Lightly defended beach highlights questions over Taiwan’s resolve

“RED BEACH,” Taiwan — For a seaborne invader, this 7.5-mile strip of beaches close to the capital of Taipei on Taiwan’s China-facing northwest coast presents a near-perfect landing site.

The beach is marked on civilian maps as “Bali,” no relation to the Indonesian island. It is marked on Taiwanese military maps as “Red Beach” because of its suitability for assault.

Red Beach is the island’s closest point to China. Its right/east flank is Taipei Port and the estuary of the Tamsui River, which flows into Taipei. Its left/west flank is Taoyuan International Airport, the largest airport on the democratic island that mainland China has vowed to rule one day. It is also a site to ponder whether Taiwan has the means and the will to hold off its hostile larger neighbor long enough for the U.S. military to join the fight.

The Tamsui and highways along its banks offer a potential channel for a commando decapitation strike into Taipei, 6 miles downstream. The port and airport provide potential reinforcement nodes to sustain first-wave airborne and marine landings.

From an invader’s standpoint, Red Beach is not perfect. It is almost too obvious a target, and the low hills inland provide cover for artillery, missile launchers and drones.

Taiwan’s defensive forces would almost certainly have a warning of People’s Liberation Army forces massing across the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, particularly given that the timing of any invasion is constrained by typhoon seasons. The shallowness of the beaches would necessitate flat-bottom landing craft, assets that Chinese forces do not have in abundance.

Even so, given Red Beach’s strategic advantages on an island where much of the coastline is unbreachable rock and cliff, prepared defenses might seem in order.

None is visible. On the beach, a concrete pillbox has tumbled into the sea. On the Tamsui’s west bank, a three-story bunker has been converted into an office among food stalls and a fun fair. An adjacent concrete firing point is disused.

On the riverbank’s east mouth looms the only apparent defensive asset. Testifying to the site’s strategic value stands a 17th-century Spanish fort — a museum.

For a visitor from South Korea, East Asia’s other divided-country flashpoint, the differences between Taipei’s Tamsui and Seoul’s Han River are glaring.

Beyond Seoul’s city limits, the Han bristles with razor wire, observation towers, armored-vehicle firing points and fortified bases, all postured against North Korea. Potential invasion beaches on South Korea’s northeast coast are closed to civilians and similarly defended.

On a brisk January day on Red Beach, by contrast, a sanitation official named Mr. Lee, 62, was fishing over the surf line from behind his parked SUV.

“If China attacks, they will attack here,” he said. “Every year, there are [Taiwanese] amphibious landing drills, and we get kicked off the beach for several days.”

The aim, he said, is to defend inland, not the beaches.

A fortress without defenders

China’s military, more than 2 million strong, vastly outnumbers Taiwan’s 215,000-strong force. Beijing boasts a comparable superiority in warships and aircraft. Worrying questions hover over Taipei’s preparedness.

The presidential election this month of Lai Ching-te, whose ruling Democratic Progressive Party has long had frosty relations with the mainland, has only sharpened the focus on Taiwan’s military capabilities and defensive preparedness.

“There is jaundice within the military,” said Alex Neill, a China security expert with Pacific Forum. “Much of the leadership are KMT voters” — Taiwan’s China-leaning party, which has now lost three presidential elections in a row.

“If any army is not 100% loyal, it is 100% disloyal,” fumed a speaker at a recent Taipei conference.

Frederich Wang, a former army captain running Minuteman, a military supply store in Taipei, seethes over training deficiencies in Taiwan’s military. “It’s very old-school,” he said. “It’s like Vietnam — even World War II.”

While Taiwan, on paper, can call on 1.3 million military reservists, the system has “frankly collapsed,” said Arthur Ding, a professor emeritus of National Cheng-chih University, recalling his own experience. “When I was called back [for training], we just watched TV while they checked our health.”

After the Taiwan Strait, Taipei’s best defensive asset is its cityscapes. Cities provide force multipliers to outnumbered, outgunned defenders, a concept that Ukraine has brilliantly applied in fighting off Russian invaders.

