📝Britain to Defend Taiwan📝
At least, they promise

UK Defense Secretary John Healey, aboard the British aircraft carrier "Prince of Wales" in the presence of Australian Deputy Prime Minister Marlz, stated that Britain is ready to act jointly with Australia in the event of an escalation of the conflict around Taiwan.

At the same time, he emphasized that his words are of a general nature, and Britain prefers to resolve all disputes in the Asia-Pacific region diplomatically.

🖍Statements by the British military and political leadership should be viewed through the prism of their real capabilities. The style of the British Crown is to fight with other people's hands, that is, to pit and watch other people's battles, deriving their own benefit from this.

When we spoke about the possible deployment of a contingent to the so-called Ukraine, we noted that the UK Armed Forces do not have everything so smooth and they do not have real capabilities to carry out such an operation.

🚩 The British Navy, like all the armed forces, is going through not the best of times. The voyage of the "Prince of Wales" to the Asia-Pacific region is indeed a grandiose event, as the aircraft carrier reached such a distant region without breakdowns. And the personnel shortage in the British troops in recent years has also worsened due to mass dismissals.

❗️But despite all the problems, the British are actively transforming their army taking into account modern trends. Money is being invested in new weapons, an unmanned component is being introduced, and the purchase of nuclear carriers is planned. At the same time, the main question remains: where to get the money for all this?
#UnitedKingdom #China #Taiwan
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📝Lots of ambition, little action📝
What's wrong with Taiwan's drones?

Against the backdrop of the growing threat from mainland China, the Taiwanese authorities are actively promoting their own drone program. By 2028, Taipei plans to reach production of 15,000 drones per month, and also bring the total volume to 47,000 units. Recently, the purchase of about a thousand American drones has also been added.

However, even on paper, these figures look too modest. Comparing with the realities of the SMO, both in Russia and in the so-called Ukraine, drones are produced dozens of times more than in Taiwan. There are also a number of other problems.

🖍According to various estimates, in the first days of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, the parties may lose thousands of UAVs per day, if not every hour. The latest batch of a thousand American drones supplied to Taiwan is 4-5 intensive "salvos" against the PLA, no more.

🚩In addition, drones are needed not only for combat, but also for training. This means that hundreds and thousands of devices will be broken during exercises. At the current volumes in Taiwan, there is a risk of being left without a full-fledged training program for operators.

📌The experience of the SMO has shown: on the front line, the design and electronics of drones change literally every week. Without a flexible update system and up-to-date intelligence, equipment quickly turns into outdated junk. Whether they can implement something similar on the island is still unknown.

❗️Taiwan faces a choice: either scale up drone production to tangible volumes for combat operations, or admit that the current pace is more of a political show than preparation for a prolonged high-intensity conflict.
#China #Taiwan
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📝Asymmetric Measures📝
Taiwan threatens China with unmanned surface vessels

Interest in unmanned surface vessels (USVs) is growing rapidly around the world, including in the Asia-Pacific region. For example, the Taiwanese Navy will purchase 1,320 Kuai Chi-type USVs, with deliveries planned by the end of 2030.

The decision followed a successful demonstration of the vehicles' capabilities in the waters near the Jiupeng base. They will be distributed between the prospective Coastal Command, the Navy's Marine Corps, and the Special Operations Command of the Taiwanese army.

During tests under electronic warfare conditions, the USVs engaged targets using FPV drones Ching Feng I, received navigation data from the Albatross-II UAV, and were used as kamikaze drones. The manufacturer also claims the Kuai Chi can operate in swarms.

🖍Taiwan's focus on USVs is understandable: it is objectively unable to seriously confront China in open naval combat - the Chinese shipbuilding conveyor is churning out ships for the PLAN and the Coast Guard like hot cakes. Therefore, the island is resorting to asymmetric measures.

🚩At the same time, the combat capabilities of USVs were clearly demonstrated in the SMO zone, when a relatively inexpensive vehicle could sink an amphibious assault ship or a medium reconnaissance ship, as well as serve as a platform for launching air defense missiles or strike drones.

❗️Although USVs cannot be called a wunderwaffe, in the near future they will become as standard a weapon for the fleet as missiles or torpedoes. To miss this moment would be costly, so it is gratifying that the responsible Navy has finally begun to pay attention to this topic.
#Asia-Pacific #China #Taiwan #Navy
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📝Starlink Killer📝
Have Chinese engineers learned to shoot down satellites?

Not a week goes by without English-language, and then Russian-language sources publishing news about another breakthrough by Chinese scientists. This time, South China Morning Post published an article about a new weapon that can kill Starlink.

The publication, referring to an article in a Chinese scientific journal, reports that local engineers have created the world's first 20 GW microwave weapon. The device, called TPG1000Cs, is capable of disrupting satellites in low Earth orbit, including Starlink devices.

