China developing 'credible military options' to confront Taiwan

China is developing a variety of "credible military options" to prevent Taiwan from achieving independence, including tools to discourage the United States from coming to the island's aid in a conflict with the mainland, the US Department of Defence warned in a new report.
Cross-strait tensions have waxed and waned since 2000, when independence-leaning politician Chen Shui-bian became Taiwanese president.
They have been fuelled lately by Chen's plans to revise the island's constitution, which have been characterised by some analysts in mainland China as a backhanded attempt to introduce a timeline for achieving Taiwan's independence.
According to the Pentagon survey, Chinese political leaders as well as commanders of the People's Liberation Army do not remain idle in the face of these challenges.
"The PLA's offensive capabilities improve each year and provide Beijing with an increasing number of credible options to intimidate and actually attack Taiwan," the department said in its annual report on China's military might sent to Congress at the end of the week.
Beijing's arsenal arrayed against Taiwan includes approximately 500 short-range ballistic missiles deployed in the Nanjing military region.
If equipped with adequate guidance systems, these missiles could destroy key Taiwanese leadership facilities, military bases and communication and transportation nodes with minimal advanced warning, Pentagon analysts point out.
Some of these weapons are believed to be capable of hitting US military bases in Okinawa, Japan. Taiwan still maintains a qualitative edge over the mainland in air power, boasting three times as many modern so-called "fourth-generation" fighter jets as China.
But Beijing is working hard to close the gap. China's air force now has nearly 3,400 aircraft, and its share of fourth-generation planes, mainly Su-27 and Su-30 fighter-bombers purchased from Russian, is increasing steadily, the report pointed out.
"Over the next several years, given current trends, China most likely will be able to cause significant damage to all of Taiwan's airfields and quickly degrade Taiwan's ground-based air defences and associated command and control," the document warned.