The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

China's major maneuvers in the immediate vicinity of Taiwan: experts fear that Beijing will create new facts

2022-08-19T03:11:52.490Z


China's major maneuvers in the immediate vicinity of Taiwan: experts fear that Beijing will create new facts Created: 08/19/2022, 05:01 By: Christiane Kuehl Maneuvers as a tourist attraction? Chinese helicopter over Pingtan Island across from Taiwan © Hector Retamal/afp China held major maneuvers again after a US congressional delegation visited Taipei. These are now moving close to Taiwan by


China's major maneuvers in the immediate vicinity of Taiwan: experts fear that Beijing will create new facts

Created: 08/19/2022, 05:01

By: Christiane Kuehl

Maneuvers as a tourist attraction?

Chinese helicopter over Pingtan Island across from Taiwan © Hector Retamal/afp

China held major maneuvers again after a US congressional delegation visited Taipei.

These are now moving close to Taiwan by default. 

Beijing/Munich – Only a few days after Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taipei, things remained quiet on the Taiwan Strait.

But on Monday, the major maneuvers around the island, which officially ended just last week, went into the next round.

The military command on China's east coast announced patrols and combat exercises in the sea and airspace around Taiwan.

The reason: Another delegation from the US Congress had flown to Taiwan shortly after the visit of Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives and political number three in the US.

This week, the US also announced formal trade talks with Taiwan.

For Beijing, all of this signals growing Washington support for democratically ruled Taiwan.

A red rag for China's Communist Party, which has claimed Taiwan since it took power in 1949.

China's cross-strait military exercises are basically nothing new.

Chinese fighter jets have also been penetrating Taiwan's air defense zone (ADIZ) for months.

But the large-scale maneuver immediately after Pelosi's departure from Taipei marks a clear escalation compared to the past.

The target zones of the maneuvers virtually encircled Taiwan;

two of them were partially within Taiwanese territorial waters.

Dozens of fighter jets flew over the Taiwan Strait centerline, which used to be a kind of unofficial border.

For the first time, China fired missiles across the island.

But the exercise was not just an expression of anger.

Behind this is also military and geopolitical strategy.

"The policy goal behind this large-scale show of military might is to sway the calculus of decision-makers in Washington and Taipei, as well as the international community at large," said Amanda Hsiao, China analyst at think tank Crisis Group.

Beijing sees the maneuvers as a deterrent against future actions "that would contribute to strengthening Taiwan's actual sovereignty and in particular to deepening American-Taiwanese cooperation," Hsiao

told Merkur.de from IPPEN.MEDIA

.

About IPPEN.MEDIA

The IPPEN.MEDIA network is one of the largest online publishers in Germany.

At the locations in Berlin, Hamburg/Bremen, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Stuttgart and Vienna, journalists from our central editorial office research and publish for more than 50 news offers.

These include brands such as Merkur.de, FR.de and BuzzFeed Germany.

Our news, interviews, analyzes and comments reach more than 5 million people in Germany every day.

With the massive maneuver, the People's Liberation Army has demonstrated "that it is capable of coordinating operations to impose a total blockade if it ever decides to do so," wrote Zhou Bo of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Beijing's Tsinghua -University and retired colonel "This is a step forward from the much smaller missile launch exercises that took place during the 1995-1996 cross-strait crisis." At the time, Beijing was protesting Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui's trip to his former university in the USA for an academic celebration.

China: maneuvers around Taiwan possible for longer

And now China reacted to the visit of the group around US Senator Ed Markey, which went without any major PR campaign, again with maneuvers of the same escalation level as shortly after the Pelosi visit.

This suggests that this new level of escalation is likely to endure - shifting the scale of what is considered "normal" saber-rattling in the troubled region.

"It's possible that China wants to continue its military presence near the center line of the Taiwan Strait," says Amanda Hsiao.

Beijing wants to make a presence east of the line - and thus closer to Taiwan than on the mainland - the norm.

Hsiao also thinks it is possible that the maneuvers that encircle Taiwan will take place again and again in the coming months.

That's not exactly a pleasant prospect for Taipei - especially since there's a precedent.

