China is flexing its muscles, Taiwan is alarmed and the question looms over everything: where will this lead? Beijing is apparently pursuing several goals with the military threats.
“The exercises have begun,” said Thursday on Chinese state television. The military maneuvers around Taiwan announced by Beijing are in full swing. The island’s democratic republic is on combat readiness, reports the Ministry of Defense in Taipei. The armed forces would act on the principle of “preparing for war without wanting war.” There is also no “escalation of the conflict” sought.
In short: the situation remains tense, at least.
Whether US leader Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan was helpful or not – . But how realistic is a military escalation of the conflict, or even the outbreak of war?
Taiwan: A dangerous (diversionary) manoeuvre
One thing is certain: the government in Beijing, which sees Taiwan as part of Chinese territory, has ordered the most extensive military maneuvers in a long time in response to the high-ranking US visit.
- The PLA’s Eastern Military Command reports firing long-range missiles in the Straits of Taiwan that separates Taiwan from the mainland and east of the island.
- State television reports that there have also been “precision strikes” in the east as an exercise.
- In total, China has designated six maneuver areas around the island.
An expected but worrying reaction, says Amanda Hsiao, China expert at the international think tank Crisis Group. “Beijing is clearly trying to express its strong objections to Pelosis,” she said. The current maneuvers should therefore visibly go beyond the previous muscle flexing (). “I think the intention of the military exercises is more to show and demonstrate military strength,” Hsiao said.
China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping has made it clear several times since he came to power in 2012 that he sees “unification” with Taiwan as his mission, which, if necessary, can also be enforced militarily. However, observers assume that the current situation is also motivated by domestic politics.
China’s ruler Xi Jinping is aiming for a historic third term in autumn, but is under heavy pressure because of his zero-Covid policy and an economic crisis. The autocrat cannot afford to show a sign of weakness or risk losing face. On the one hand. On the other hand, Pelosi’s visit could be an opportunity for him to “steer the focus away from domestic issues and onto foreign affairs to divert attention,” quoted the Guardian as Jennifer Hsu Lowy Institute research in Australia.
President Xi Jinping should therefore have no interest in showing compliance. Instead, he is likely to escalate rhetoric to portray himself as the custodian of Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, to which he counts Taiwan as a breakaway province.
“The probability of a war or a serious incident is low,” agrees Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia program at the US think tank German Marshall Fund. “But the likelihood that China will take a range of military, economic and diplomatic measures to show strength and determination is not insignificant.” China will probably try to punish Taiwan in “innumerable ways”.
There was a first foretaste on Monday evening. China has banned imports of 3,000 foods from over 100 food manufacturers from Taiwan, according to China. China is Taiwan’s largest trading partner, so an act of retaliation over the Pelosi visit is likely.
Is China rehearsing for emergencies?
The military threatening gestures are likely to follow this logic, although they could have another background.
Six areas around the island have been selected for the “combat exercise”, “relevant ships and aircraft” should avoid the affected waters and the corresponding airspace, reports the state television broadcaster CCTV on Thursday. The maneuvers in the waters around Taiwan should therefore run until Sunday noon. The military exercises are to take place up to 20 kilometers off the coast of Taiwan. The state-run Chinese newspaper Global Times, citing military analysts, writes that the maneuvers are “unprecedented”. Rockets would fly over Taiwan for the first time.
“The Chinese communists used to conduct military exercises from afar, but now they are getting closer,” Chang Yan-ting, a retired vice commander of the Taiwan Air Force, quoted as saying. “The military drills around Taiwan will put our national military in a very dangerous position,” he says. “They are already on our doorstep.”
Could this be the insidious beginning of an invasion? The Russian invasion of Ukraine has fueled fears that China could take the island’s democratic republic by force in a similar manner.
But: China’s armed forces have almost no combat experience.
“They didn’t go to war for decades – the last one was against Vietnam in 1979 – and that was before the modernization of the armed forces,” says military expert Zeno Leoni King’s College in London to . In addition, the Chinese military apparatus is not very transparent, it has “characteristics of both a strong and a weak power”.
The “combat exercises”, as it is called on state television, could therefore also serve to test the armed forces’ readiness for a possible invasion. At least that’s what Oriana Skylar Mastro believes Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University studied the Chinese military and its potential.
“You will this (the military maneuvers) as an excuse to do something that will help them prepare for a possible invasion,” she told the New York Times. China is doing more than just a warning. Under this “cloak” the Basically, the People’s Republic is testing their “ability to perform complex maneuvers required for an amphibious assault on Taiwan.” In other words, a seaborne attack.
How react?
Developments are being closely monitored in the United States, which under President Joe Biden has made it a “commitment” to defending Taiwan in the event of an attack. The government apparently hopes that the military exercises will only last a few days – and not expand into something larger, such as a naval blockade of Taiwan. The question would then arise: how to react to this?
“This is one of those scenarios that is difficult to deal with,” quotes the Bonn newspaper as saying Lin, who, among other things, headed the Pentagon’s Taiwan desk before she went to power Center for Strategic and International Studies moved to Washington. “When a military exercise turns into a blockade, when does it become clear that the exercise is now a blockade? Who should respond first? Taiwan’s troops? The United States? It’s unclear.”
The situation remains tense, at least.
Source: Stern
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