China tested three amphibious barges with a long ramp-like structure capable of transporting heavy military equipment across treacherous landing sites. This asset would prove critical in a Taiwan invasion scenario.
In November of last year, satellite imagery suggested that the PRC was constructing up to seven amphibious transport barges at the Guangzhou Shipyard International (GSI), a shipyard known for its work with the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to produce unorthodox vessels.
The new technology does not necessarily indicate imminent plans of invasion; however, this successful test significantly changes the playing field for Taiwan, which has traditionally centered its defense strategy on its topographic advantages.
To address this development, Taiwan will likely need to alter its defense strategy and enact policies to lessen its reliance on Chinese shipyards that produce these ships.
Specs of the Shuiqiao ?
Analysts dub these vessels Shuiqiao, or “water bridge,” Landing Platform Utility (LPU) barges. They appear to come in different varieties. They are 110 meters, 135 meters, and 185 meters long and have movable support beams for security in turbulent weather or shallow water.
The ships are all suited to dock with China’s commercial Roll-On/Roll-Off (RORO) ferries, which serve as dual-use ships capable of transporting military vehicles. Additionally, each features an extendable120-meter transport ramp large enough to support and rapidly transport heavy military equipment like tanks.
These ramps are long enough to link up with and allow People’s Liberation Army (PLA) vehicles access to Taiwan’s numerous coastal highways, some of which are only thirty kilometers from the capital city of Taipei, without touching the beach.
On March 9, three ships departed the shipyard for Zhenjiang Beach in southern China. More specifically, Zhenjiang Beach is near the PLA’s Southern Theater Command headquarters, which oversees operations against Taiwan. The capabilities of these crafts were displayed in a nineteen-second clip showing barges rehearsing military landing operations.
While the PRC has built similar commercial vessels for the past decade, the Shuiqiao barges appear to have been built to military specifications. They do not have typical civilian paint coloration and lack automatic identification systems (AIS), which prevent them from being tracked.
This is the first appearance of such a vessel since satellite imagery spotted what looked like a smaller prototype back in 2022.
The Ominous Aura of the Shuiqiao
According to Jason Wang, chief executive of geospatial analysis company Ingenispace, China can build and deploy these ships within four to six months. This means that China can amass a substantial fleet by Xi Jinping’s 2027 deadline for the PLA to be prepared to take Taiwan.
This amphibious transport barge would prove crucial to a potential Taiwan invasion, allowing the PLA to bypass many of the topographic obstacles that traditionally rendered Taiwan impenetrable.
With Taiwan’s steep mountainous coastline to the east, the PLA could land successfully in fewer than twenty locations, most of which are on the west coast. However, the west coast is littered with long-reaching shallows that extend up to two miles out to sea, creating a problematic avenue for landing craft to traverse when facing a barrage of sea mines, machine gun fire, and mortar.
A successful invasion would likely require an amphibious assault that would make Operation Overlord look like childsplay.
Taiwan has long operated under the assumption that any invading force would first try to capture one of the major ports in Taipei, Kaohsiung, or various beaches to Taipei’s east and north. To prevent this, Taiwan knows it has the option to destroy its ports to avoid enemy access and has traditionally focused most of its defenses along these beaches.
However, these new amphibious barges could serve as makeshift ports and allow the PLA to circumvent topographic barriers, opening up many new potential landing sites.
While this gives the PRC considerable new capabilities, these ships are large, vulnerable targets that Taiwanese HIMARS could quickly destroy. Because of this, the PLA would likely use the Shuiqiao barges in asecond-wave invasion after PLA special operations.
Marines could secure strategic beachheads, and the PLAAF could establish air dominance, a capability the PLA has yet to achieve at a cost acceptable to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The Shuiqiao May Alter Taiwanese Defense Strategy
The Shuiqiao ships’ design also supports this assessment.
After gaining sufficient control over the battlefield in the first wave, the PLA would likely send a much larger secondary wave to overwhelm the enemy quickly. Based on satellite imagery, these ships appear capable of rapidly delivering five heavy brigades’ worth of troops, supplies, and vehicles, a figure significantly more extensive than that of a traditional amphibious assault ship the PLA would use in the initial wave.
Though the PRC likely intends the Shuiqiao barge as a second-wave transport, these ships will require Taiwan to alter its defense strategy. Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense (MND) must consider expanding its asymmetric capabilities around parts of the coastline it previously regarded as safe, including smaller, more mobile weapon systems that could be quickly transported to vulnerable destinations.
As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated, weapons like drones, HIMARs, and Javelins can wreak havoc on superior invading forces.
Under President Lai’s leadership, Taiwan has made great strides in adopting asymmetry in its military doctrine over the past year. These steps include purchasing weapon systems more conducive to asymmetric warfare, eliminating scripted training exercises, and completely overhauling military training.
While the PRC boasts the world’s largest naval shipbuilding capacity, there are steps Taiwan and its allies can take to slow it.
Standing Up to the Shuiqiao
In a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), foreign customers, including the United States and Taiwan, purchase approximately 40 percent of their total commercial ship orders from shipyards highly integrated with the PRC’s defense industrial base. This includes GSI, where China is building the Shuiqiao barges.
When foreign firms contract with these shipyards, they subsidize these yards and provide them with dual-use technology that Chinese manufacturers use to design and build PLAN ships.
Taiwan and its allies should explore trade policies such as targeted sanctions and tariffs on these shipyards to prevent itself from inadvertently funding a significant threat to its national security. In addition, the Taiwanese government should promote policies that encourage purchasing ships from China’s largest shipbuilding competitors: South Korea and Japan.
While the Shuiqiao ships do not indicate imminent invasion, they represent a significant advancement in the PLA’s ability to launch a second-wave invasion. If Taiwan is to maintain adequate deterrence, it must expand its asymmetric defense capabilities along more significant swaths of its western shoreline and find ways to lessen its reliance on Chinese shipyards associated with the PLAN.
Jonathan Harman is an administrative associate at the Global Taiwan Institute, a non-profit think tank in Washington, DC that focuses on Taiwan policy issues. His research focuses primarily on defense industrial and military recruitment issues in the United States, Taiwan, and the PRC.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/ Jameson Wu.