In 2012, China sent ships to the contiguous zone of the archipelago for the first time in a dispute with Japan over a group of uninhabited islands.

Tokyo had recently placed the disputed islands – Senkaku in Japanese, Diaoyu in Chinese – under its de facto administration.

Beijing reacted out of anger – but at the same time created strategically clever facts at the same time, writes Zhou Bo in the

South China Morning Post

: “Today, despite the protests in Japan, ships of the Chinese coast guard go there regularly to demonstrate Beijing’s claim to sovereignty.” Beijing took advantage the dispute as a pretext for an expansion of the sphere of power that would otherwise have provoked a far more violent reaction from abroad.

also read

Ukraine summit with Selenskyj, Erdogan and Guterres: Putin rejects the first negotiation proposal

Ex-intelligence chief: Vladimir Putin will experience an 'unpleasant end'

Now the same thing may be happening across the Taiwan Strait right now.

Pelosi's journey provided the pretext for this.

For Beijing, Pelosi's visit was a unique opportunity to test the Taiwan blockade, writes Chen Gong, founder of the Beijing think tank Anbound, in the same newspaper.

During the maneuvers, bombers flew across the Taiwan Strait and long-range missiles were launched, which landed around Taiwan, Chen said. "This is tantamount to setting up gates around the island that Beijing can open or close at will."

Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu is also under no illusions.

China is using the maneuvers as a tactical script to prepare for an invasion, Wu said at a recent press conference.

However, Taiwan will not be intimidated.

Taiwan and China: Is an invasion imminent?

Some US military have recently warned of a Chinese attack on Taiwan in the next few years.

The huge maneuvers could now also be used to get more and more equipment to the coastal province of Fujian across from Taiwan.

Armament and modernization of the People's Liberation Army always took place with a view to a possible conquest of Taiwan.

Since the 1990s, the military has also built up an arsenal of missiles in Fujian aimed at Taiwan.

But experts are still unanimous: as of now, China would not be militarily in a position to carry out a successful invasion.

But with each passing year, the capabilities of the military are increasing as well.

China and Taiwan: That's what the conflict is about

View photo gallery

Taiwan has also bought more defensive weapons in recent years, especially from the United States.

At the same time, the Ukraine war sparked a debate there about a possible reform of military strategy.

The former chief of staff of the Taiwanese army and current military expert at the US think tank

Project 2049 Institute

, Admiral Lee Hsi-min, for example, recently demanded in a guest article for the British magazine

Economist

a paradigm shift in Taiwan's defense strategy.

Instead of relying on more and more heavy weapons, Taiwan should organize the leadership of the armed forces in a more decentralized manner, based on the Ukrainian model, since communication could fail in the event of an attack.

"The government should train civilians and set up a volunteer Territorial Defense Force (TDF)," Lee Hsi-min added in the comment co-authored with colleague Eric Lee.

China's Maneuvers: How Great is the Risk of Accidental Conflict?

So is there going to be a bang on the Taiwan Strait?

In the end, that will be a political decision, says Amanda Hsiao.

“Even if Beijing tomorrow develops the military capabilities it needs to invade Taiwan, that doesn't mean it will.

The political, economic and military costs of an invasion remain extremely high.”

With the growing tensions and ever larger maneuvers, however, the danger of an accidental military conflict, feared by many experts, is increasing.

"The potential for human error is always there, especially when large numbers of military aircraft and ships are maneuvering in close proximity to one another and in an atmosphere of heightened political tension," Hsiao says.

According to reports from the USA, there has been a growing number of intercept maneuvers in which Chinese aircraft have not kept a safe distance from US jets for the past five years.

In light of such reports, Amanda Hsiao is concerned that China suspended military dialogue with the US in the wake of Pelosi's visit.

Because this was specifically "created for the purpose of increasing the security of military encounters".

In order to avert an unwanted crisis, nothing is currently more important than clear communication and signaling among the conflicting parties.

There are theoretically other channels, such as direct calls between the two defense ministers, Wei Fenghe and Lloyd Austin, and a telephone line that could connect high-ranking military and defense officials.

"However, according to recent reports, the Chinese have not been taking any calls from Washington recently." It is hoped that at least one emergency channel will remain active.

(ck)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-08-19

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.