Battlefield Taiwan

Whose Side Are You On?

President Hung glared at General Sheng, her Air Force Commanding General. “Are you working with mainlanders, General?” she asked, her voice dripping with hostility and contempt.

General Sheng, for his part, looked appalled at the mere mention of such an accusation. “My force is doing its best to defend this country, Madam President. Perhaps if your government had not cut our funding so severely, we’d have the aircraft, pilots, and equipment needed to properly defend ourselves against a much larger force,” he shot back. Since she had come into power nearly fifteen months ago, President Hung had done what she could to cut the defense budget, shifting that money to education and other social programs; this had not grown any love between her and her senior military leaders.

Minister Feng interrupted the two parties. “Enough. None of this arguing is going to change what has happened. We need to figure out if we are going to be able to stop the invasion.”

He turned and looked to the General of the Army and asked, “What is the status of the beaches?”

General Wong, who had been reading something on his tablet, snapped to attention and turn to address the group. “Our forces held the PLA invasion force at the beach for nearly an hour. In some areas they held out for much longer, but overall, we have not been able to stop the PLA from overrunning our positions and establishing multiple beachheads. They have also secured a couple of ports, although we have some underwater divers that will start to sink the transport ships they try to bring in. I have ordered our reserve forces to move forward and attempt to push the PLA ground forces back to the beaches, but unless my guys can get some sort of air support or air defense, our armored units are going to get wiped out.”

General Sheng bristled at that last comment. “I cannot guarantee any sort of air support for your forces,” he replied. “Just prior to the attack, our advanced warning radar systems came under a sustained cyber-attack. We did not know the mainlanders had launched a cruise missile attack against us until we spotted the missiles as they flew over the island. By then, it was too late to react. Most of our aircraft were caught on the ground. The ones that were in the air were quickly shot down by the sheer number of enemy aircraft being thrown at us. The few remaining aircraft we have left are trying to protect specific areas where we have the strongest air defense systems.”

Sighing softly, President Hung was almost in despair as she tried to calculate the next move. The American delegation had already told them the US would not be able to come to their aid should China invade.

“What are our options, generals?” she asked.

General Wang was the first to speak up. “Right now, our options are limited. We cannot hold the beaches, so we are falling back to our second and third lines of defense. We are going to make the PLA pay in blood for every kilometer of ground they take. At some point, we are going to start losing the major cities, and the island is going to get cut in half. At that point, the focus of our defensive effort will shift to the countryside, where we will try to bleed the enemy dry by carrying out insurgency operations. The bigger question is, at what point do we try to evacuate you, Madam President, and the civilian government to set up a government in exile someplace safe?” Wong replied solemnly.

They might only be in the opening hours of the war, but things were happening rapidly, and at some point, it would become impossible to evacuate the civilian government. President Hung lowered her head. This was not the response she had hoped for.