HF-2E Launcher Sighting Exposes Taiwan's Mainland Strike Intent

That development may be the latest step in Taiwan's multi-layered missile buildup as cross-strait tensions deepen. In September 2025, Taiwan unveiled the low-cost, US-co-produced Barracuda-500 land-mobile cruise missile, which officials say can be mass-produced locally within 18 months to strike sea and land targets, underscoring closer defense ties with the US as China warns against“external interference.”

Weeks earlier, reports said Taiwan was developing a stealthy, long-range subsonic anti-ship“carrier killer” with a projected 600–1,000 kilometer reach to push Chinese carrier groups farther from the First Island Chain, reflecting a shift toward survivable, standoff sea denial.

That effort builds on January 2025 disclosures that Taiwan had begun fielding Ching Tien hypersonic cruise missiles exceeding 2,000 kilometers in range, enabling mobile counterstrike deterrence deep into the mainland and reinforcing an emerging“pit viper” strategy – an approach entailing limited offensive strikes over a purely defensive stance.

But what does Taiwan aim to achieve by building up its long-range strike capabilities against the Chinese mainland? Drew Thompson argues in the 2022 book Crossing the Strait: China's Military Prepares for War with Taiwan that the latter's war planning envisions limited, retaliatory strikes on the Chinese mainland designed to delay, disrupt, and degrade PLA invasion operations, not to seize territory or fight for decisive battlefield victory.

Thompson points out that within Taiwan's Overall Defense Concept (ODC), mainland strikes are framed as an operational tool of denial, after China initiates hostilities. He emphasizes that the primary value of these counterstrikes is psychological and strategic, noting that even small-scale attacks“need not be large to be powerful” if they bolster Taiwanese morale, sustain resistance, and impose escalation and governance dilemmas on China.

Also, Taiwan may be developing such capabilities in view of the US's reluctance to supply such weapons. As Eric Gomez points out in a November 2023 Cato Institute report, the US is reluctant to supply Taiwan with long-range land-attack weapons, as they could undermine longstanding strategic ambiguity and increase escalation risks.

With that situation, Gomez says the US limits its arms sales to defensive, asymmetric capabilities and imposes range restrictions. Still, he notes that Taiwan is nonetheless permitted to develop its own long-range missiles. However, he treats them as secondary to defeating an invasion in the Taiwan Strait rather than as essential.

But even without providing such weapons, Gomez says the US could enhance Taiwanese strike effectiveness through intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), targeting support, training and over-the-horizon operations against Chinese air and naval forces.

China may already expect strikes on its mainland and has taken steps to blunt them. The US Department of Defense's 2025 China Military Power Report (CMPR) says China is strengthening air and missile defenses to shield key political, military and economic nodes from long-range conventional attacks.

The report notes expanded deployments of integrated surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems, long-range and over-the-horizon (OTH) radars, airborne early-warning aircraft, and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) that improve detection, tracking, and, in some cases, interception of aircraft, cruise missiles, drones, and ballistic missiles.

Furthermore, mainland strikes carry significant escalation risks. Brian MacLean writes in a February 2021 Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs article that attacks on Chinese territory could be interpreted as threats to the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) survival or China's nuclear deterrent.