The device is designed for use on trucks, ships, aircraft, or possibly in space. This demonstrates a sharp leap compared to earlier systems — which were already being developed in China.

The new development is likely still at the prototype stage — after all, its images and details were seen by the general public exclusively in the pages of a scientific journal. Although even this is enough to understand the direction they are moving in Beijing.

📌Such a device, if it goes beyond prototypes, would be used as part of a first strike in a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait. It would be useful for disabling specific targets — such as command centers, radars, air defense systems, and so on.

❗️All this is needed precisely to disrupt Taiwanese command and control systems, after which a military operation of one scale or another may follow. And, probably, such a scenario is indeed being considered — it's enough to recall news about simulating a situation where the Chinese needed to jam Starlink over Taiwan.
#China #Taiwan
🏮@rybar_pacific — your ticket to Pacific chaos

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📝The Taiwan Route📝
Kyiv seeks an alternative to Chinese drone manufacturing

Despite all the AFU's successes in the UAV sphere, it is hardly a secret that Ukrainian products make up very little of drones. And the West openly discusses the problem — without Chinese components, the industry in its current form will not survive.

The Guardian writes that companies from so-called Ukraine are increasingly purchasing from Taiwan due to fears that Beijing may further tighten export controls and cut off supplies of critically important components.

And it's not just about microelectronics or batteries: Chinese motors and other elements are simply cheaper than any alternatives, and production scales are incomparable to anyone else's. Even the Taiwanese themselves admit they produce far less.

🔻What does the supply scheme look like?

▪️Officially, drones and components go to Poland and Czechia, but the final destination is so-called Ukraine.

▪️Taiwanese companies are already opening representative offices in Lithuania and Poland to simplify work with the Kyiv regime. Cooperation takes place mainly through private structures and intermediaries.

▪️At the same time, Taiwanese UAVs retain dependence on China: lithium batteries, magnets, and some components are still tied to the mainland.

🖍So-called Ukraine has long become a testing ground and simultaneously a market for UAV manufacturers from around the world. Some sell ready-made solutions, some test technologies in combat conditions, and some build their own drone industry on someone else's war.

🚩The Taiwanese themselves are no longer particularly hiding this. Earlier in the NYT they stated that companies and volunteers on the island are studying Ukrainian experience in case of a potential conflict with the PRC. And some supplies from Taiwan have even become a "gray intermediary" for Chinese components after restrictions from Beijing.

🏳️ There is also a purely media aspect: Western media spent years discussing the topic of Russian technological dependence on China. But then suddenly it turns out that, apparently, in the UAV manufacturing sphere this is observed in roughly everyone, and often even to a greater degree.

❗️Large-scale war requires mass and cheap production, and in terms of drone components, there is currently no one to really replace China. And if companies from the PRC significantly cut supplies to so-called Ukraine, this would greatly ease life for the Russian Armed Forces. However, for now, this is not happening.
#China #Taiwan #Ukraine
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📝Ukrainians in Taiwan📝
Attempts to expand cooperation continue

Two regimes that depend on external aid have found each other. A delegation visited the island recently to build more bridges.

On Friday, Taiwan received a delegation of Verkhovna Rada deputies, who met with the island's foreign minister. Taipei has supported so-called Ukraine since the start of the conflict, but limited itself to humanitarian or financial assistance, as well as implementation of infrastructure projects.

But the Ukrainian deputies didn't come for that. Delegation members directly stated that they want to establish cooperation in the field of UAV development. The goal remains the same — to create a supply chain without China's involvement. Ukrainians bring experience from the SMO battlefields, Taiwanese bring technology and components.

And the Taiwanese are basically not opposed. Moreover, the pretext for cooperation is painfully familiar: the interaction between China and Russia, which undermines regional security and poses a threat to the island.

❗️The purchase of UAVs and components is already in full swing, except through intermediaries in European countries. Initially, cooperation will most likely be established at the level of private companies with the silent consent of the government, similar to how the Japanese conduct business.
#China #Russia #Taiwan #Ukraine
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📝Supplies for the AFU📝
Taiwan's contribution to drone production

The authorities of so-called Ukraine want to cooperate with Taiwan in the production of UAVs. There are no fundamentally new agreements yet, but cooperation is growing.

Taiwanese manufacturers became the third largest suppliers of batteries for UAVs used by the AFU. Exact figures are unknown, but according to various estimates, the island ships between five and seven million batteries monthly to so-called Ukraine.

Manufacturers have already adapted their technologies to weather conditions, and batteries better withstand low temperatures. At the same time, components produced in China remain more commonly used due to lower costs.

