{"id":3772,"date":"2025-07-31T05:45:53","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/china-is-preparing-to-invade-taiwan-but-there-are-questions-over-whether-the-island-is-ready\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T05:45:53","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T05:45:53","slug":"china-is-preparing-to-invade-taiwan-but-there-are-questions-over-whether-the-island-is-ready","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/china-is-preparing-to-invade-taiwan-but-there-are-questions-over-whether-the-island-is-ready\/","title":{"rendered":"‘China is preparing to invade Taiwan’ – but there are questions over whether the island is ready"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At a critical port on the Taiwanese island of Penghu, there is a sudden bang of explosions.<\/p>\n

For emergency crews, it is a race to respond, attend to the injured and contain what damage they can. It is noisy and chaotic.<\/p>\n

But this time, it is just a rehearsal.<\/p>\n

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News :<\/span><div>12 weeks' jail for school IT support technician who took upskirt videos of teachers<\/div><\/span><\/a><\/div>

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Is Taiwan ready for Chinese invasion?<\/span>
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In fact, what we have been invited to watch is part of a programme of nationwide drills to test Taiwan’s civil resilience.<\/p>\n

To ask, in essence, if its people are ready for war.<\/p>\n

And there are clearly questions here about whether they are.<\/p>\n

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Penghu is an archipelago that sits about 31 miles (50km) west of Taiwan’s main island. It could be an early, easy target for China – and that means preparation here is vital.<\/p>\n

News :<\/span>Migrant acquitted in first trial over US border military zones<\/span><\/a><\/div>

But observers who have travelled from Taipei to assess proceedings are not entirely impressed.<\/p>\n

“Do you think with just the staff here now it will be enough?” asks one senior government official at a community hall where about a dozen staff are practising handing out food and supplies.<\/p>\n

“Of course not! There will be more than 7,000 people queuing up. They’ll wait from morning until the afternoon and get nothing. It’s completely impossible.”<\/p>\n

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‘China is preparing to invade’<\/strong><\/p>\n

The scenarios might be imagined, but the threat behind them is very real, and it’s being met with a new sense of urgency.<\/p>\n

And now, in an interview with Sky News, Taiwan’s deputy foreign minister Wu Chihchung lays out the reality in perhaps some of the starkest terms used by this administration to date.<\/p>\n

“The population need to not be naive like in the past,” he says.<\/p>\n

“China is preparing to invade Taiwan.”<\/p>\n

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It comes at a time when increasingly sophisticated military activity and grey zone incursions from China have combined with a more robust approach from Taiwan’s new president Lai Ching-te, resulting in the most febrile atmosphere in the Taiwan Strait for decades.<\/p>\n

Add into the mix Donald Trump’s presidency casting doubt over whether Taiwan can rely on US support in the event of a crisis, and questions about Taiwan’s readiness feel more pressing now than ever before.<\/p>\n

“Taiwan alone, facing China – we will never be ready,” concedes Wu. “It’s not possible, China is so big, so huge.”<\/p>\n

His words reflect harsh realities in Taiwan.<\/p>\n

Self-governing and democratic, it is viewed by China as a breakaway province.<\/p>\n

Under President Xi Jinping, the long-held aim of reunification has been turbocharged – he has reportedly asked his troops to be ready for a potential invasion as early as 2027.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s new president is seen as a deeply provocative figure on the mainland, with Beijing depicting him in propaganda as a parasite “courting ultimate destruction”.<\/p>\n

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In Lai Ching-te’s first year in office, he has demonstrated a willingness to go further in both words and policies than any who have preceded him.<\/p>\n

He has not only described China as “a foreign hostile force” but has introduced a raft of new security measures, including the reinstating of a military court-style system, the deportation of pro-China influencers and a spike in the number of people arrested for espionage – four times as many last year as in 2021.<\/p>\n

And all this has not gone unnoticed by China.<\/p>\n

China’s grey zone tactics<\/strong><\/p>\n

The 14 months since Lai’s inauguration have been marked by an increase in Chinese action: numerous large-scale military drills, live-fire exercises and full encirclement of the island by jets and ships.<\/p>\n

Beijing also appears to have been testing new capabilities, with onlookers in China taking videos of what appeared to be a test of a huge amphibious bridging system, a possible path on to Taiwan.<\/p>\n

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