Taiwan's Military Responds To Natural Disasters In Typhoon Season. What Will It Do In Time Of War?
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One of the most important factors in any major conflict over the political fate of Taiwan, including the feasibility and prospects for success of a Chinese amphibious invasion of the island of Taiwan, will be the intensity and effects of Taiwan’s annual typhoon season. Taiwan is regularly affected by typhoons from May through November. This results in widespread flooding and landslides, particularly along the island country’s mountainous eastern coastline and its mountainous interior. It also affects the flow of rivers along the country’s western coastal plain, which directs the torrent of water that falls on the mountains and the island more generally into the Taiwan Strait. This not only affects the prospects for a Chinese amphibious invasion but also leaves Taiwan heavily reliant on the structural integrity of a large but nevertheless finite number of bridges that China may, of course, purposefully target in times of crisis and war.
Taiwan’s annual typhoon season has many oft-overlooked military implications. This brief post only broaches one of the implications: an armed crisis, let alone a major war, will affect the Taiwanese military’s ability to participate in natural disaster response efforts in multiple respects. War will, of course, also degrade the capacity of the Taiwanese state’s civilian organs, private industry, and everyday civilians to respond to landslides, the (naturally-caused) destruction of transportation infrastructure, and so forth. As a result, even a typhoon season of average intensity is likely to result in a weakened Taiwan in times of crisis and war.
The net military effects of Taiwan’s regular typhoon season will, of course, ultimately depend on not only the intensity and physical destruction wrought by typhoons but also the timing of a major armed crisis, let alone a war, with China. By definition, any protracted war may result in Taiwan being subject to multiple typhoons, each of which will, if nothing else, degrade the logistical infrastructure that connects the island country’s increasingly militarily important eastern coastline to the rest of the island. Throw in deliberate Chinese attacks on specific nodes of transportation infrastructure, including whatever remains intact following a typhoon, and the interplay of natural disasters and Chinese munitions may heavily affect the course of a cross-strait conflict. This includes Taipei’s ability to implement its civil defence plans, a dynamic that may come to shape any deliberations to surrender to Beijing with or without a successful Chinese amphibious invasion attempt.
