“Russian training could help Chinese paratroopers play key role in a Taiwan invasion”, The Japan Times
BY GABRIEL DOMINGUEZ
STAFF WRITER
Oct 16, 2025, TOKYO
With an amphibious invasion of Taiwan deemed increasingly risky, leaked documents indicate that Russia is training and equipping Chinese units to potentially airdrop near the island’s ports and airfields to clear a path for the landing of follow-on forces.
But such a move wouldn’t only affect Taiwan, experts warn, as Chinese paratroopers and special forces would likely also seek to infiltrate nearby countries to secure airfields or other infrastructure that could support U.S. operations to counter Chinese amphibious landings on Taiwan.
“Russia is equipping and training Chinese special forces groups to penetrate the territory of other countries without being noticed, offering offensive options against Taiwan, the Philippines and other island states in the region,” Oleksandr Danylyuk and Jack Watling, military experts with the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a British think tank, wrote in a recent report.
After examining contracts and correspondence from 2023 that was obtained by the Black Moon hacktivist group, the RUSI experts noted in the report that Moscow has agreed to supply China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) with a complete set of weapons and gear to equip an airborne battalion.
These include amphibious infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled anti-tank guns, an unspecified number of airborne command and observation vehicles as well as long-range, special purpose parachutes that would facilitate the insertion of airborne forces from a distance.
Russia, they added, is also providing a “full cycle of training” for technical personnel and operators of this equipment as well as transferring technologies that will allow China to scale-up production of similar weapons.
A Xian Y-20 transport aircraft, capable of dropping paratroopers, flies past a Chinese national flag during a flyover rehearsal ahead of a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, in Beijing on Aug. 24. | REUTERS
Although airborne operations have received far less attention than other areas of China’s military modernization, many experts believe that these could prove “decisive” in an invasion scenario.
According to the Pentagon’s latest report on Chinese military power, the country’s military currently has six airborne combined arms brigades and a number of special operations forces units, all of which are airborne and air assault capable.
Brian Hart, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project, notes that these forces could play two key roles in an invasion.
First, during preparatory phases, airborne troops could be deployed to engage in sabotage attacks to soften Taiwan’s defenses, targeting key assets like airfields, radar and command-and-control infrastructure. They could also support intelligence operations, helping to identify targets for other Chinese forces.
Later, airborne forces could be deployed to help secure beachheads for amphibious landing forces, possibly with the assistance of drones.
“If successfully inserted behind enemy lines, these forces could complicate Taiwan’s ability to defend at landing sites,” according to Hart.
For such operations to succeed, though, experts agree that China would first need to have already established information superiority and air dominance, as airborne forces would otherwise be too exposed.
If the Chinese military can successfully suppress Taiwanese air defenses, then airdrops offer “the fastest means of transferring combat power onto Taiwan, and spreading operations across an expanded area,” Watling and Danylyuk wrote.
But they also issued a warning, pointing out that while runways and ports on the island could be invaluable for reinforcing newly occupied positions, Taiwanese forces would probably prioritize their defense.
And as Russian airborne forces found out in their failed attempt to take over Kyiv’s Hostomel Airport in the initial stages of Russia’s Ukraine invasion, runways can be quickly rendered unusable.
A destroyed hangar at Hostomel Airport, in Hostomel, Ukraine, in March 2022, is seen in this screenshot obtained from social media video taken with a drone. Russian airborne forces’ failed attempt to take over the airport in the initial stages of its invasion of Ukraine has provided valuable lessons to Moscow — lessons it is believed to be transferring to Beijing. | BABYLON’13 / VIA REUTERS
The capacity to airdrop armored vehicles on golf courses or other areas of open and firm ground near Taiwan’s ports and airfields would therefore be critical, the report’s authors argue, as it would allow paratroopers to significantly increase their combat power.
Helicopters, they added, would offer the most flexible means of deploying troops, but light infantry, unsupported by armor and shelling, would struggle against a mechanized adversary — another lesson, they wrote, from Russia’s failure at Hostomel.
“China has been watching the war in Ukraine closely,” Hart said, noting that the European conflict has demonstrated to the Chinese military “the difficulty and complexity of airborne operations.”
That said, given that neither side is likely to enjoy full air superiority during the early stages of a conflict, experts note that at least some special forces could be inserted by other means.
“They could also be landed by special naval craft — small boats launched either from ships or submarines or could also be pre-positioned on the island prior to conflict,” said Eric Heginbotham, a security scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies.
But despite unilateral and multilateral training, all of China’s special ops units lack real-world combat experience. The Chinese military has not fought a war since its 1979 skirmish with Vietnam.
This is why the most important transfer resulting from the apparent 2023 agreement is arguably Russian training and experience, particularly in the command and control of airborne forces, with the report’s authors referring to these two aspects as “the greatest value of the deal” for Beijing.
“Although the areas where Russia surpasses China in military capability are diminishing, Russia has practical experience and capabilities for air maneuver that China lacks,” they wrote, adding that the Chinese military is “eager to identify ways of diversifying both the methods and locations at which it can move units onto Taiwan.”
People’s Liberation Army members stand as a drone is displayed during a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, in Beijing on Sept. 3. | REUTERS
Danylyuk and Watling also warned that China’s offensive might not be limited to Taiwan, arguing that any invasion attempt would likely see fighting erupt “throughout the South China Sea,” creating a requirement for Beijing to “project combat power further afield.”
Hart said there are “certainly other conceivable scenarios” in which airborne forces might be employed across the region as these would further expand Beijing’s options for rapid power projection.
“The PLA is attempting to holistically build up its forces so that Chinese President Xi Jinping and his generals have a diverse toolkit of military capabilities from which they can draw in responding to different contingencies,” he said.
Jeffrey Hornung, a Japan defense expert at the Rand Corp., said that anything that helps China infiltrate other countries, either by air or surreptitiously, could also be used against U.S. allies such as Japan or the Philippines.
These forces could be used during a Taiwan invasion to neutralize key military assets on Japan’s far-flung Nansei Islands.
Ground Self-Defense Force troops stand at the entrance gate of the Yonaguni base on the country’s westernmost inhabited island of Yonaguni, Okinawa Prefecture — just 110 kilometers from Taiwan — in October 2021. | REUTERS
“They would try to destroy or cripple ‘threats’ to China’s own operations such as anti-ship missile batteries, anti-submarine aircraft and anti-aircraft systems,” security scholar Heginbotham said.
In this regard, he added, any Russian equipment and training for the insertion of special forces would be “particularly important” as it might enable aircraft to deploy forces from farther away than they might otherwise.
But the fruits of the Sino-Russian deal go beyond airborne training.
The deal also exposes the extent to which Russia is both willing and able to provide China with significant material support that is relevant to a Taiwan invasion and other regional contingencies.
“For countries like Japan, this means that in a contingency over Taiwan or other regional hot spots, they will not just be contending with China alone, but also with countries like Russia, who are willing to support Beijing,” Hart noted.