Russia launched its 2022 war with a surprise assault on Hostomel airport. Many defensive tasks around Kyiv were handled by local militia, “corseted” by special forces and backed by drones and artillery.

Russia retreated. Ukraine’s smaller towns — Mariupol, Severodonetsk and Bakhmut — became meat grinders.

Taipei has a population of 2.6 million — more than five times larger than Mariupol’s — with 9 million people in the greater metropolitan area.

Why is Taiwan not standing up a national guard, territorial army or civilian militia? It’s a debate here.

Prepping without weapons

Many Taiwanese are turning to survival training and providers such as the Kuma Academy.

Founded in 2021, Kuma, located down a narrow Taipei alleyway, offers publications, courses and outdoor camps reaching some 500,000 citizens.

On a weekday afternoon, under signs reading, “Follow me,” “Got your back” and “I will carry you,” 50 Taiwanese, ranging from teens to senior citizens, were learning disinformation awareness, evacuation, trauma aid and survival techniques.

Kagi Yao, 33, acknowledged concerns. “I am not 90% sure there will be a war,” she said, “but more than 50%.”

Yet she was not trained, willing or armed to fight.

“I am a doctor, so I think I’d be more useful in my profession,” she said. “It’s against daily values to kill someone. I don’t think I’d use arms.”

Marco Ho, Kuma’s co-founder and CEO, said he has been in multiple discussions with Taiwan’s interior ministry to expand Kuma’s scope. His current curriculum is baby steps.

“So far, the simple idea is protecting ourselves,” he said. “We have to walk before we can run.”

Culture matters.

“There has not been a political culture within Taiwan to support even the military, much less the formation of a militia,” said Russell Hsiao, who directs the Global Taiwan Institute. Of Kuma and similar bodies, he said, “While this is a far cry from taking up arms and forming an organized militia, it is an important mindset shift.”

Others express frustration with the lack of defense tools.

In Taipei’s Minuteman military goods store, pistols, automatic weapons, sniper rifles and grenades line the walls, but the firearms are “airsoft” — roughly similar to paintball or BB guns — and the grenades are duds. Gun control laws prevent the sale of the real thing.

“To get votes, you can’t ask for guns,” Mr. Wang said. “But we have to say to [Chinese President Xi Jinping], ‘If you want war, you will be hurt.’ We have to have civic defense. Gear. Weapons.”

Though Mr. Wang’s airsoft programs offer tactical training, anti-gun sentiment runs deep.

Even illegal arms suppliers are prudent. When gangsters purchase a firearm for a hit, suppliers quiz them on their plan and supply an appropriate weapon and limited ammunition, one source told The Washington Times.

The island’s liberal, democratic citizenry is also still reacting to the country’s recent militaristic past. Taiwan lifted martial law in 1987 and held its first democratic election in 1996.

“Under authoritarianism, we had civil safety programs in every factory,” Mr. Ding said. “All that has disappeared. Can we bring it back?”

Signs of change

Some changes are underway.

Mr. Lai’s staunchly anti-mainland DPP, which will hold the presidency for a historic third consecutive four-year term, increased conscription from four months to a year in 2023. That change took effect last week.

Over the past year, under U.S. influence, military training has become more rigorous, Mr. Ding said. Another expert said there are quiet talks about a militia.

“Taiwan has, in the last couple of years, begun to discuss what a homeland defense force might look like,” said David Keegan, a China scholar at Johns Hopkins University.

With the DPP losing its majority in the legislature, the opposition KMT would likely contest any move to raise a militia. Turf wars are another issue.

“Such a [militia] force would almost by definition be decentralized. … The military, like the KMT from which it arose, is very hierarchical,” Mr. Keegan said.

With Taiwan’s generals dubious about civilian input, “it will be a difficult transition,” he predicted.

Amid these developments, some Taiwanese have placed their defense in higher hands.

A cheery matron at a seafood restaurant behind Red Beach, when asked about war risks, nodded at a shrine in the corner loaded with offerings of fruit. “The gods will protect us,” she said. “We pray to all gods in Taiwan.”