Here’s what Taiwan intelligence thinks about the Chinese threat
What the director general of the NSB of Taiwan, Tsai Ming-yen, told Bloomberg and beyond.
Tsai Ming-yen, director general of Taiwan's National Security Bureau (NSB), spoke to an audience of graduate students at Taiwan's National Chung Hsing University in Taichung City on Thursday. According to reports, it was the first time in a quarter of a century that an NSB director general had addressed a university audience.
In addition to his speech at Chung Hsing University, Director General Tsai, a former deputy foreign minister and diplomat, gave a rare interview to Bloomberg news agency. He declined to comment on the timing of a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Ma singled out the year 2027 as significant for Chinese Premier Xi Jinping's plans to modernize the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
CHINA'S MILITARY MODERNIZATION PLAN
The Chinese leader first introduced his "PLA Modernization 2035" plan in 2017, describing it as a government-wide effort to significantly improve the PLA's combat capabilities as a step towards achieving China's long-term goal to become a major global military power. Tsai stressed that the year 2027 will be the 10-year mark of President Xi's 18-year military reform program. Furthermore, Xi will most likely campaign for a fourth presidential term that year, Tsai said.
TSAI'S THOUGHTS ON THE FUTURE OF TAIWAN
In her interview with Bloomberg , Tsai said President Xi "doesn't allow for any kind of different voice in China's political system." In essence, then, the Chinese leader has surrounded himself with "a clique of like-minded officials".
This ensuing "groupthink" means that "the risk of making a wrong decision" on pressing issues such as Taiwan "will become much higher" in the coming years, he warned. To counter this threat and monitor China's military intentions, Tsai said Taiwan is systematically deepening its real-time cooperation with its "international friends", especially with the so-called "Five Eyes" alliance, an intelligence-sharing coalition. intelligence composed of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
THE CONCERNS FOR TSMC
Let's not forget that US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd ( TSMC ) would be a major cause for concern in a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan. The United States and other countries rely overwhelmingly on TSMC's manufacturing output for semiconductor use in civilian and military hardware. If a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan prevents TSMC from manufacturing those semiconductors, the resulting impact on the global economy would be "huge," perhaps in the vicinity of "between $600 billion and $1 trillion on an annual basis for the first few years." Haines said.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/taiwan-intelligence/ on Fri, 05 May 2023 08:05:04 +0000.