China does not ease pressure on Taiwan. Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrives in Dongshan Countyjust across from Taiwan. China’s Taiwan Affairs Bureau reiterates that Beijing will not renounce the use of force if necessary. It does so after the recent Chinese military maneuvers, with the renewed attention on the Taiwan Strait, and the ‘risk’ for the Dragon to end up even more at the center of the campaign for the presidential elections in the USA.
The Asian giant considers the de facto independent island a “rebel province” to be “reunified”. Taipei claims its “democracy,” which the United States is committed to supporting.
Xi, reports the official Chinese news agency Xinhua, is in Dongshan county, in the province of Fujian, of which the Chinese leader was governor. From here he returned to talking about the “new era”. Xi, who is also head of the Central Military Commission, asks Fujian to contribute to the “modernization drive” of the Asian giant and, reports Xinhua, was updated on the “promotion of cultural exchanges” across the Taiwan Strait.
A rare visit, after a record number of Chinese jets took off towards the island in recent days and 111 aircraft crossed the so-called ‘median line’ of the Taiwan Strait, which Beijing does not recognise. . Naval units, including 18 of the Coast Guard, surrounded the island.
A detail, that of the Coast Guard, which according to experts indicates how a more important role for these units strengthens Chinese claims on Taiwan’s waters, thus making the case an ‘internal dossier’, and – highlights the New York Times – how Beijing is betting everything on navigation rights in the event of Taiwan’s isolation.
There is talk of a ‘new normal’ imposed by China, with constant, daily pressure on the island’s defense forces, and the aim of bringing Taiwan to ‘capitulate’ without leading to a battle. Military maneuvers which, the newspaper underlines, have demonstrated how China is improving coordination in complex operations involving multiple forceshow China is trying to train the military, Navy, Air Force and other forces to coordinate better, but which at the same time increases the risks of a clash or accident.
“The activities are getting closer and closer to the coast of Taiwan – observes David Sacks, an expert on Asian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations – We see them flying further away from the Chinese coast. We also see them operating on the eastern side of Taiwan and we see an increase in level of complexity”. In recent days, China has also deployed the Liaoning aircraft carrier, a move – highlights the newspaper – which has allowed the ship to practice projecting its force towards the Pacific Ocean, from where it is presumed the US forces and those of other countries, probably from bases in Japan and Guam, they would arrive in the event of conflict.
Although the People’s Republic insists that it wants “peaceful reunification,” it has twice in less than five months conducted exercises in response to statements from the island’s new president, Lai Ching-te (William Lai), who he took office in May. When Tsai Ing-wen was in power, there were two similar military maneuvers in eight years, the newspaper recalls. No one forgets those of August 2022 in response to Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. According to Brian Hart of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project, “with the Lai administration, Beijing is normalizing the use of these major military and Coast Guard activities” and has “made it clear that if they see Taiwanese activity considered provocative, they would respond in this way.” And, he warns, an incident between Chinese and Taiwanese forces would risk dragging the parties into a political crisis and a “spiral of escalation” from which it would be difficult for both Beijing and Taipei to escape.
There is no shortage of those who read the Chinese ‘war games’ as a response to military exercises by the US and its allies in the region. The maneuvers that every year involve the United States and the Philippines began yesterday. Military personnel from Japan, South Korea, Australia, the United Kingdom and France are also involved. US and Japanese exercises are scheduled for the end of the month. Chinese propaganda has tried to present its latest news around Taiwan as a ‘gesture of love’.