Analyst: Taiwan needs U.S. help to fend off China

The day Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping decides the People's Liberation Army (PLA) can win a war to conquer Taiwan, "that is when his war will begin," a China analyst noted.

"To ensure that Xi never gains that confidence it is now necessary for the United States to shed any notions of 'forbearance' in arms sales to Taiwan," Richard Fisher, a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center and contributing editor for Geostrategy-Direct.com, wrote in a March 1 analysis for the Taipei Times.

Recognizing the PLA’s mounting regional military threat, President Donald Trump "took the hard decisions to sell 66 new F-16s to Taiwan and in late 2020 to sell nearly 600 missiles to Taiwan, including for the first time 64 Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) 300km range short-range ballistic missiles," Fisher noted.

"But this should be viewed as a beginning, not as a new benchmark that must wait 4-8 years for re-evaluation by a successor administration," Fisher wrote. "Six hundred missiles, most subsonic speed anti-ship cruise missiles, will help deter a PLA invasion attempt. But they will not decisively defeat one. The U.S. must exceed the sales record of the Trump administration if it is to decisively deter Xi Jinping."

Fisher noted some options to consider:

First, the U.S. and Taiwan should cooperate in building up a stockpile of U.S.-built weapons that will better help Taiwan to defeat an initial invasion or blockade attempt. The U.S. should sell Taiwan a much larger number of AIM-120 self-guided air-to-air missiles (AAM), more ATACMS ballistic missiles, PATRIOT missile-defense missiles, and soldier-launched JAVELIN anti-armor missiles.