Venezuela-style strike on Taiwan could prove tricky for China

Some Chinese online users are calling for a lightning Venezuela-style snatch of Taiwan's leaders as a prelude to taking over the island, but analysts, scholars and security officials say China's modernising military is still far from ready.

In Taiwan, they say, China's military faces an adversary that has spent years preparing against a "decapitation operation" on its leaders, alongside extensive air defences and radar capabilities, as well as likely support from the United States and its allies, Reuters reports.

Although China has spent years acquiring advanced weapons, questions remain about the capabilities of its People's Liberation Army to use them effectively, as well as about a command structure that must knit them together in combat.

"Once such an operation runs into trouble, it would quickly escalate into a full-scale conflict, with extremely high political and military risk," said Chen Kuan-ting, a lawmaker from Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Taiwan's layered air-defence and early-warning systems mean any air assault or special-operations infiltration effort would risk detection as it crossed the Taiwan Strait, foreshadowing escalation, he added.

The United States showcased its forces' battle-tested air dominance with last weekend's operation to extract Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

Its military controlled the skies with stealth fighters, jets that jammed enemy defences, and covert reconnaissance drones and satellites feeding commanders real-time intelligence.

By contrast, the PLA "still has clear gaps in real joint-operations experience, electromagnetic and electronic warfare capabilities, and actual combat validation of high-risk missions," Chen said.

China's defence ministry did not immediately respond to faxed questions from Reuters.

CHINA HAS NOT RULED OUT FORCE TO TAKE TAIWAN

China, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has not ruled out using force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan's government rejects China's claims.

"Operationally, while the PLA has in recent times tried to get up to speed with force integration, it is still baby steps compared with what the Americans have been accumulating for decades," said Singapore-based security scholar Collin Koh.

Taiwan is determined to defend its sovereignty and bolster its defence, President Lai Ching-te said last month, after Beijing fired rockets towards Taiwan as part of its latest military drills.

The drills around Taiwan - the most extensive to date - were accompanied by strong messaging from Chinese officials and the military.

"Any external forces that attempt to intervene in the Taiwan issue or interfere in China's internal affairs will surely smash their heads bloody against the iron walls of the Chinese People's Liberation Army," China's Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.

In October, Lai unveiled a multi-layered air-defence system known as the "T-Dome".

It is intended to resemble Israel's "Iron Dome", with a more efficient "sensor-to-shooter" mechanism designed to achieve a higher interception rate by integrating weaponry ranging from Taiwan-developed Sky Bow missiles to US-supplied HIMARS rocket systems.

In July, Taiwan's military staged a drill to protect Taipei's main airport from a hostile landing.

Su Tzu-yun, a researcher at Taiwan's Institute for National Defence and Security, described significant defences around Taipei, including long-range missiles in nearby mountains, shorter-range weapons at the mouth of the Tamsui River, and military police equipped with shoulder-fired Stinger missiles.

"Altogether, this forms a complete defensive perimeter," Su said.

While military attachés say China has war-gamed extraction operations in Taipei as part of a broad range of military options to take control of Taiwan, some Chinese online users cited the US action in Venezuela as inspiration.

"The Venezuelan situation has provided us with a solution for unifying Taiwan," said one user on the X-like microblogging site Weibo.

"First, use special operations to arrest Lai Ching-te, then immediately announce the takeover of Taiwan, issue new identity cards … and achieve a swift and decisive victory."

Chen, who sits on the foreign affairs and defence committee of Taiwan's parliament, dismissed such remarks as "fantasy", while other analysts said any such attempt would quickly collide with military realities.

China has added aircraft intended to replicate platforms such as Boeing's EA-18G Growler electronic-warfare jet and Northrop Grumman's E-2D Advanced Hawkeye command-and-early-warning aircraft, but their precise capabilities have yet to be defined, Koh said.

With the ruling Communist Party still playing a role in the PLA's command structure, doubts remain about its effectiveness, added Koh, who is with the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

"A decentralised command-and-control hierarchy is essential; that allows field commanders to exercise the necessary initiative to cope with the fluid, evolving and uncertain nature of military operations as events unfold," Koh said.

Despite any perceived PLA shortcomings, Taiwan's leaders are taking no chances.

"We have no room to take them lightly," said a senior Taiwan security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the military issues are sensitive.

"After all, in the wake of this painful and shocking experience, China will also look for all kinds of ways to overcome these problems."