▲ Taiwan's ballistic and cruise missile status
Taiwan is reportedly developing a supersonic cruise missile capable of directly striking Beijing, China's capital, in the event of a contingency.
According to Taiwanese media outlets such as the Liberty Times and United Daily News on September 4, an anonymous Taiwanese military official said the previous day that following the operational deployment of the first-generation "Chingtian-1" supersonic cruise missile, the military is now developing the second-generation "Chingtian-2" missile.
The official explained that the Chingtian-1 missile, equipped with a ramjet engine and boasting an effective range of 1,200 to 1,500 km capable of striking military facilities in central and eastern China at Mach 3 (3,675 km/h), has been operationally deployed to a special missile brigade under the Air Force.
The missile was developed by Taiwan's state-run defense research institute, the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST).
The official emphasized that NCSIST is also researching and testing the Chingtian-2 missile, dubbed a "game changer," rather than a simple upgrade.
It is capable of neutralizing enemy missile defense systems with hypersonic speeds (Mach 6 to 8), and its range reaches 2,000 km.
The Taiwan Air Force Air Defense Missile Command, located in Qishan District, Kaohsiung in the south, is known as one of the Taiwan military's four major wartime command posts, alongside Taipei's Hengshan Command Post (a military bunker where the military leadership commands the three branches of service in the event of war), Dahan Command Post of the Army Headquarters in Taoyuan, and the Air Force Operations Command's Joint Air Operations Center (JAOC) at Mount Chanzhu in Taipei.
The Air Defense Missile Command has an air defense missile operations control center and five missile brigades under its command.
Among them, four brigades operate U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air defense missiles and Tien-Kung air defense missiles, while the remaining brigade is organized as a special missile brigade (791st Brigade) operating "long-range strike tactical missiles" for counter-attacks against Chinese aggression.
Tasked with strategic depth strikes and the operation of asymmetric warfare weapons, the special missile brigade is equipped with four types of domestically produced missiles: the Hsiung Feng IIE, the Hsiung Sheng cruise missile (an upgraded version of the Hsiung Feng IIE capable of attacking China's Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest dam, in an emergency), the Chingtian-1, and the Tien-Kung 2B short-range surface-to-surface missile with a range of 500 km, securing deterrence against a Chinese armed invasion.
The Tien-Kung 2B missile is an upgraded version of the Tien-Kung 2S short-range tactical surface-to-surface missile, which was produced and deployed under an emergency order by ROC Armed Forces Chief of the General Staff Lo Pen-li during the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995–1996.
The source stated that the special missile brigade operates the "Fengchun ground-attack missile," a long-range precision strike weapon referred to as Taiwan's version of the AGM-158 missile capable of attacking underground bunkers, as well as the domestically produced Chien Hsiang kamikaze drone.
Last month, Taiwan's Executive Yuan finalized next year's defense budget at a record-high 1.1225 trillion New Taiwan dollars (approximately 48.7 trillion won).
Specifically, the Ministry of National Defense budget allocated 259.1 billion New Taiwan dollars for military investment, an increase of 97.5 billion New Taiwan dollars from this year; 224.7 billion New Taiwan dollars for operating and maintenance costs such as ammunition and spare parts procurement, up 25.7 billion New Taiwan dollars; and 208.1 billion New Taiwan dollars for personnel retention costs driven by the gradual increase in volunteer soldiers, an increase of 7.3 billion New Taiwan dollars.
(Photo: Captured from the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Facebook page, Yonhap News)
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