Taiwan launched 36 rockets from US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) into the Taiwan Strait on June 10, marking the first time the island has live-fired American-made missile launchers in waters directly facing China.
The truck-mounted launchers were stationed along Taiwan’s western coast, positioned near sites that military planners have long identified as probable invasion landing zones.
What Taiwan just demonstrated
HIMARS is a mobile rocket launcher mounted on a truck chassis, designed to fire precision-guided munitions and then relocate before the enemy can return fire. It has a 300-kilometer reach, putting targets in China’s Fujian province squarely within striking distance.
Taiwan has procured 29 of these systems from the US as part of an asymmetric defense strategy: investing in mobile, hard-to-find weapons that make any invasion attempt prohibitively expensive for the aggressor.
