Balance of Terror

As of this writing, China has over 600 medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) aimed at Taiwan. And those are the ones we know of, and/or Beijing admits to. Well, two can play at that game:

Taiwan has produced three prototypes of a new cruise missile which could be used to strike the east coast of rival China, an authoritative defence magazine has said.

The cruise missile, called Hsiung Feng 2E (Brave Wind), “will be deployed on mobile land-based platforms and initial plans are for the production of up to 50 missiles before 2010 and up to 500 missiles after 2010,” Jane’s Defence Weekly said in an article to be published January 11.

With a range exceeding 600 kilometres, the missile will be able to attack targets along the east coast of the Chinese mainland, it quoted a defence source as saying.

You know what they say about the best defense.