Taiwan

Taiwan or the Republic of China located in southeast Asia, with mainland China to the west, and the Philippines and the south China sea to the south. The first settlers of the island arrived in the 16th century. During the end of World War II China was in the mist of a civil war between the communist party and the nationalist party. The nationalists lost the war and fled to the the Island of Taiwan. Since then relations between these two governments have been complicated. Taiwan is not recognized as a sovereign state, but still acts like one, while China considers Taiwan a province of China. In the early 2010’s Taiwan faced threats from an invasion of China, but relationships have been improving in the past two years. Taiwan is a force to be reckoned with, as it is one of the strongest economies in all of Asia, ranging mostly of technology Taiwan is a giant in electronics and their influence over the global market seems to only be increasing.

Taiwan’s greatest objective is to obtain sovereignty from mainland China. They have received many threats of invasion and have made sure to prepare for any hostility. Taiwan presently has no nuclear weapons, but is in possession of an abundant supply of nuclear fissile material. Although historically, they have have had nuclear programs to obtain these weapons. Taiwan has six nuclear reactors and has plans to open up two more, showing that they are more than capable of creating such weapons. Taiwan has chemical and biological weapons for defensive purposes, but has stated many times that they have no intention of gaining offensive capabilities. Taiwan, does have a short range- missile program based in Taipei. Considering the mainland Chinese threat, it has been wise for Taiwan to invest in its conventional weapons. Any other types of weapons would give the mainland an excuse to invade.

Treaties signed:

Biological weapons convention

Seabed Arms Control treaty

It cannot be formally part of the NPT, BTWC, CWC, MTCR, but still adheres to their regulations.

These treaties have shown that Taiwan is willing to become a sovereign state. Although Taiwan has shown they are willing to take advantage of their of status of not being a state to find loopholes in these treaties. Considering they have some of the weapons above, for security reasons. This creates a complicated situation where Taiwan is going to have to trust its allies for protection if an invasion were to come from China.

By far the largest seller of weapons to Taiwan is the U.S. Recently they have settled on a $330 million deal on that would supply Taipei with new advanced aircraft. This was after another $1.2  billion deal of various arms ranging from small arms to tanks. All these actions have infuriated Beijing and are being called a violation of Chinese sovereignty by the U.S. Even though Washington has no diplomatic ties with Taipei, they still retain strong economic and military alliances. This all in counts making tensions with mainland China even more unpredictable for Taiwan. Although these deals have been slow to finalize, giving more time for the Chinese military to improve its military, an advantage that Taiwan has for now. Taiwan also has a formidable weapons industry, as it is constructing new submarines (Considered far superior to the Chinese military’s) to deter any impending Chinese ships for invasion.

Taiwan does not sell weapons to other states.

Taiwan falls in the advanced weapons category.  They possess Biological, chemical, and small arms. They also have capabilities of acquiring nuclear, and radio-logical/radioactive weapons.

The greatest threat Taiwan faces at the moment is invasion from mainland China. In addition, there have been reports that Beijing currently has 2000 missiles pointing directly in various targets all over the island of Taiwan. This leaves Taiwan with no choice but, to increase their arsenal of ABMs in defense of such a retaliation. This could escalate to a future agreement that would ban ballistic missiles in East Asia, if both of the parties are set in an arms race. In addition, if Taiwan were to use its defensive CBWs the tensions will escalate to a full-scale war. It is not clear if the alliance with the U.S. can be relied upon, but any sign of hostility from the mainland could create a conflict between the U.S. and China, despite advice on the U.S. not become involved in this conflict.

So far no treaties are being violated, since China is a recognized nuclear power. Although, Taiwan is not officially a member of any conventions and could go on to create their own WMDs. It is not clear if what will be the future coarse of action, but major action committed by both parties could seriously alter all of East Asia. All options are possible since Taiwan is capable of creating any of the above mentioned weapons.

Citations:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tw.html

https://www.nti.org/learn/countries/taiwan/

https://www.ft.com/content/43a80396-c05c-11e8-95b1-d36dfef1b89a