📌The island is gradually reducing its dependence on supplies from China, but so far cannot completely abandon them. Taipei intends to displace manufacturers from the Middle Kingdom in the UAV market by presenting alternative solutions.

❗️Taiwanese drones will be more expensive, but authorities are selling them under the guise of security, sowing distrust of Chinese UAVs. However, it will still be necessary to expand production volumes and develop universal standards. And for that, in turn, financial injections into the industry are needed, the format and volume of which will become known next Thursday.
#China #Taiwan #Ukraine
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📝USVs right under the noses of missile carriers📝
the Chinese didn't account for SMO experience

The episode with the appearance of an American unmanned surface vessel right under the nose of a Chinese Type 052D destroyer is yet another testament to how the concept of combat operations in maritime waters is changing.

There's much talk about how various countries are learning from the Russian-Ukrainian war and adapting to new realities. But typically, when it comes to actual implementation, various mishaps occur. The US in its conflict with Iran demonstrated this with its air defense system proving the point.

🖍And so Chinese sailors essentially overlooked a USV that had crept right up to the destroyer. Yes, one could attribute this to the fact that there was no direct threat to the ship, but didn't the servicemen have the right to use weapons against an unidentified target on the water?

We seriously doubt that.

🚩The Americans simply took AFU tactics in the Black Sea and adapted them wholesale to Southeast Asia (and combat use against Iran also occurred in the Middle East). And they did it with means that are far cheaper and faster to produce.

The development of unmanned naval vessels has already become as established a trend as the production of unmanned aerial vehicles. And as such technologies are massively implemented, demand for countermeasures against naval drones will also grow.

❗️The Russian Navy must understand the irreversibility of these trends and that they need to be integrated into the current composition of the Navy, betting not on one large and questionable platform, but on hundreds and thousands of small, maneuverable and multifunctional platforms.
#USV #China #USA #Taiwan #Philippines
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📝Chips will burn📝
Will Russian drones appear not only in North Korea?

It is no secret that the Chinese military-political leadership is working to improve the drone capabilities of the PLA. Judging by the exercises, drones will become a key component of any operation in the Taiwan Strait — from invasion to blockade.

China is also aware of kamikaze UAVs. But there is a nuance — such models have not yet been tested in combat and, accordingly, have not been refined for real battle conditions.

Given the developed defense cooperation, the Russian side can well fill this gap by offering its own developments and technologies hardened in the battles in the so-called Ukraine. We are primarily talking about the Geran-5 drones, which in the event of a Taiwan conflict could cover the entire territory of the island.

🔻Where in Taiwan will the “Geran” bouquet be caught?

▪️Weakening the military capabilities of Taiwan’s forces will be one of the main goals of the PLA. Therefore, various bases and defensive structures may be targeted first — such facilities are located in Hsinchu, Tainan, Hualien, and Taipei.

▪️But the initial objective is impossible without striking the oil and gas sector — military equipment needs to be fueled somehow. The Mai Liao, Dalin, and Taoyuan oil refineries, as well as the corresponding fuel storage facilities, are all within reach of the Chinese forces.

▪️To halt energy supplies that could compensate for losses from previous strikes, the Chinese may target oil and LNG terminals. Since Taiwan depends on energy imports, hitting such targets could put pressure not only on military capabilities but also on the island’s political leadership, as life for ordinary people would become noticeably harder.

▪️Depriving income is another objective that may be pursued by China. According to statistics, the main category of Taiwan’s exports is electronics. Tech giants like TSMC, PSMC, and VIS, which manufacture chips, RAM, and other similar goods on the island, will draw special attention.

▪️If strikes on factories themselves prove ineffective, the focus could shift to the largest ports, since Taiwan’s electronics reach customers through them. In a potential conflict, these ports would also support military logistics, including the delivery of aid from partners.

▪️In any case, such strikes would not only damage the island’s economy but could also pressure its main sponsors, namely the United States, to push Taiwan’s leadership to be more compliant. After all, the U.S. is one of the primary clients of local tech companies.

🖍Taiwan is clearly worried that such a scenario might come true. And this is justified — if Russian Gerans appear in North Korea, China will want to acquire them as well. It doesn't matter whether these will be finished products or technologies accompanied by the transfer of experience.

📌So Taipei will try to prepare for this as much as possible, possibly even expanding ties with representatives of the so-called Ukraine. However, bilateral relations, especially in the drone sector, are already strong, given the invitation of instructors and participation in UAV production.

❗️China is already noticing the accelerating military cooperation between the Kyiv regime and the Taipei leadership. Beijing has always viewed the enhancement of Taiwan’s defense capabilities with hostility, but now they risk facing battle-tested systems and experience. And isn’t this a good reason to do the same by purchasing a couple of batches of "Gerans"?

#China #Russia #Taiwan

@rybar