Can Taiwan Survive Solely Relying on TSMC？Unofficial War Game Points Out Taiwan's Achilles' Heel
United Daily News, November 5, 2023
A recent tabletop exercise war game titled “2023TTX Regional Security Push” has brought together 135 experts from various fields (including 40 from foreign countries) and covered a wide range of political, diplomatic, economic, energy, industrial, medical, and social aspects. The scale and length of the war game have exceeded all previous official war games and its scope of discussion also went beyond war games held by the National Security Council (NSC) or the Ministry of National Defense (MND).
The research team suggested that to prevent potential war from happening, social “resilience,” including the energy supply and emergency medical system, needs to be strengthened in addition to national defense. The report also indicated that Taiwan should not fall into the trap of the so-called “silicon shield” by leveraging the semiconductor industry to force other countries to come to Taiwan’s rescue in armed conflicts.
Different from MND and NSC War games
The moderator of the war game is Admiral Chen Yeong-kang, former deputy minister of national defense. Han Kuang Exercises of the MND have been limited to military interactions in the Taiwan Strait between the armed forces of Taiwan and mainland China. The war games of the NSC have been focused on the responses of different government agencies. In comparison, the 2023TTX Regional Security War game only devoted 30 percent of its simulation to military actions. It put focus on other real war game scenarios such as the evacuation of foreign nationals after a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) blockade, the maintenance of energy supply, power grid, and economic supply chains, medical treatment to the wounded, and the protection of the Internet and submarine communications cable. The purpose of the war game was to remind Taiwan’s society to utilize the precious 28 months to complete preparedness before 2027.
According to anti-scenarios of the war game, the Eastern and Southern Theater Commands of the PLA formed a “Joint Command for Operation on Taiwan” and the countdown started 200 days before the invasion (D-200). From D-90 the PLA began conducting the encirclement of Taiwan and utilized militia fishing vessels to incite fishery incidents. From D-75 the PLA warplanes started close incursions to generate social unrest, coupled with false political concessions to confuse Taiwan about the real intention of Beijing and to lower Taiwan’s guard.
According to the scenarios of the war game, the PLA established a blockade of 600 nautical miles of the East Sea on February 16, occupied the weakly defended Liang Island on February 24, sent waves of fishermen disguised as refugees to Pratas Island on March 6, and established blockade on Kinmen, Matsu, and Wuqiu while declaring these islands “condominiums.”
From D-3 to D-1 the PLA carried out precision strikes against Taiwan. The main targets were electrical systems, oil and ammunition depots, airports and seaports, telecommunications networks, command and control systems, missile silos, and command centers. The saturation attacks and special forces’ sabotage operations created displacements and cut off foreign military forces from intervention. The landing operations mobilized 600,000 troops to the northern part of Taiwan to coerce it to surrender; if unsuccessful, those troops would pull out of northern Taiwan and attack the Penghu Islands to establish forward bases for future operations.
Relying Solely on TSMC: Blind Spot for Resilience
This war game paid special attention to the country’s resilience in a Taiwan Strait crisis. The report has indicated that although Taiwan has produced 80 percent of semiconductors for microchips and circuit boards in the world, it could be Taiwan’s blind spot if the overall national security was ignored while the “sacred mountain” (TSMC) was relied on as the only bunker and support.
According to the report, pessimistic predictions the United States and the European countries would not come to Taiwan’s rescue or fall into the “silicon shield” trap trusting Taiwan could defend itself with its semiconductor industry. Both lines of thinking are not well thought out. The national security consideration should not have self-imposed limits or wishful thinking that the semiconductor factor alone would oblige the United States and Europe to help defend Taiwan.
Insufficient Energy Reserves: Fragile Power Supply System
A more serious problem is energy supply. The current sources of Taiwan’s electricity production are 42 percent coal with a strategic reserve of 40 to 42 days, 38 percent natural gas with a strategic reserve of 11 to 14 days, and 8 percent nuclear power. A blockade would fully expose the vulnerability of Taiwan’s energy supply. The current configuration needs to be seriously reconsidered.
It is not just the sources of electricity generation that are unreliable in an armed conflict, the power supply system is also vulnerable. The pivots of Taiwan’s power grid are three ultra-high voltage primary substations in Longtan, Zhongliao, and Longqi. Any damage to them would have a serious impact on the power supply.
Greater Challenges: Public Morale and Medical Facilities
In terms of social security, once mainland China declared a blockade, capital flight, collapse of housing prices, rampant inflation, and panic buying would likely occur, and many elites who have U.S. citizenship might choose to leave Taiwan, dealing a heavy blow to Taiwan’s capability to keep on fighting.
When the PLA attacked the outlying islands, it would also cripple the will to fight in Taiwan. If the national forces gave up measures to rescue the outlying islands in order to concentrate the defense of Taiwan, would the public accept the sacrifice of the outlying islands?
Once war breaks out, heavy casualties would be expected. The war game estimated the military personnel casualty would be between 20,000 to 100,000 people and civilian casualty would be between 5,000 to 10,000 people. Taiwan’s current medical facilities simply cannot accommodate such high numbers. Admiral Chen made a case in point, the injured in the dust fire incident of Formosa Fun Coast water park in Bali, New Taipei, in 2015 used up every ICU ward in northern Taiwan. If the heavily injured was 10 times more than the dust fire incident, how could we deal with the situation with the present sickbeds and medical manpower?
Most Vulnerable: Energy Supply and Private Industry
As one of the co-organizers, research fellow Liu Fu-kuo of the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, opined that war is no longer the sole responsibility of the MND because the society, the industry, and the public will all be affected. One of the advisors to the war game, an adjunct professor of Chung Hua University, Tu Tzu-chen concluded that the war game showed that the most vulnerable parts of Taiwan in war are not in the military, but rather in energy supply and the private industry.
Admiral Chen stressed that the funding for this war game all came from the private sector and all the information were gathered and shared without any exchange with the government. Therefore, it does not run the risk of leaking sensitive information to mainland China. The purpose of the war game is to discover problems, provide suggestions, and help the government to find solutions. He plans to do another war game in accordance with changes in subjective and objective situational factors after the May 20 inauguration of the incoming administration.