Tensions rose again in the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, as Taipei forces first shot down a drone that invaded the airspace of one of its small islands off the coast of China.
The drone is presumably Chinese. Beijing has not confirmed that it owns the aircraft, but has promoted a medium-sized air raid against the defenses of the autonomous island that it considers a rebel province, sending 14 fighter jets over the so-called Median Line that divides the strait between the mainland and Taiwan.
The device was dropped on the islet of Lion, part of the Kinmen archipelago, about 3 km from the Chinese cities of Xiamen and Quazhou. He was civilian and small, the type often used by China to spy on military activities in these small Taiwanese possessions. He was shot down.
That was the first “strong response”, as the island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, had promised to Beijing’s renewed military activity around Taiwan. She was escalated by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei last month.
The trip, the first of its kind in 25 years, had been publicly advised against by President Joe Biden, of the same Democratic Party as Pelosi. It launched a series of unprecedented military exercises, which simulated the Chinese blockade and invasion of Taiwan.
Since then, Beijing has maintained a kind of permanent vigil in the region around the island. On Thursday, according to the Taiwanese Defense Ministry, there were 53 planes and 8 warships around its territorial waters -14 of the aircraft crossed informal airspace, forcing the dispatch of fighter jets to intercept them.
There has also been an increase in the deployment of surveillance drones and civilian devices equipped with cameras to these small islands that Taiwan has scattered near the Chinese coast. They are seen as the first target of a process of retaking the island.
This absorption is national policy in communist China, which since 1949 has not controlled Taiwan, the fate of leaders defeated in the revolution led by Mao Zedong. The location became a key part of the Cold War 2.0 between Washington and Beijing due to American ambiguity.
When it forged ties with the communist regime in 1979, the US implicitly recognized the “one China” principle, which guides now total control over former European colonies Hong Kong and Macau, and the goal of bringing Taiwan under from Beijing.
Since taking power in 2012, leader Xi Jinping has made it clear that he intends to do so peacefully or by force if necessary. The US, despite tacit approval of the idea, is in practice opposed: it finances military sales to Taiwan and promises to defend the island from invasion.
As the conflict between the world’s two largest economies intensified, Taipei became a frontline, with frequent visits by US officials to provoke Beijing. The situation expands in the Chinese strategic environment, with the US increasingly assertive in defending what it calls freedom of navigation – which China perceives as a rehearsal for blocking its maritime routes.
The Americans, for their part, denounce the communist militarization of the South China Sea, which accelerated after Xi came to power. They signed a defense pact with Australia and the United Kingdom and revived an anti-Chinese alliance with Japan, Australia and India.
Xi, for his part, counts on his country’s economic weight in the region to attract allies and has Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which is challenging the US with the Ukraine War, as his main partner in the geopolitical clash.
Not by chance, the Russian president openly criticized the US for Pelosi’s visit, called a provocation to Beijing.
