Taiwan Expands Anti-Ship Missile Arsenal to Counter Chinese Invasion Threat
Taiwan's Missile Strategy and Growing Arsenal
By David Lague and Yimou Lee
TAIPEI, June 4 (Reuters) - Taiwan will sharply increase its arsenal of powerful anti-ship missiles to more than 1,800 by early 2029, as it seeks to enhance its capacity to counter a mounting threat of blockade or invasion by China, according to a Reuters calculation.
Asymmetric Defense Strategy
This expanding arsenal of weapons that can be fired from aircraft, ships and ground-based launchers is part of Taiwan’s shift towards a so-called asymmetric strategy, where the island’s defenders seek to offset China’s massive advantage in firepower with big numbers of affordable but deadly weapons. These also include shorter-range missiles and swarms of surface and aerial drones, say current and former Taiwan military officers.
Taiwan, these officers say, aims to build a resilient force designed to survive an opening Chinese air-and-missile bombardment and emerge in a position to strike an invasion fleet or ships blockading the island. The officers point to the success of Ukraine and Iran in using missiles and drones to level the playing field in battling more powerful adversaries.
Estimating Taiwan's Missile Inventory
The Reuters calculation of Taiwan’s growing anti-ship missile arsenal is based on arms trade data, U.S. export approval documents, estimates from defense analysts, and interviews with Taiwanese government officials.
Additional precision missiles with sufficient range to attack Chinese vessels in the Taiwan Strait or forces at embarkation ports on China’s coast, are also in the pipeline after Taiwan’s opposition-controlled parliament approved an extra $25 billion in defense spending for U.S. munitions last month.
Key Missile Systems and Kill Zone Strategy
The spearhead of Taiwan’s anti-ship arsenal is made up of U.S.-supplied Harpoon missiles and domestically produced Hsiung Feng missiles. A big force of these weapons would allow Taiwan to set up a “kill zone” in the Taiwan Strait, an area where concentrated firepower would inflict heavy losses in a bid to defeat a Chinese invasion, said Ou Si-fu, deputy chief executive officer for research at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, Taiwan’s top military think tank.
“Our goal is to stop them from landing and completing their mission, not to destroy every PLA ship,” Ou told Reuters, referring to the People’s Liberation Army, China’s military.
Expert Opinions on Missile Investment
Investing in anti-ship missiles is a sensible move, said Grant Newsham, a retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and researcher at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies.
If you’re China, “one thing you’d not want to deal with are long-range precision weapons that can crack your ships in half before they even set out across the Taiwan Strait, or at any point between the Chinese mainland” and Taiwan’s shores, Newsham said. “Employed properly and with adequate numbers, these missiles are a huge problem for a Chinese invasion force.”
China's Invasion Capabilities and Taiwan's Response
To mount an invasion across the Taiwan Strait, China would need to deploy an armada of warships and civilian transports, according to military experts. China has the world’s biggest navy and a massive merchant fleet.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a statement that anti-ship missiles “can establish a powerful maritime strike capability and degrade the enemy’s combat effectiveness. Details regarding their deployment involve military security and are not disclosed.”
China’s defense ministry and Taiwan Affairs Office didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon had no comment on Taiwan’s specific capabilities, delivery timelines, or potential future security assistance packages, an official said in response to questions from Reuters. The White House didn’t respond to questions for this story.
U.S. Arms Sales and Diplomatic Tensions
As part of efforts to further boost its defenses, Taiwan is seeking U.S. President Donald Trump's approval for an arms sale package now in the pipeline worth up to $14 billion. Trump said last month he would soon decide on the sale after holding talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. During their talks, Xi warned Trump that mishandling Taiwan could lead to conflict between the two superpowers.
Beijing, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control. Taiwan rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.
Learning from Ukraine and Iran
Lessons from Recent Conflicts
Ou and other military experts point to Ukraine’s success in attacking Russian warships and transports with missiles and surface drones in the Black Sea as evidence that this strategy could be effective for Taiwan in resisting a Chinese invasion or blockade. Iran’s continuing ability to attack shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and strike other regional targets despite more than a month of massive U.S. and Israeli air-and-missile strikes demonstrated how a weaker power could retain the capacity to fight back, they said.
Advantages of Mobile Missile Launchers
Proponents of this type of warfare argue that anti-ship missiles, particularly mounted on ground-based, mobile launchers, could be dispersed and concealed around Taiwan. This would make it more difficult for the PLA to detect and destroy them in the initial waves of an attack.
Challenges with Fixed Missile Positions
One problem: Many of the island’s anti-ship missiles are still deployed on warships and at fixed ground installations where they are vulnerable to pre-emptive strikes, said Yuster Yu, a retired Taiwanese naval officer who served on Taiwan’s National Security Council. “And, the Chinese know where they are,” he said.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said existing anti-ship missiles were “deployed in a mobile and dispersed manner to preserve combat effectiveness.” Missiles in fixed positions, it said, were “equipped with protective and backup mechanisms and can be converted to mobile configurations as needed to enhance battlefield survivability.”
Secrecy Around Arsenal Size
While Taiwan’s military doesn’t disclose the size of its weapons invent
