If China ever makes good on decades of implicit threats to invade Taiwan, most of its ground force will have to land at ports. Relatively little of it can come over beaches, because they ‘lack purpose-built infrastructure for unloading large transports, and because they are inherently exposed positions,’ Ian Easton noted in a 2021 study for the Project 2049 Institute in Virginia.
Even the advent of China’s new elevated beach landing barges—bespoke pieces of equipment that surprised many observers when they appeared in March—may not significantly improve China’s capacity to unload at Taiwan’s 14 suitable beaches. As ASPI’s Erik Davis wrote last year, almost all are ‘overlooked by terrain that would turn the unloading zones into kill zones.’
Easton says, ‘The success or failure of a future invasion of Taiwan would likely hinge on whether or not Chinese amphibious landing forces are able to seize, hold and exploit the island’s large port facilities.’
Defending the most important ports from a large-scale assault from the sea—there are five ports that Easton concluded are top targets—should be the Taiwanese defence ministry’s main priority. And the most effective weapon for this defence should be obvious.
Mines.
Inexpensive, hard to detect and clear and just as capable of deterring an attack as defeating one, sea mines should be Taiwan’s first maritime line of defence. But it’s not clear Taiwanese leaders appreciate this.
Just a handful of mine strikes could sink enough large transports, and drown enough Chinese sailors and soldiers, to blunt an attack. But the Taiwanese navy simply has too few minelayers to quickly lay minefields outside each targeted port—and to refresh those minefields once they’ve been seeded. Especially considering that Chinese forces will undoubtedly target the minelayers once hostilities commence.
The waters around Taiwan are ideal for mines, said Chris O’Flaherty, a retired Royal Navy captain with deep experience in mine warfare. ‘The conditions of Taiwan are much less conducive to [mine countermeasures] than most areas of the world,’ he explained. There’s ‘a lot of rock, and a lot of fast currents, thus MCM [mine clearing] will be slow.’ And Taiwanese anti-ship missile batteries could complicate
