TAIPEI—China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is deploying anti-ship YJ-62A missiles along its southeast coast, with a range that can cover the entire area of Taiwan.
Taiwan’s United Daily News reported Monday that China’s guided missile deployment will be completed soon, as verified by reliable military intelligence sources. With a range of more than 400 kilometers (250 miles), this cutting edge weapon will put Taiwan and nearby sea lines of communication in their ambit.
Lisa Chi, spokeswoman for the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, said that Minister Chen Chao-min issued a statement on Monday that the military was monitoring this advanced deployment.
As early as 2006, Taiwan noted the PLA’s development of the YJ-62A missiles in its national security report. The first photos of YJ-62A missiles sitting on a launch vehicle have recently been revealed on a military Web site in China. The missiles installed on mobile launching vehicles have been widely deployed along China’s southeast coast, covering an area as far north as the border between Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, and Shantou to the south.
Eric Shih, editor of Taiwan’s Defense International magazine, said that the PLA’s gearing up of YJ-62A missiles “can increase the country’s military strength in the area, forming a strategic deterrent, but whether it can truly frighten their targets is still an important issue. At least for now, the increasing deployment of these missiles will exert a certain degree of pressure on Taiwan’s defense.”
‘Aircraft carrier killers’
Shih also points out that if the United States supports Taiwan with aircraft carriers if there is an outbreak of military tension in the Taiwan Strait, the YJ-62A missiles—also known as “aircraft carrier killers”—will become an important weapon in the PLA’s strategy.
Sun Kauo-hwa, national security consultant of the Taiwan National Policy Foundation, also believes that mainland China is mainly targeting U.S. aircraft carriers, rather than Taiwan. “There are quadrangular relations between the United States, China, Taiwan and Japan in the Pacific,” Sun said, “the biggest target for mainland China’s naval deployment in the Pacific is the U.S. Pacific Fleet, especially their aircraft carrier battle group.”
Shih added that although cross-straits relations have been easing, mainland China is not backing down on its military threat toward Taiwan. “If China takes hard-line measures to block Taiwan’s sea area, it may attract strong intervention from neighboring countries, but the Taiwan military must still take corresponding measures to strengthen its defense,” he said.
