The 72-hour spectacle of China’s missiles, warships and jet fighters around Taiwan is designed to create a “firewall” — a televised flaming warning against what Beijing sees as an increasingly insistent challenge, backed by Washington, to its claims to the island.
“We are maintaining a high state of alert, ready for battle at all times, able to fight at any time,” said Zu Guanghong, a captain in the Chinese navy, in a People’s Liberation Army video of the military exercises that were due to end on Sunday. (7), but were extended this Monday (8). “We have the determination and the ability to mount a painful direct attack against any invader who wants to destroy the unification of the Fatherland and we will show no mercy.”
But even as China’s display of military might discourages other Western politicians from imitating US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who infuriated Beijing by visiting Taiwan, it also dampens Chinese hopes of conquering the island through negotiations. Beijing’s shock tactics could deepen skepticism in Taiwan that it can ever reach a peaceful and lasting deal with the Chinese Communist Party, especially under Xi Jinping as its leader.
“Nothing will change after the military exercises; there will be one like this and then another,” said Li Wen-te, a 63-year-old retired fisherman on the island of Liuqiu, southwest of Taiwan, less than 10 kilometers from the Chinese exercises. “They’re intimidating, as usual,” he said, adding a Chinese saying, “digging deep into soft ground,” which means “give them a hand and they’ll want an arm.”
Xi has now shown he is willing to use intimidating military bait to try to topple what Beijing sees as a dangerous alliance of the Taiwanese opposition with US support. Chinese military exercises in six zones around Taiwan, which on Sunday included joint air and sea exercises to improve long-range air strike capabilities, allowed the military to practice blockade of the island in the event of an invasion.
In the face of continued pressures, the political strategies China has used to lure Taiwan into unification may carry even less weight. In earlier times of better relations, Beijing appreciated Taiwan’s investments, agricultural products, and artists.
The result could be a deepening of mutual distrust that, according to some experts, could, at one extreme, bring Beijing and Washington into all-out conflict.
“It’s not an explosion that will happen tomorrow, but it raises the overall likelihood of crisis, conflict or even war with the Americans over Taiwan,” said Kevin Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who once worked as a diplomat in Beijing.
Taiwan has never been ruled by the Communist Party, but Beijing maintains that it is historically and legally part of Chinese territory. Chinese nationalist forces that fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war also long claimed that the island was part of a larger China that they had ruled.
But since Taiwan emerged as a democracy in the 1990s, many of its inhabitants consider themselves culturally and in terms of values different from those of the People’s Republic of China. This political distrust of authoritarian China persisted and even deepened as Taiwan’s economic ties to the mainland expanded.
“The attraction of Chinese policies to Taiwan – economic incentives – has now fallen to its lowest point since the end of the Cold War,” said Wu Jieh-min, a political scientist at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s leading research group. “Beijing’s card today is to gradually increase military threats to Taiwan and continue preparations to use force,” he said, “until one day a large-scale military offensive becomes a favorable option.”
Since the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping and other Chinese leaders have tried to convince Taiwan to accept unification under a “one country, two systems” framework that promised autonomy in law, religion, economic policy and other areas, as long as the island accept Chinese sovereignty.
But in an increasingly democratic Taiwan, few see themselves as proud future Chinese citizens. Support for Beijing’s proposals waned further after 2020, when China imposed a crackdown on Hong Kong, eroding freedoms promised to the former British colony under its own version of the scheme.
Xi continued to promise Taiwan a “one country, two systems” deal and perhaps again offer economic and political incentives to Taiwan if he can influence the island’s early 2024 presidential election. is set to step down after his second term ends that year, and a potential successor to his Democratic Progressive Party, which rejects the “united China” principle and favors independence, could be more combative towards Beijing.
In the years after that election, Chinese leaders will likely “want to show some substantive advances in Taiwan, not necessarily unification, but some results there,” says Wang Hsin-hsien, a professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei who studies politics. chinese. “Xi Jinping is the kind of man who rewards kindness but repays enmity with vengeance — and when he takes revenge, he does it double.”
One conundrum looming over Taiwan is whether Xi has a timeline in mind. He suggested that his vision of transforming China into a prosperous, powerful and complete global power hinges on unification with Taiwan. This “rejuvenation”, he said, will be achieved by mid-century, so some see this moment as the ultimate limit to his ambitions in Taiwan.
“We now have a 27-year-old wick that can be either slow-burning or fast-burning,” said Rudd, a former Australian prime minister who is now president of the Asia Society, referring to the mid-century deadline. “The time to be concerned is in the early 2030s, because we will be closer to the countdown zone to 2049, but also in the period of Xi Jinping’s political life.”
