. But the Taiwanese will really have to have a crisis before they they'd be concerned enough to bring back conscription. Something like the Taiwan Missile Crisis in 96 might be one of these examples, but I don't think the Chinese will be that foolish enough to do something like that, to scare them that bad. I think they'll do what they continue to do. The Chinese will continue to slowly take advantage of China, Taiwan's economic opportunities and just buy the whole lot. I think you have something there. I think it definitely has something. Salami slicing at its best. Well, let's move on here because time is racing on. And let me see, I got a couple of ways we can go here. What about espionage in the military? It seems to me that's a concern of yours. Well, I've always been interested in espionage. Period. Um, I've always written about it. And the most recent case in the United States is in a very fascinating one. But yes, I would say the Taiwan military has been completely completely taken by the Chinese espionage community. They have arrested spy after spy after spy and some of the most critical areas of the Taiwan military, including the air defense upgrade the on your for the Bosong C four program upgrade. They have they've they've got they can turn the lights on and off at will. And so it it's pretty much completely compromised. The espionage factor here in Taiwan, you know, the other side of the coin is at one time, Taiwan had fairly robust intelligence operations of its own on the mainland. But my sense is those have all been wiped out. Yeah, about six years ago, they wiped them out. Militant intelligence bureau lost it. Oh, gosh, about 30 guys got picked up at the same time. MIB. There, the horror stories are massive. One year, the National Security Bureau personnel director retired and moved to China and disappeared. We don't know where he is and what he's doing. You imagine the CIA personnel director moving to Iran and just vanishing. That's the level of the kind of stuff that you see here on a regular basis. So yeah, they they've got Taiwan pretty much compromised at every level. So in a war, they won't have any trouble turning the lights off. That's sad. Pretty dark. You know what gets me to is because this issue is a particularly interesting to me is the penalties that are made it out to those involved in espionage seem to be rather light hand slaps sometimes. The one exception would be the general who got busted a few years ago because he he was in charge of the Porsche on communications project and he got, as they say, honeycombed and excuse me honey trapped Oh, I'm sorry, honey trapped. And apparently the US was very upset and they put a lot of pressure on Taiwan to really dull out, you know, heavy, heavy punishment and apparently Taiwan listened on that. Finally, yeah, he I actually knew him. He was the head of their NSA basically. Okay, that's basically the highest position. And he was the head of it. And he was recruited outside of Taiwan, possibly in Thailand by a young woman who was working for the Chinese intelligence. So yeah, they found the pressure on putting him away was pretty heavy. But in normal normally spies caught here in Taiwan, or anywhere in the United States, for example, normally don't receive more than three or four years in prison. I don't get that. I really have a lot of trouble with that. Well, Greg Bergerson, who was working for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, spied for China. Here in Taiwan, he was in charge of the Vosheng project. He got three years. And then there was Fondren, I think it was named Fondren, he worked for Pacific Command also spied for China here in Taiwan. He got three years. Subin, the guy who spent on the F-35. We're down to one minute here. Boy, the time really flies. Let me ask again, I'm going to ask you this question right at the end. Sorry to do this to you again. But I send you a copy of that article by Shirley Khan, a retired Congressional Research Office analyst, spent her whole life working on Taiwan China Affairs. She feels that Taiwan has missed a lot of opportunities to help itself when it comes to promoting or advancing its own defense. Just, would you buy into that? Sorry, we don't have a whole lot of time to really jump into this, but perhaps, but it's also been hobbled by a lot of American activities, discouraging you, Taiwanese from developing cruise missiles that can strike China. But the US uses Taiwan bases here. We have a signal intelligence facility here run by the US National Security Agency out of Washington. Right. So we have facilities here that spy on China, and as well as a sonar facility that operates under the Fusha program under the Japanese, with sonars up and down the island chain. That's that's managed by the Japanese. That's managed by the Japanese. That's the fish hook sonar program. That's the Japanese military. So we have all the way down the island chain from from Okinawa to Taiwan. Taiwan is part of that program. It's called the fish hook program. Oh, it's secret. So it doesn't surprise me. You wouldn't know much about it. But look at it. I've written about it in the past. But the US does dip into intelligence collection by the Taiwanese. And that includes the early warning radar on the on the West Coast aimed at China, which is the largest radar in the world. Okay, well, I think we're gonna have to stop here. Okay. That clock really does us in week after week after week. Thank you very much for watching today. You've been watching Asian Review. My guest again has been Wendell Minick, who as you saw today and last week, there's a wealth of information about Taiwan military affairs. I'm really glad that we could get him to come back and join us again. Thanks again for watching. Thank you, Wendell for being with us. And we'll see you again next week.